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My next step, arrows

JSEXTON23 said:
First, nobody said anything about YOU. Whatever touched a nerve with you is your issue, there’s no need to project.

Second, and I hear this is the archery community but all too often in the traditional archery community, “shot placement is everything.” or “any arrow setup will kill anything in North America if you put the arrow where it needs to go.” These statements are so obvious. Is that not why we practice? We all, I have to assume, have the ultimate goal to hit our target, namely a major vital hit in the heart and lungs. The problem with this kind of thinking is we are shooting at living, moving animals. We’re also human. A perfect heart shot is often times only inches away from heavy bone, the humerus or the bottom of the scapula. I find it prudent to shoot a setup that gives me the highest likelihood of being successful in the face of those unintended impacts.

The OP is conscious of the limitations to her setup, and has sought out to maximize the potential for lethality. I would certainly not recommend that she shoot a 350-390 grain arrow, 8-10 gpp common recommendation. I applaud her for the effort to tune an arrow setup for plan b.
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Ashby said in his latest podcast that of all the critters that they film and shoot, almost NONE stand still as the arrow approaches. He says that only on very long shots is the animal not reacting before the arrow hits.
If that's the case, then we can never count on our arrow not hitting bone. Might happen, might not. Most of it is out of our control once the arrow leaves the bow. And I've said this many times, on quartering away shots, we are actually aiming for an exit on the far shoulder. We have to plan to hit heavy bone.
There's no such thing as "overkill" on an arrow build.
 
BTaylor said:
....... I am firmly of the opinion that bowhunters will be most successful shooting a setup they have absolute confidence in getting the job done, period.......
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We hear that comment all of the time, but what does it take to really have realistic confidence in your rig? It only comes with lots of kills in many different scenarios. Few of us ever achieve the data base by our own experiences in order to have a true picture of what we "think" we have confidence in.

There are hunters out there that have 6, or 12, or 100 bow kills yet they have not experienced every possibility that can happen on a wound. They have buddies that say to shoot "X" arrows, or they watch an "internet hero" and they then base their "confidence" on very limited data.
I'll preach this until I'm blue in the face...nobody, but NOBODY on the planet has devoted as much time and compiled as much real-world data as Dr Ed Ashby on the subject of arrow lethality, and he does it all for the betterment of bowhunting. He's 100% non profit and doesn't make a dime on his efforts.

I base my confidence on the things that I've learned from Dr Ed.

EDIT:
Confidence does not always reflect reality. When I'm in the shower, I have confidence that I'm a decent singer, but the reality of it is I can't sing for crap. I don't want to rely on confidence, I want to rely on reality.
 
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JSEXTON23 said:
First, nobody said anything about YOU. Whatever touched a nerve with you is your issue, there’s no need to project.

Second, and I hear this is the archery community but all too often in the traditional archery community, “shot placement is everything.” or “any arrow setup will kill anything in North America if you put the arrow where it needs to go.” These statements are so obvious. Is that not why we practice? We all, I have to assume, have the ultimate goal to hit our target, namely a major vital hit in the heart and lungs. The problem with this kind of thinking is we are shooting at living, moving animals. We’re also human. A perfect heart shot is often times only inches away from heavy bone, the humerus or the bottom of the scapula. I find it prudent to shoot a setup that gives me the highest likelihood of being successful in the face of those unintended impacts.

The OP is conscious of the limitations to her setup, and has sought out to maximize the potential for lethality. I would certainly not recommend that she shoot a 350-390 grain arrow, 8-10 gpp common recommendation. I applaud her for the effort to tune an arrow setup for plan b.
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"By some of those folks standards, I better get my sundial out and prepare to eat tag soup. My guess is I’ll be just as successful as those folks and I won’t have to brag about how far the deer was, but rather how close."

The implication of this statement is the folks who dont wholesale buy into everything put out by Ashby/RF. Maybe it would be better to call out specifically who you are talking to as to eliminate the ambiguity.

As for this post, like I said above, shooting a setup you have supreme confidence in will make you a more successful bowhunter. Hope you run out of tags and freezer space.
 
This year in PA we can can keep up to 6 doe tags at a time! (and re-new them as we go)

I'm gonna need another freezer! LOL


(my arrows and broadheads are only 353gr)
 
Allegheny Tom said:
We hear that comment all of the time, but what does it take to really have realistic confidence in your rig? It only comes with lots of kills in many different scenarios. Few of us ever achieve the data base by our own experiences in order to have a true picture of what we "think" we have confidence in.

There are hunters out there that have 6, or 12, or 100 bow kills yet they have not experienced every possibility that can happen on a wound. They have buddies that say to shoot "X" arrows, or they watch an "internet hero" and they then base their "confidence" on very limited data.
I'll preach this until I'm blue in the face...nobody, but NOBODY on the planet has devoted as much time and compiled as much real-world data as Dr Ed Ashby on the subject of arrow lethality, and he does it all for the betterment of bowhunting. He's 100% non profit and doesn't make a dime on his efforts.

I base my confidence on the things that I've learned from Dr Ed.

EDIT:
Confidence does not always reflect reality. When I'm in the shower, I have confidence that I'm a decent singer, but the reality of it is I can't sing for crap. I don't want to rely on confidence, I want to rely on reality.
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My comment was geared more towards if a hunter is confident in their setup, they will shoot more accurately, generally speaking, because they dont have a head full of doubt swimming around causing problems. I firmly believe and based on my experience feel there is a lower limit to an appropriate arrow setup. I also do not dispute Ashby's findings. There is no way a hunter will ever face every possibility in an entire hunting career. If we get into analyzing every thing may or may not happen with a shot as far as animal movement or bone encountered, etc how does one ever decide for sure what the best setup truly is? A 550 grain arrow is going to get to the animal faster than a 650 grain arrow shot from the same bow. Did the difference in arrival make the difference in the type of bone encountered? We could what if it for ever and maybe not cover every scenario possible. The reality is a whitetail has a roughly paper plate sized kill zone, their first reaction is almost invariably downward so if we shoot for bottom third and off the low knuckle we shouldnt encounter heavy bone unless you get into the offside shoulder. I have never worried about that because if I hit the offside shoulder the deer is dead in short order anyway. Maybe they have done it and I just have not seen it but I would love to see the foundation do testing going the opposite direction of everything I have read and test for minimum effective setups on whitetails for complete penetration through ribs, scapulas, etc. What is the lower limit base line?
 
gcr0003 said:
Can we all just take a minute to appreciate the absolute freak of a buck @Phopkins has in his profile. Insane! @Phopkins you should post up a thread in the successful hunts forum and tell us about this hunt. I sure would like to hear about it. It looks like you got it with traditional tackle as well!
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Definitely need to hear that one for sure!!
 
BTaylor said:
The implication of this statement is the folks who dont wholesale buy into everything put out by Ashby/RF. Maybe it would be better to call out specifically who you are talking to as to eliminate the ambiguity.

As for this post, like I said above, shooting a setup you have supreme confidence in will make you a more successful bowhunter. Hope you run out of tags and freezer space.
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My intention was not to call out any specific person, but the frequent statements along that vein. Again, I wasn’t attacking you, so there’s no need to be defensive. If you’re confident in a lighter arrow, it doesn’t hurt my feelings. I, like you, hope you’re successful.

In a more recent post you said a 550 grain arrow would arrive on target sooner than the 650 grain arrow. This is true, however, the lighter arrow will experience more velocity erosion and therefore more ke loss when contrasted to the heavier arrow. This is caused by the drag coefficient acting more on a lighter object. The heavier arrow will, at some point down range, have more ke than the lighter arrow. Not to mention the momentum, which I believe is the better indicator of penetration.
 
JSEXTON23 said:
In a more recent post you said a 550 grain arrow would arrive on target sooner than the 650 grain arrow. This is true, however, the lighter arrow will experience more velocity erosion and therefore more ke loss when contrasted to the heavier arrow. This is caused by the drag coefficient acting more on a lighter object. The heavier arrow will, at some point down range, have more ke than the lighter arrow. Not to mention the momentum, which I believe is the better indicator of penetration.
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I’m no physics expert here, but I am really wondering if the lighter 100 grain difference listed above would have enough velocity erosion at trad ranges to be worth it. Where as the trajectory could very well be an issue, depending on many variables. Everything in life is a balancing act. If arrow speed really mattered we’d all be shooting compounds. If weight really mattered we’d tie on cannon balls. Extreme but we all find our own perfect setups. It makes sense to me that the OP asked for thoughts and advice, and that we all being different people have different opinions. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? While nobody wants an animal to suffer, if we were concerned about the most efficient killing setup we wouldn’t be using trad bows. Just my two cents.

Now let’s get to the real question that matters….. who can speed up the clock to the 1st day of deer season?
 
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JSEXTON23 said:
In a more recent post you said a 550 grain arrow would arrive on target sooner than the 650 grain arrow. This is true, however, the lighter arrow will experience more velocity erosion and therefore more ke loss when contrasted to the heavier arrow. This is caused by the drag coefficient acting more on a lighter object. The heavier arrow will, at some point down range, have more ke than the lighter arrow. Not to mention the momentum, which I believe is the better indicator of penetration.
Click to expand...

100% agree. I will add if you havent listened to the THP podcast with RF and the scientific rocket builder guy, forgot his name, it was a really good listen. He discussed ke at the target as opposed to at the bow which where nearly every ke dicussion is. He dropped a lot of knowledge, so much so I am going to go through it again.
 
Petrichor said:
I’m no physics expert here, but I am really wondering if the lighter 100 grain difference listed above would have enough velocity erosion at trad ranges to be worth it. Where as the trajectory could very well be an issue, depending on many variables. Everything in life is a balancing act. If arrow speed really mattered we’d all be shooting compounds. If weight really mattered we’d tie on cannon balls. Extreme but we all find our own perfect setups. It makes sense to me that the OP asked for thoughts and advice, and that we all being different people have different opinions. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? While nobody wants an animal to suffer, if we were concerned about the most efficient killing setup we wouldn’t be using trad bows. Just my two cents.

Now let’s get to the real question that matters….. who can speed up the clock to the 1st day of deer season?
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Yeah, we'd be shooting up the woods wounding stuff right and left like the gun hunters.:sunglasses:
 
Petrichor said:
I’m no physics expert here, but I am really wondering if the lighter 100 grain difference listed above would have enough velocity erosion at trad ranges to be worth it. Where as the trajectory could very well be an issue, depending on many variables. Everything in life is a balancing act. If arrow speed really mattered we’d all be shooting compounds. If weight really mattered we’d tie on cannon balls. Extreme but we all find our own perfect setups. It makes sense to me that the OP asked for thoughts and advice, and that we all being different people have different opinions. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? While nobody wants an animal to suffer, if we were concerned about the most efficient killing setup we wouldn’t be using trad bows. Just my two cents.

Now let’s get to the real question that matters….. who can speed up the clock to the 1st day of deer season?
Click to expand...
That's exactly why I said I would like to see some testing data on the lower end of the spectrum to begin to build a baseline for what the lower limit looks like.
 
Here’s the deal the only way to increase kinetic energy is to manipulate either mass or velocity. If you double the mass of an object you double its kinetic energy. However because kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared, if you double an objects velocity you increase its kinetic energy by four times. Velocity has an exponentially greater effect on KE than mass. However mass definitely is half the equation. I just made myself laugh.
 
BTaylor said:
That's exactly why I said I would like to see some testing data on the lower end of the spectrum to begin to build a baseline for what the lower limit looks like.
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I know Ashby says he always has more questions each time he tests something. I don’t think he feels like he has all the answers. Just working off the best results and data we have right now.

With that said, and I understand the lack of supporting studies, Dr Ed believe 650 grains, regardless of draw weight, is the heavy bone breaking threshold, or what we are referring to as the minimum.

How that translates to minimum effective setup is tbd. Maybe the foundation or somebody else can run a study.
 
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Petrichor said:
Here’s the deal the only way to increase kinetic energy is to manipulate either mass or velocity. If you double the mass of an object you double its kinetic energy. However because kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared, if you double an objects velocity you increase its kinetic energy by four times. Velocity has an exponentially greater effect on KE than mass. However mass definitely is half the equation. I just made myself laugh.
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Now work that backwards with the drag coefficient factored in for velocity erosion. There are huge KE dumps from velocity erosion.
 
JSEXTON23 said:
Now work that backwards with the drag coefficient factored in for velocity erosion. There are huge KE dumps from velocity erosion.
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While mass retains energy well. Slower speeds are only going to get slower. Both arrows will lose speed and dump KE. I am just thinking (not knowing) that the point in which the mass retains more ke is going to be far beyond trad distances. Honestly the most efficient setup is probably somewhere front of center lol.
 
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