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I bought 10 dozen Beman ICS Carbon Hunter shafts years ago when my buddy closed down his shop. I’m getting down to the last couple dozen. My shooting has been very erratic this year & I’ve had 2 arrows fail while shooting into my Excelsior bale & Glen Del buck. One the nock hammered into the end & split the shaft like a cartoon cigar exploding. The other drove an insert 3” back into the shaft. No telling how many hundreds or thousands of shots these arrows have had. Started shooting some newer arrows & everything just came together. All are flying like darts now & group size has dramatically improved. No more random flyers. Shooting way worse than I’m capable of was really getting into my head. I’ve seen shafts go bad before but never to this extent. Apparently arrows have a lifespan. Just some food for thought.
The above post is not intended to be a knock against these arrows. They have been perfectly serviceable arrows. I’ve enjoyed countless hours shooting & harvested a bunch of critters with no problems. For the price you can’t beat them. That being said I’m in the market for some new shafts. These are 400s, 28” long out of a 63# compound & they fly great with 100 grain points. Even though I’m hard pressed to remember an animal that wasn’t a pass through I’d like to build some with a bit more weight FOC. I haven’t bought arrows in about 20 years. Any recommendations?
carbons wear out from the constant flexing
"carbons wear out from the constant flexing" you would have to do quite a bit of experimentation to ever convince me of that.
Me too. Ive never heard that before.
Don't underestimate imperfections and inconsistencies created during the production of carbon shafts. I have purchased several dozen and in the last few years and have never found 12 shafts that were all shooters. I routinely pull out 2-5 shafts per dozen because they are inconsistent and won't fly right.
And I always find one that I call my magic arrow that I can't miss with. It's always my number one position in the quiver. I recently threw out my last magic shaft after it went through 8 deer and 3 turkeys. My last gobbler did it in. I thought about calling a therapist I was so upset when that happened.
Bob I do agree shafts eventually degrade with use. Just look at super slow motion footage of arrows leaving a bow. Very extreme forces. I’ve had fliers that could be fixed by squaring up the end & putting on a new nock. I’ve also had plenty of shafts that wouldn’t shoot from the factory whether carbon, aluminum or carbon wrapped aluminum. All I know is that switching out my batch of practice arrows has helped tremendously once again.
You don't specify preferred diameter, straightness or cost.
If you're good with .245 ID ('S' or 'Super' nock size) take a look at Victory V-Force 245's. Can buy them in .006, .003 or .001" straightness. I find them pretty durable and the.003's won't cost a fortune.
Timely post Pat...I test shot a dozen last night...same length...same nock...same fletch...same broadhead (exact same head moved to each arrow for test shot).
Results...6 great flyers...3 with a little wiggle...3 horrible flyers. I usually refletch the bad ones with feathers for my recurve. I don't see a problem with them coming out of my recurve with big feathers.
I did carbons 2 years & never satisfied. Went back to Aluminums for targets & hunting. Happy with everything again.
Don't shoot as often! lol. I don't shoot that much and that way every arrow gets broken on animals and I never wear out arrows ;)
Every product has a life expectancy, never did I think I could buy an arrow and it would last a life time.
Carbon shafts sre great but not indestructible. An occasional look for fine cracks is needed and a thorough look is required after hitting anything harder than your target. An insert rammed into the shaft from hitting nothing exceptionally hard would have shown evidence of an upcoming demise.
I have some old Beman Hunters and Beman Carbon Flash they gave me back in the 90’s- still good. If those resins deteriorate that fast its news to me. Did you store them near solvents? Clean them with Mec or acetone? That will wreck them.
Could it be your bow is so out of tune you think its the arrow?
I buy carbons for convince. But, they’ll never make a better arrow for hunting then the Easton XX78 aluminum shafts. They always flew very well for me across the whole dozen. Way more consistent then any carbon I’ve bought.
WV Mountaineer-AMEN to that. I have good aluminum arrows older than my kids.
New arrows are flying great out to 65. Field points impacting with broadheads. Beautiful arrow flight without wiggle if I don’t flinch. Can see flight clearly with a lighted nock. Those old shaft were all over. I’m sure they’ve all been refletched several times. Prepped with Denatured alcohol, Toluene or Acetone as were the new ones.
So yes, everything that flexes will eventually wear out. Olympic archers use shafts that really flex a lot(plenty of slo-mo videos out there). Those guys go through several dozen each year.
My hunting shafts are always way stiffer than "normal". They tune as well or better, they weigh more and carry more energy, they are more durable, they don't flex and deflect as much at the release or when hitting a rib, and they don't wear out.
I saw the benefit of an arrow with mass in the 70s. I started out with fiberglass arrows & Bear razorheads. Even with a draw weight in the 50s arrows were blowing through deer. When I switched to aluminum arrows would not pass thru even at 70 #s & deer would often shear them off with their shoulder running off. Expensive when you’re just a kid. I went through the time of overdraws & lightweight arrow when everyone was pursuing speed. Had some terrible flying setups that were very hard to tune. No one new much about tuning back then. I was getting pass thrus shooting 80# though. Older carbon arrows with outserts were a PIA. Todays carbon arrows are pretty good. I really don’t have a problem with an arrow going bad after that many cycles. Now I’m older with bad shoulders maybe partially because of too much draw weights??? So now I’m. Shooting less draw weight & looking for a heavier arrow setup again. I guess the cycle is complete. I really don’t need anyone to tell me an arrow can wear out or not. I’ve seen it enough times now.
I've seen the same thing Basil, actually heard some folks talking about it on a podcast just last week. Not all resins used in arrow manufacturing are equal...you can input a bend in some carbon arrows, I've done it numerous times. Easily proven on a arrow spinner.
What is "normal" stiffness since the stiffness of an arrow is directly related to it's dynamic spine and why would ones hunting arrows be stiffer than other arrows one would use?
You’ve got me reaching for the popcorn now, Frank!
fdp...
Target arrows that only use field points or nibbs can flex without flying off line. As long as the tune is good, the arrow will continue on it's launched line of flight. Hunting arrows have blades up front. Those blades are like wings and will steer the front of the arrow in whatever direction the front of the arrow is facing... this is what causes the corkscrew flight affect.
Once the bow is properly tuned, a stiffer shaft will flex less and if stiff enough, it will not flex at all. Those arrows will fly without oscillation and retain a much higher percentage of it's energy down-range. It's a no-brainer to me to always bump up to the next stiffer shaft. There are no drawbacks.
Most of the testimony one reads about where their setup tunes better with a weak and flexing shaft, are typically former trad and/or fingers shooters who "need" the shaft to flex and use the archers paradox due to there form. Many of these shooters never really lose their shooting habits when they start shooting a modern compound with a release. And YES, you can tune a weak shaft to shoot well with broadheads. You just need to figure out the appropriate hand torque needed to cancel the shaft flex. The extreme FOC guys fall into this camp... they need the flex to fit their form flaws. Then they need the added weight to help recover the energy they lose with all the oscillation. The result is an abnormally high FOC.
Uhhh...no.
All arrows regardless of the point they have on them flex period. The heavier the point the more the shaft will flex thus requiring a more statically stiff therefore dynamically stiff arrow to maintain proper spine when shooting a 300 gr. point, whether a field point or a broadhead, than it does a 100gr. point whether it is a field point or a broadhead.
Now, when shooting a compound bow with a release the flexing is in more of a vertical plane (up an down) then in a horizontal plane (side to side) as it is when shooting fingers because the string isn't rolling off your fingers. And that holds true for a compound, a recurve, a Longbow or any other bow shot with fingers.
Now that being said modern compounds are so far past center that it is NEARLY impossible to get an arrow too stiff when shooting with a release. I didn't say it WAS impossible to get an arrow too stiff, I said it was NEARLY impossible because it is.
A properly tuned/matched arrow will shoot 100gr. field points and 100 gr. broadbeads in the same group same as it will 300gr. broadheads and 300gr. field points.
The tuning advantage of the far past center compound is that if an arrow is too stiff (impacting left for a right handed archer) you can move the arrow to the right to compensate. The further past center a bow is built the broader range of arrow spines it is capable of utilizing.
Frank,
You're mostly correct and, mostly saying the same thing I am. One small difference though... my shafts don't flex. It doesn't matter at what distance I shoot through paper. From 1" off the string out to 20 yards, there is only a small perfectly round shaft hole. Just like you would get out of a crossbow.
I agree with x-man. They've refined modern compounds to point where nock travel really isn't an issue any more. So, you can achieve a tune in which arrow flex is virtually eliminated.
Back in the days when solo cams were all the rage, they always had an inherent bit of up/down nock travel. The trick to tuning those bows was to find the sweet spot that was somewhere in the middle of that nock travel. It was always slightly different with every bow/shooter combo.
Matt
For an arrow NOT to flex AT ALL upon release would pretty much violate the basic laws of Physics. Sounds like it’s just that you guys have gotten to a point where that flexion is so slight that you can’t detect it via the methods you’re using to look for it.
At least not until you amplify the signal with a broadhead. But there has to be SOMETHING in the way of flex going on there (assuming your heads spin true) or there would be no planing effect to create that additional spine requirement….
At which point the aerodynamic effects up front would have to be not just steering the shaft, but enough to actually flex it into a whole different spine rating… which is a lot for me to get my head around… even if we are talking about nearly 2X the velocity that I’m generally getting….
It’s a shame there’s no way to see that, but I don’t expect we’ll pick it up at 60 frames/second….
I'm sure there's some sort of harmonic vibration going on but,... no flex that would be visible to the human eye. We don't need high speed film when we have paper to shoot through. A shaft that flexes enough to see, would tear a hole that's not perfectly round. I don't see anything other than a shaft-sized hole.
The trad guys and fingers compound shooters that I helped tune at my shop would tear elongated holes in the paper that would start out at about an inch long and would get smaller at distance with the point and nock swapping ends of the tear as it went.
I wish I had one of these: https://www.elizaarchery.com/spot-hogg-hooter-shooter The hooter shooter would be great for identifying and culling out arrows. It shoots exactly the same every time so if your arrows are not shooting in the same hole you can cull arrows that are not flying materially the same.
