A while back you all gave me some real good input to consider when moving to carbons from wood.
http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=037676
Just thought I would close this loop and tell you where I came out. I tried several of the shaft/tip combinations that you all recommended. I got the best flight from a 29 1/2" gold tip with 225 grains (125 practice tip, 100 gr insert) up front, just as several of you suspected. My arrow speed increased noticeably(didn't chrono) and accuracy was generally unaffected under 20 yds.
But here's the rub. No matter what shaft I tried I got a noticeably increased level of noise out of my bow. My wood shafts that I had been shooting were just about 600 grain total weight, and out of my 50# Quest, that's 12 gpp. The carbon arrows I tried were all in the neighborhood of 500 +/- gpp.
In the end, I am going to stick with the wooden arrows in spite of the slower speed and obvious lack of uniformity when compared to carbons. The reason is the noise. My bow is just a thump with the hex shafts. The noise resulting from using all of the carbon shafts I tried is unacceptable in my opinion.
Thanks all for your input and the data.
46r
P.S. I have a dozen 35/55 Gold tips available if anyone is interested. ;-)
Same for my experience. But a small increase in brace height fixed the noise.
Nver ha dthat problem, actually my carbons seemed quieter. I was told because the bow transfers more energy into the crbon or more of it was absorbed by the carbon. I love my woodies but it is hatd to justify their cost, when my carbons outlast them 10 to 1. Shawn
Did you try any of the heavier carbon shafts? (ie-Carbon Express Terminator hunters @12 GPI?)
My Shrew is guieter with them than the GT's that I have set-up for it.
I'm interested in the Gold Tips you have available. Send me an email or p.m. to discuss. Thanks
I would certainly expect a 10 gpp arrow (the carbon) would be louder than a 12 gpp arrow (the wood), so comparing the lighter carbon to the heavier wood, of course the wood would be quieter.
Try putting the weight tubes from 3 rivers down the shaft adding the 100 grains back into the equation (cheapest alternative) and it will quiet down the carbon. My 340 Beman MFX 29 1/8" 100 gr insert, 3 5" shields weigh in at 445 gr, with the 200 grain point I get 645, very quiet(thump) and hard hitting, and extreme FOC. You would probably need the 400 spine and you would loose about 25 grains, so about 420 shaft and 545 with 125 tip. You could probably shorten about 1/4-1/2" and increase point weight to 200 getting you close to the 600 grain arrow, which I would venture to say would noticeably quiet her down.
I can definetly hear the difference in noise shooting carbon with 100-150 difference in weight, off longbow or recurve, especially if not well tuned to the bow. Have not shot my wood arrows in years due to the inconsistency and straightness issues. Do not know if I could go back.
Raise your braceheight.If it takes 12gn per lb to quieten your bow it is not tuned right. jmo
The nice thing about the Gold Tip Weight system is you can keep adjusting weight between the back and front and fine tune your total weight to what ever you want. You just need to go to the next step.
My recurve bare shafted real well at 8 grains per pound but way too much noise and I wanted a heavier arrow. I played with it and ended up putting a 20 grain weight and adapter to the nock end and adding 50 additional grains to the front.
I ended up at 10 drains per pound of draw and my bow quited right down. I can add more weight to the tail and front and increase my total weight even furhter while maintaining the same spine. It's a learning process but when you get it down it really works. I can fine tune one shaft to several different total weights while maintaining the same spine.
Its like shooting instinctive, it takes time to learn but once you get it down it's worth it.
You can also try more weight up front. I was involved in the prototype testing of the 50 and 100 grain brass inserts with Muzzy. The proto types were stainless steel. I was not into carbon arrows at the time because of the lack of needed weight. I had some of the test arrows with up to 450 grains up front with little effect in arrow flight. Wish I had saved all my data...sent it all off to Muzzy. After that I became a believer in carbon arrows. My personal choice is Vapor Carbonwood 3000 (5/16") with the apropriate weight up front. The Gold Tips are a fine arrow too. I currently shoot a Super Shrew Samarai that draws about 50-52 at my draw length. My arrows weigh 560 grains with a 50 grain insert and 200 grain tip. My hunting heads weigh 225 grains with a 100 grain BH insert and 125 grain Magnus head. I get the same arrow flight with just a tad more weight. If I wanted to go heavier for say moose or elk I could load up the front with a 100 grain brass insert in the arrow, 125 grain BH insert and 200 grain ACE BH. 425 grains up front will not effect the spine characteristics just the ups and downs as the arrow will drop. All I would need to do is put in some practice time to adjust my shooting. The flexibility of shooting carbons is something to consider as well as their duribility. They dont smell as good as cedar when they break but I think its kinda silly to smell a broken arrow.
I shoot carbons a lot and I may too go with what Dave said above. I may try my Heritage 150s out of my new bow which is 56#s and just add a 100 grain insert instead of the 50 I have now and see how they fly. Shawn
i personally shoot carbons from lower poundage bows to make up for the difference in performance from the higher poundage bows and put up with the additional noise. (which may be minimized with minimal tuning effort)
adirondack46r,
I had the noise problem with my Carbon Express Rebels. I just slid some 7/32" clothes line from ACE hardware down in and left just enough room at the back to slip in the glue-on insert. All the arrows I tried this with are 595-602 grains. I wasn't trying to quiet the bow, but add extra weight for penetration. After shooting them a few times, i realized that not only were they shooting just fine and penetrating the bag deeper, they were also coming out noticeably quieter. (Had to be a significant change as I really wasn't listening for this on purpose.) I like woods as well and will still shoot what I have til they are all broken up. But for the money, the carbons will be a much better investment for me. I hope this helps some.
weight tubes would work///
I'm already braced at 7 3/4, which is about a quarter inch higher than the high ended of the recommended brace height range provided by Mr. Bill over at the brack shack. I also have bow hush and catwiskers. I suppose I could up the brace height a little more. I'll drop Bill a note and see if there is any problem with that.
I bare shaft tuned the carbons and I was getting arrows that were pretty close to straight into the target (indoor range with flat wall to shoot at) at 20 yards. So I'm thinking that the arrow is tuned to the bow pretty well.
The noise seems to be almost a metallic "clink". Maybe I will give the weight tubes a try, or one of the other solutions you suggested.
Just when I think I've made a decision with conviction... more data rolls... thanks guys.
While tuning some axis 400s recently, I found out that what I thought was nock left, or under spined, was actually being caused by the skinny diameter of the axis shafting. I had to build my arrow plate out to get them to hit straight down the middle. Did wonders to improve the bareshafting too.
Clink sounds like arrow contact on the riser to me, you said you shot bareshafts, did you bareshaft tune like O L Adcock recomends or just shoot bareshafts?
Also try increasing brace height and see what happens as suggested earlier. I can not see it hurting the bow any.
Is it me or do carbon arrows require a lot of "tinkering"? I gave up all that hassle when I sold the compound 20yrs ago.
Sitka spruce or cedar arrows in the same spine wt as my bow draw wt and they fly perfectly. A little straightening now and then is all that's needed. Nothing but wood for me!
And although sniffing broken arrows may seem silly, I do it every time! LOL
Just a new learning curve to go thru. After a couple of tunes with carbons it is very easy and predictable. The consistency in the shafts are most appealing to me.
QuoteOriginally posted by foxbo:
While tuning some axis 400s recently, I found out that what I thought was nock left, or under spined, was actually being caused by the skinny diameter of the axis shafting. I had to build my arrow plate out to get them to hit straight down the middle. Did wonders to improve the bareshafting too.
I wondered a little about that seeing that the rest is cut 3/16 past center. I may try building it out and see if that changes anything.
QuoteOriginally posted by katman:
Clink sounds like arrow contact on the riser to me, you said you shot bareshafts, did you bareshaft tune like O L Adcock recomends or just shoot bareshafts?
Also try increasing brace height and see what happens as suggested earlier. I can not see it hurting the bow any.
I did follow OL's method. Shot both fletched shafts and bare shafts. I did notice that I could actually clearly see the arrow come off the rest and go nock left for a good distance and then straighten out by the time it reached the target. I was assuming this was simply the whole archers paradox thing, but building out the rest as mentioned above may change things as well.
The clink may be just my imagination. I am used to the thump of a 600 grain wooden shaft so anything else is just a bit foreign.
Thanks a bunch.
QuoteOriginally posted by Red Beastmaster:
Is it me or do carbon arrows require a lot of "tinkering"? I gave up all that hassle when I sold the compound 20yrs ago.
Sitka spruce or cedar arrows in the same spine wt as my bow draw wt and they fly perfectly. A little straightening now and then is all that's needed. Nothing but wood for me!
And although sniffing broken arrows may seem silly, I do it every time! LOL
Honestly, I'm not much of a tinkerer myself, and finding the right carbon seems to be alittle more involved than I expected. I'm thinking that once you find the right combination your probably ahead of the game - at least that's why I'm willing to give it a go for a bit longer.
I also struggled with it the first time or two and got frustrated but persisted, keep it up it is worth it IMHO. Building out the rest will definetly effect the spine.
O L says to pay attention to the impact point of fletched and bare shafts, don't wory to much about nock position, get them to hit/group very close with bare shaft slightly to the right of fletched (right hander), I like about 1 inch at 20 yards. I use gap shooting with the point set on an object in front of the target to tune, can get very tight groups with this, go out to 25 yards and make sure you are still tuned. If you are in tune then changing the rest will take you out of tune. If your in tune then adding mass to the arrow should quiet her down.
For a quick trial just tape a matchstick to the rest and shoot, it is a easy removeable way to check if that helps.
QuoteOriginally posted by katman:
For a quick trial just tape a matchstick to the rest and shoot, it is a easy removeable way to check if that helps.
Good tip. Thanks.
I tried a couple carbons and they shot real true but the bow was noisy and there was hand shock so I thru them away. The bows were talking to me and I listened.
Adirondack,
I'm sort of going in the opposite direct as you. I won't totally abandon carbon arrows, but up until about 2 months ago I was using carbons exlusively for the previous 3 years. These were Beman Max 4 340s with 100 gr brass inserts & 125 g points/BHs for a total arrow weight was right at about 600 grains.
Without question carbons tend to be alot less hassle than wood once you've figured out the right setup with your bow, since it's easy to make exact duplicates from the magic formula.
However, about 2 months ago while at a 3D shoot, a friend handed me 6 of his cedar shafted arrows to use because he wanted me to shoot with him in the longbow category. I was a little dubious about using them and took some test shots and found that they were flying quite well from my bow and at under 20 yards were hitting the target the same as my carbons did. The cedar arrows weighed about 50 grains less than my carbons so as you can imagine they did not drop nearly as quickly at 25 and 30 yards.
What blew me away however, was how much quieter and how much less handshock there was with the lighter cedar arrows than the heavier carbons. Now for the last 2 months I've been monkeying around with cedar shafts & different fletching patterns/sizes to see what is optimal for my bow. I'm not quite set up to hunt with the cedar shafts yet, but probably will be for the fall season.
First of all, thanks for all of the input. Here is the scoop.
As is often the case there are/were multiple variables contributing the noise related to my carbon shafts. First I increased the brace height another 3/8 of an inch. I'm now just shy of 8 inches. That made a difference in the noise level of both the carbons and the wood arrows. Second, I ordered some 3 GPI weight tubes from 3Rivers and installed them in the shafts. This also reduced the noise level of the carbon shafts. The weight tubes, however, seemed to change the spine of the arrow slightly, so back to the bare shafts for a little more work. Building out the rest seemed to remedy that. I believe someone had suggested that earlier in this thread.
I have yet to mount and shoot broadheads on the shafts but I will probably tackle that this weekend. In the end, I think I have gained the following:
1. a slightly lighter, flatter shooting arrow - I went from approx. 600 grains to approx. 550 grains total arrow weight.
2. a more uniform shaft (obviously)
3. significantly higher FOC (good?)
4. cheaper - I don't have the time to make my own arrows, and I broke 3 wooden arrows made for me by whispering wind last year - great arrows, but cost about $12 a piece
5. better penetration? evidence from others seems to suggest this will be the case
So was it worth the time? Yes, but not because of the benefits listed above. I have a lot better idea now of what variables affect arrow flight and performance.
In fact, in the end I may stay with the wooden shafts. Not because of how they smell when they break, but because I have a better idea now of how to get the most out of them.
Thanks for all your help.
46r