2016 Arrow Build Experiment

B

Baby Huey

New member
Apr 17, 2014
591
I\'ll be building new arrows this year and thought I would chronicle it here. I have a couple of different builds in mind, so it will be a bit of an experiment that we can watch and comment on.

A little history - I only have a few existing arrows left, as I typically buy 3 dozen shafts, build them and replace them when they are depleted or damaged enough where I need new. The last set I had was from around 8 or 9 years ago, I believe they were made my Carbon Express for Cabela\'s (their Outfitter Series). I\'ve always been a proponent of heavy arrows, and my old shafts were around 14 grains per inch (GPI). I had made them with the standard insert, wraps, NAP quickspin vanes and would shoot a 125 gn head. My arrow set up was around 565 grains. One thing I didn\'t really pay attention to when I built these, and it was from a lack of research and just thinking arrows will fly fine, was Forward of Center or FOC. My FOC on these 31.125\" arrows was just under 8% - a minimum amount for typical rule of thumb (7-15% FOC). They flew well with Slick Tricks (125gn).
 
After reading articles, forum posts and watching youtube videos on arrow make up and penetration, I came across the research, papers and videos by Dr. Ed Ashby. His research is intriguing and he brings in a lot of physics equations and his own conclusions for arrow penetration. His work is mainly with traditional equipment, but the premise will not be that much different for compound bows. There is a lot of information on his work and he has been a guest speaker and has a lot of papers and videos out there if you want to Google/Youtube and check them out. There is way more information than I could post here. I have been pouring over his research, findings and conclusions for the past two months off and on.

One of the main components I took from his work is penetration and bone breakage. I understand that many will indicate one just needs to make a proper shot and hit the correct spot for a good kill, which is what we all strive for, but if there is something that goes wrong, it would be nice to have an insurance policy for good penetration and bone breakage on a poor hit. That is how I am looking at this heavy arrow build - an insurance policy - and to see how this system will work.

Ashby recommends a minimum 650 grain arrow with exceptional structural integrity of the arrow system (shaft, ferrule, broadhead, etc.), perfect arrow flight, single bevel edge, high FOC (over 20%) [and even higher FOC, that he calls Extreme FOC (EFOC) for better penetration/bone breakage], and a few other factors, but those are the main points. The single plane broadheads with a single bevel were shown in his studies to split bone much better than a 3 blade broadhead. More to follow on the Ashby arrow build.
 
When looking at components for this heavy arrow build, I found some very good engineering in the products made by Firenock. I liked the Aero insert A and how it protected the front of the shaft with its reverse taper. I also was intrigued by some of his other components, namely the Aerovane III.

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I called Firenock and was able to speak to the owner, Dorge. He is an exceptionally intelligent man with degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, nuclear chemistry and is retired military. He holds 17 patents in the archery industry and is working on more. I was fortunate to discuss his engineering and findings for about 45 minutes.

When I brought up the Ashby reports, he said there is an equation that was not looked at by Ashby - angular momentum. This is where his Aerovane III comes into play. He worked with a professor at the University of Illinois to help build his vane technology. Dorge also has a lot of youtube videos that are helpful in explaining his technologies and products. Even though he is an exceptional engineer, I think he could do much better with his marketing. Even in his videos and product catalog, he doesn\'t mention the meat behind his Aerovane III technology, which is how it makes the shaft spin, creating a rifling effect like a bullet.

The Aerovane III will create 300 revolutions in 18 yards, where standard fletchings on the market today will produce 8-12 revolutions in that same distance (using the lab at the University). His product creates unparalleled angular momentum compared to other vanes, and has devastating affects on tissues during penetration. Some of his testors indicated that hearts were obliterated with the high angular momentum imparted on the arrow system. His system does not require the heavy arrow build and EFOC like the Ashby arrow, but rather it works best with speeds around 280 fps and higher. His testing on game animals revealed that many broadheads fail with this vane system, as they are not stout enough to withstand that rotational force when penetration occurs. In his and others testing, there were many fixed blade broadheads that had blades and ferrules fail when penetration occurred. Even worse results with all mechanical heads, as the thin blades would all fail. Some of the best BH\'s in his testing of the Aerovane III are the Slick Tricks, Ramcats and hartcraft with trophy 1 blade. The Aerovane III was designed to create very little noise as well.

Here is a video, but he doesn\'t discuss the angular momentum aspect of this product, which I think is the most important item after our discussions:

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He talks in engineering terms and physics equations, where my CE background helped me keep up with his discussion. I am not sure why he doesn\'t work on his marketing a little better, but his is one smart cookie. He said he doesn\'t sell to pro shops, as most of the employees would not be able to relay the engineering principles where I think he may believe that many of his products would be looked at as gimmicks if not explained properly (my conjecture). He said the vanes need to be installed precisely and he only has a couple of shops in his area that he has approved to install them.

So, as part of another experiment, I will be shipping 12 shafts to have the Aerovane III installed and let you all know how it goes.
 
My bow is a 70# PSE Pro Series X-Force, Hamskea versa rest (limb driven) with a CBE 5 pin slider
Here are some of the components I will be using in these builds:
Black Eagle Rampage shafts, 250 spine and 0.001\" straitness, 10.7 gn/in
Cutthroat Broadheads 250 gn
Easton HIT inserts (25, 50 and 75 gn)
Easton Eclipse Al arrow shafts for footings (I\'ll explain that more later)
Firenock Aero Insert A, stainless steel, approx. 56.5 gn (shown on the right side of the photo below, standard SS inserts from BE on the left)
Firenock Arrow chamfering tool
Firenock Nock A replacement nocks, 4.8 gn
Firenock Areovane III, approx. 5 gn each
Slick Trick 125 gn broadheads
Trueflight 2\" shield turkey feathers, 1.2 gn avg (red and white)






 
nobody said there was going to be math!

hah!! i dabbled with some FOC. i got mine to about 13%..honestly, i quit caring once they flew awesome with my bow. i played around with it when i was shooting my Mathews Z7, which i un-affectionately named \"drunken sparrow\". arrow flew like drunk birds. no exaggeration. awful. like miss a Rinehart 18-1 completely at 50 yards awful. while the FT arrows plunked dead center. i fixed my bow up..(long story). and got the 13% FOC arrows. you know what? i found them way more forgiving. i had back to back arrows, of all kinds made up..and the high FOC hid the bow\'s sins better. now, i just kinda stuck with the recipe when i have arrows made.

they fly great, and will punch thru some animals.

good luck BH
 
Cliff, drunken sparrow is awesome - at least the name and not so much your flight!

What is your \"FT\" arrow?

I have too many spreadsheets already on this build! Stupid math!
 
\"Baby Huey\" said:
I called Firenock and was able to speak to the owner, Dorge. He is an exceptionally intelligent man with degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, nuclear chemistry and is retired military. He holds 17 patents in the archery industry and is working on more. I was fortunate to discuss his engineering and findings for about 45 minutes.
Click to expand...


I have not heard his name for years. Dorge was on an archery web site that I frequented 12-15 years ago. That was when he first made the Firenocks. The only other one at the time was Luminock. If I remember correctly the third company to come out with lighted nocks was Easton arrow company. Dorge claimed they stole some of his Ideas then patented them and Dorge had to change his design a bit and quickly patent the new stuff. He didn\'t have the money to fight in court against the big company. We boycotted Easton arrows for quite a while. He shot a nice 14 or 15 point buck one year within sight of the parking lot at a public hunting area as everyone else went deep. It fell 40 yards from his truck. I think his team won the deer contest that year.
 
Terry, that sucks on the patent stuff for him. Hate to see a small company run into problems like that and not have enough capital to fight.

For my builds, I have 36 shafts, but will keep a dozen on the shelf, as I go through these build experiments. I had my 24 shafts cut yesterday at No Limits Archery: carbon to carbon at 28.5\" and had the shop square the ends. I installed the Firenock A nock and then weighed the cut shaft with the nocks to see how consistent they were. I put the numbers in a spreadsheet and then sorted it by arrow weight. I took a pencil and numbered each shaft. Over 24 shaft/nock set ups there was a low value of 304.6gn and a top end weight of 308gn, so 3.4gn from the heaviest to lightest shaft/nock combo. I then looked at which shafts I wanted to send to Firenock for the Aerovane III install. In the photo below, I will send the 12 shaft/nock set ups in the yellow highlight, as there is a 0.7gn difference from the lightest to heaviest. I\'ll use the shafts in the blue highlight for the Ashby build (1.1gn difference lightest to heaviest combo).

 
My sister is a patent attorney. To bad that guy didn\'t have her. My sister\'s superpower is anger and vengeance. Makes her a rough sister to have, but a great patent attorney. She almost landed Hamskea as a client. I was stoked!! But current Atty didn\'t retire as planned


Sent via Jedi mind trick.
 
\"Baby Huey\" said:
Terry, that sucks on the patent stuff for him. Hate to see a small company run into problems like that and not have enough capital to fight.

For my builds, I have 36 shafts, but will keep a dozen on the shelf, as I go through these build experiments. I had my 24 shafts cut yesterday at No Limits Archery: carbon to carbon at 28.5\" and had the shop square the ends. I installed the Firenock A nock and then weighed the cut shaft with the nocks to see how consistent they were. I put the numbers in a spreadsheet and then sorted it by arrow weight. I took a pencil and numbered each shaft. Over 24 shaft/nock set ups there was a low value of 304.6gn and a top end weight of 308gn, so 3.4gn from the heaviest to lightest shaft/nock combo. I then looked at which shafts I wanted to send to Firenock for the Aerovane III install. In the photo below, I will send the 12 shaft/nock set ups in the yellow highlight, as there is a 0.7gn difference from the lightest to heaviest. I\'ll use the shafts in the blue highlight for the Ashby build (1.1gn difference lightest to heaviest combo).

Click to expand...

Wow. Kudos to the arrow nerd-fest. Very impressive.


Sent via Jedi mind trick.
 
Been busy lately. I was able to weigh the 24 Firenock AeroInsert A\'s. They are really pretty good on the weight tolerances. Out of 24, there was a low weight of 55.6gn and a high weight of 56.8gn, for a range of 1.2gn. After sorting them out, the lightest 12 have a weight range from lightest to heaviest of 0.7 gn, and the heaviest 12 have a weight range of 0.3 gn. I numbered the inserts with a pencil after weighing them.

 
Received my arrows back from Firenock today. I had the Aerovane 3 vanes installed as well as the stainless steel inserts. I labeled each arrow A-L and weighed each one. Surprisingly only 2 grain difference across all of the arrows. Black Eagle Rampage, Firenock AR nock, Firenock Aerovane 3; Firenock Stainless Steel AeroInserts - no field or broadhead weights yet, but here are the arrow weights:

F = 378.9
D = 379.2
J = 379.8
C = 380.1
H =380.2
I = 380.4
K = 380.4
B = 380.6
E = 380.6
L = 380.6
G = 380.7
A = 380.9

I haven\'t built any of the other arrows yet, still mulling around arrow weights and different types of fletching. These 12 with the Aerovane 3\'s are supposed to work best at speeds over 280 fps. I\'ll try my normal 125 grain field points and some 100 gn field points, take them to a local bow shop to get my actual speeds through a chrono. I screwed on a Slick Trick 125 gn head (126.5gn actual weight) to arrow H, which yielded a total arrow weight of 506.6 gns.

I\'ve never been this technical about arrows before, but I was never very technical about my rifle either. But, once I really delved into longer range shooting and gained a smidgeon of knowledge about rifle projectiles, and how accurate one can become, it peaked my interest in taking the same approach with my arrows. I want to become a better shot and the arrow projectile is very important keystone in my eyes to gain consistency and accuracy. Anyway, can\'t wait to start shooting!
 
you gonna find the stiff side of the arrow and fletch them all the same with respect to that?

i think my arrow guy marks it and puts the cock vane along the stiff axis.
 
Cliff, I believe Dorge at Firenock did the exact markings you are talking about for the stiffest side of each shaft. He has/makes a spine testing device called PAPS (Professional Arrow Preparation System) and he marked the stiffest part of the shaft with the silver sharpie mark on the arrows near the end of the Rampage decal (2nd photo above).

When I build my remaining arrows, I will see if my local shop has a spine testing device. If not, probably have to just fletch them up and then perhaps nock tune? Have you found any flight problems if the vanes are not lined up with the stiff axis?
 
no..i think finding the stiff side is truly the most anal of the anal of arrow builders :)

not so sure i would see the difference, but honestly Jerry at South Shore as build pretty much all my arrows. he also uses a silver sharpie mark!!

i think i read somewhere you can seal your arrows and float them in a tub of water and the spine/stiff side will be the low side..sinking the lowest therefore rotating the arrow to float light side up. dunno. again..super anal. hahah. Jerry might retire soon, so if he does i\'m gonna pick his brain for tricks and go \"full monty\" on my own builds.
 
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