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Boyhood arrows revisited - bamboo, nails, and a bit of feather

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Justin Snyder:
Nice arrows man. Justin

Little John:
Verry nice Mark. You just got to love them bamboo arrows.  they really turned out nice.   Kenneth

markinengland:
Thanks for the nice comments guys.
I shot them at the weekend.
I didn't shoot well but had a great time. The arrows proved to be quite stable, and certainly had good penetration. The weight of the shaft, linen binding and shoulder of the shaft seemed to give a lot of shock into the targets. My arrows seemed to move the targets much more than the people I was shooting with (One guy had a bow 15# heavier than mine), as well as penetrate more. I can imagine that these would make good bunny busters!
I shot them (well 11 of them as I lost one in the bluebells) all at distance at the FRench Army shot. I could see that they were spinning even though the fletchings were on straight(ish). Some went well left, one wentl right so obviously spine was not consistent. Wasn't too much of an issue with my slightly snakey ash bow used for most of the day (wich is almost centre shot) but was more of an issue with my slightly Eygyptian style longbow used for the distance shot.
So what can I learn from this?
I think I could shorten them to reduce the weight. 29 inches should be plenty.
I think I could use thinner bamboo as most seemed over-spined and to reduce weight though some of the skinny shafts were the heaviest.
I think I could use shorter nails to reduce weight.
I could have less nail sticking out so the arrow doesn't go quite so far into trees.
I could glue the nails in so they don't stay in the tree when I pull the arrow out.
I could weight match the arrows, 150 grains of variation really does make a difference.
I could spine match the arrows somewhat more. Alernatively I could bin the arrows that don't go in the right direction.
I could reduce the height of the fletchings a little to maybe half an inch.
I could use thinner and less linen to bind the head of the shafts to reduce weight.
I could leave 1/4 inch of shaft unbound at the end of the shaft to make sure that the linen doesn't come undo when I pull the arrow out.
I could use something that stands out better than black silk reinforced nocks and black fletchings. They look sexy but you can't watch them go when you've shot them and dissappear in the undergrowth afterwards.
Mark in England

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