Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Arrows => Topic started by: PecosMike on April 26, 2008, 05:52:13 pm
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Hi to all..new guy to the board and very happy to have access..Primitive Archer magazine is among my favorite "guilty pleasure" reading..lol
I love traditional bows/arrows but I also like to engage in a little experimental "could have been done" bow and arrow-making. I was wondering if anybody modern or archaic has dispensed with fletching altogether and simply cut "rifling" into the arrow shaft itself. Bullets as high speed projectiles stay on trajectory because they are grooved and Nerf footballs traveling at much slower speeds do in fact spin and it seems to work. Any comments most appreciated. Thanks much..Mike
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Well I don't know about the Nerf Football...but the Rifled Bullet is spun from the Barrel Rifling...not by air resistance...as in the Football....I don't believe that at the rate of Speed that an Arrow travels...that small grooves cut into the Arrow would be enough to create any spinning effect at all....not enough surface area to create the Drag necessary to make it spin....but then I am not a Mechanical Engineer either......
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I think it could work if the arrow was front heavy to help stability, with rifling togive spin. I think i have read of it being tried before.
Some places you can buy dowelling made with spiral groovea, though the longest I have seen available is about 24 inches.
Mark in England
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you put a Spiral Groove in a Shaft and it will never be deep enough to create any drag....it might spin slowly with a Target Point... or maybe a Bodkin.....but never with a Flint Point or Broadhead.....JMO
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well I dont use grooved shafts but I sometimes dont use fletch in shots up ta about 15-18 yards. Ifn yer arra is made correctly IMO you dont need the fletch at these distances. I also dont think arras need ta spin thats just modern thinking (read marketing hype here) IMO again. Arras need ta penetrate and has nothing ta do with spinning once again IMO. My 2 cents............bob-going against prevailing thinking again, oh yes this line stolen from Rich Saffold ! ;D
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but never with a Flint Point or Broadhead.....JMO
i wonder what effect a broadhead, shaped like helical fletching, would have
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Marius,back in the 70's,Browning(the same Browning that makes firearms) marketed a heavy screw-in type broadhead with a helical twist.I was shooting glass recurves back then,and a guy gave me 3 of them.I bought some aluminum shafts ,to test these wicked looking points,but could never find a way to make them shoot well.I found out real quick why the guy gave them away .The idea looked neat though,like it would "drill" like a brace and bit,a hole 1-1/4" across. God Bless
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Pecos,are you from Texas?
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well, so much for that moment of genius ;D thanks pete
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Rifled shafts might work with a broadhead like this one..... ;D Pat
[attachment deleted by admin]
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thats a sweeet looking broadhead 8)
did you make that,if not where did you purchase it from?
looks like it good do the job quit well on buzzards and such.
tim
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Tim, This head is from the 1940s I believe. It was given to my by a friend. Pat
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That head was made to core the apple when you shoot it off someones head. ;D ;D.. Hawk
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Pat Ithink those were more around the 70's I remember being fairly jazed when they first came out. The theory was that becuase the arrow was spinning it would fly better and penetrate as well. However penetration is hinder if bone is contacted because of the leading part being straight it forces the curve to cut through more bone and slows penetration. The pro side is that they did open a big hole.
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I stand corrected Kennan. I don't know the true history of the head. I was guessing. ;D Pat
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this Broadhead came out in the Early 70's.....
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6966856.html
but this Article says that they made the Spiral in the 50's first....
Before that, in 1950, a head called the Excaliber 45 came along, with spiral blades. It was especially effective for coring apples because it cut a circle. Unfortunately, deer arenÂ’t apples, and the head failed to penetrate.
http://www.bowhuntingmag.com/tactics/stone_1016/index.html
Some radical new broadhead designs from the 1950’s. From left are the Roper’s Indian Arrowhead (cast), Mohawk Swivel Action, and Ex-Calibre .50.
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk247/yankeemongiat/heads5.jpg)
(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk247/yankeemongiat/MyBroadheadCollection.jpg)
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The head I have has "Browning USA" stamped in both sides and the point end is flat, not round. Thanks for the other info, Mike.
Pat
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wow, nice lookin collection there destructo, id use those broadheads for small game, but not deer or bear or anything bigger.
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wow, nice lookin collection there destructo, id use those broadheads for small game, but not deer or bear or anything bigger.
Whoa Son.........I wish that was my Collection....I just found that on the Ole W.W.W.....cant take credit for that Beautiful
Collection....I wish it was Mine though!!!!
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that middle one is like an early expandable
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well I dont use grooved shafts but I sometimes dont use fletch in shots up ta about 15-18 yards. Ifn yer arra is made correctly IMO you dont need the fletch at these distances. I also dont think arras need ta spin thats just modern thinking (read marketing hype here) IMO again. Arras need ta penetrate and has nothing ta do with spinning once again IMO. My 2 cents............bob-going against prevailing thinking again, oh yes this line stolen from Rich Saffold ! ;D
A well matched arrow with CoG forward of centre will fly OK for a short distance. After a short distance aerodynamic effect will often cause that arrow to end up going 90 degrees to the original line.
Arrows don't need to spin, but they will anyway, even if the fletchings are put on straight. A feather has a rough and a smooth surface on each face. The rough surfce will give more drag than the smooth and drag the shaft round imparting spin. Arrows and fletched atl atl darts have spun since the moment they were invented. Spinning arrows is not modern and it certainly isn't hype. Arrows spinning is basic physics and ancient technology!
Does spinning not have anything to do with penetration. I offer you a challenge. Put a drill bit in your drill and lean against a wooden post with your body weight. Measure how much you can make the drill bit penetrate using your body weight. Now turn the drill on and see how far it will penetrate using the s ame body weight. The spinning has a major effect on penetration! An arrow amy well be spinning at about 2500 rpm, which is about the same speed as your drill! Spinning is not new, aids stable flight, will happen anyway and will aid penetration because the arrow will quite literally screw itself into whatever you hit your target.
Mark in England
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Mark...........Putting a drill bit against wood and it spinning is not the same as a arrow going thru flesh of an animal. 3 fletch will spin on arrows and atlatls. My experience has been that arrows will stay straight for say up to 20 yards. I have never had a no fletch arrow go 90 deg. to its original course but that dosent mean no arrow will as ya say. Non fletched arrows and darts will not spin if not fletched, again, at least thats been my experience. The reference I was making I should have made clearer, "Arrows need to spin" thats hype and is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion in my typing. Brain works faster than fingers on keyboard, well family members might disagree. ;D.........bob
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Bob,
Interesting question this, and something I have thought about re arrows penetrating armour.
I would expect that pushing a drill bit against wood would be very much the same as an arrow going through flesh in an animal, or at least I can't see why it could be any different. Why do you feel they are diofferent?
Maybe I can explain how I am thinking?
You are standing right up next to the deer with a short arrow fitted with a broadhead in your hand. The arrow is fitted into your cordless drill.
You push against the deer with the arrow head with the drill turned off and see how is penetrates.
You then turn the drill on so it is going at 2500rpm and again push against the deer with the arrow head and the same force.
Wouldn't the effect be somewhat more dramatic with the arrow spinning?
You could the same by punching the arrow at the deer without it spinning, and with it spinning at 2500rpm.
You could so the same test by punching the arrow forwards at about 200fps.
Imagine two arrows that are identical, but one flies straight forward without spinning at all, the other spins.
The arrows hit with a certain amount of speed which will differ, with a differing amount of rotational energy but the same mass. If shot from the same bow there is the same amount of total energy in the arrow swhen it hits. In a spinning arrow some of that force or energy will be rotational which means that as it weighs the same as the other it will be going slightly slower. The rotational energy has been robbed from the forward speed
The question is this.
Which penetrates better and does more effective work?
An arrow that passes it's way through a deer slightly faster in a straight stab like a sitilletto?
An arrow that effectively drills it's way through a deer slightly slower?
An arrow can be made that comes straight back at you! If the weight is slightly rear of centre, if there are very small fletchings at the nock end and also small fletchings at the front and if the wind is coming from the correct dorection an arrow can turn so much it comes back! Must have been quite exciting for the guy (and his friends if he had any) who found this out, perhaps only for a short time though!
If you take a bare shaft without a point (so the weight isn't forward) out into an open space with the wind blowing from the side you will almost always see it turn quite dramatically so that it is flying side on to the the original direction. Often the arrow will end up going between 45 to 90 degrees to where you wanted it to go. This is failry dangerous! Put some drag on the back of the arrow and the straight shot will be improved. Put a point on the make the arrow CoG move forward and the arrow will fly better still. Make the drag element such that the arrow rotates and it will be even more stable.
I do agree that there is a lot of marketing hype used to sell archery products. Recently I saw an arrow marketed as having the latest high tech weight forward technology! Like people haven't been doing that for thousands of years!
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markinengland, the drill bit with the drill turning at 2500rpm will penetrate deeper because the drills motoor is supplying a constant force to keep it turning unlike an arrow that vents its stored energy. The more things the arrow has to do ie penetrate, rotate etc the fastyer the energy vents. Thats why distance flight arrows are not fletched or have low profile fletchings. As to makeing an arrow spin you will have more success using helical fletchings than a spinning broadhead. Inmo a broadhead will be more likely to make an arrow plane than spin. I dont think grooves in the shaft will have enough air resistance to cause any spin but may have enough to slow the arrows natural spin
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Comparing a drill bit to a broadhead is, to steal a phrase, like comparing apples to oranges. A drill bit has cutting edges oriented to take advantage of the rotational force applied by the drill. A broadhead has straight cutting edges. And as was already said, once the point penetrates, the flat planes of the broadhead will stop any rotation that the arrow had. I do agree that helical fletching will help stabilize an arrow in flight, but it contributes nothing to the penetration of a target. Just my two cents' worth.
Dale
P.S. Just in case you think I'm blowing smoke, try drilling a hole with the drill in reverse. :)
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Pat ,that is the same Browning point I was referring to,except my 3 have threaded ends.Even on heavy shafts,they shot awful,and they're real hard to sharpen. God Bless
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Is that not whatPeteC was mentioning?
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I have a hard enough time getting a straight blade sharp to try to sharpen one of the twisted ones. ;D Pat
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in 3rivers new catalog there is a new zwickey broadhead with a left or right fletch curve in it.
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They were advertising a new head called crimson talons on the outdoor Chanel the other day that are helical blades. They actually looked pretty cool.
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kdub, the new zwickeys do not have a curve to them, but rather they are a single bevel. They offer them in LW or RW because you want the bevel to be going with the direction of spin.
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I believe Art B has been doing this for awhile, and it makes perfect sense and so much easier to sharpen a single bevel.
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Here's the ones I saw http://www.spintite.com/crimsontalon.html Not to great for a primitive bow and arrows but they do look like they would make a pretty nasty hole in something.
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Fast spinning arrows will have more drag and, therefore, be slower. If you need the arrow to spin more, as with shoot shafts, why not set the fletching for that purpose ( offset, helical). Jawge