Our 2017 Arrow Build
Learning Archery Part 4
Up next in this little archery series- picking out our 2017 arrow build!
Fresh off purchasing our 2017 Hoyt Pro Defiant 34’s we began looking into an arrow build for the upcoming season.
If you search any archery forum for arrow builds you will likely be over your head in different setups and opinions. The one common theme that we noticed was that a heavier arrow will out penetrate a lighter arrow… makes sense, the more momentum your arrow has the longer it will retain forward motion with resistance. High school physics was enough education to understand that.
Our previous arrows did not fall under the heavy arrow category. While we did not have any negative results, having yet to harvest an animal, we decided to make a switch.
Some background, our previous arrows were Carbon Express Maxima Red 250’s cut at 29” with 3 blazer vanes, the standard aluminum insert and a 100 grain rage hypodermic broadhead.
This gives an overall arrow weight of 380 grains. This is considered an extremely light arrow for hunting.
After popping into OC Archery Shop in Airdrie (where I live), I learned about a local arrow company called Kill’n Stix. They offered some good tolerance (0.003” straightness) standard diameter arrows that were very reasonably priced compared to Gold Tip, Easton or bringing in an arrow from the US.
With OC’s recommendation we ordered a dozen of the Original Series arrows in a 300 spine. These arrows came in at 8.7 grains per inch and we cut our arrows to 29”. To boost the weight we added a 75 grain brass insert instead of the 14 grain aluminium standard insert. The arrows did come with the industry standard 3 blazer vanes, which we then stripped off a bit later to experiment with different fletching options.
After testing the blazer vanes, AAE’s Max Hunter and Max Stealth. With and without wraps we decided on using 3 AAE Max Stealth vanes and a 4” arrow wrap. This seemed to be the quietest vane configuration and grouped very well.
With the AAE Max Hunter vanes. Testing the multiple vane configurations.
This new setup came in at 473 grains, which was almost 100 grains heavier that our previous arrows. The bows sounded quieter and we found that when shooting in the wind our groups were more consistent with the heavier arrow.
For our broadheads, we did stick with the Rage Hyperdermic for the 2017 season.
Keep following along for our 2017 archery season!
A more in-depth how-to build series for the steps we follow when choosing and building an arrow will come in the new year when we start building our 2019 arrows!!
-R
