My goal is to keep my arrow cost down as low as possible but keep good quality pieces.
This is what I have figured for my setup...
Gold tip 3555 blems = $3.75
4x4 fletch chopped or burned myself = $1 ( i have to have barred :rolleyes: )
100 gr brass inserts = $1
snuffer or magnus II = $5
hunting arrow final cost = $10.75
with field tip = $5.75
My eventual goal is to go with wood and make my own trade points but thats further down the road
So what does your system look like
About $40.00 when i use my silver flames. :rolleyes:
If I put my ACE 200 on it about $7.00. With a field tip, less than $4.00.
I don't like to calculate such things. I'm so cheap I might not want to shoot. ;)
i am with Whip on this one... Might make me alot more picky at the range.
Well, guess I am cheap also, would really bother me loosin a silver flame broadhead, at $25.00 a piece, prob run my hunt lookin for the broadhead.
Dang sure more than my wife thinks...
All told, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-$20.
Definately cost more time than money. I enjoy doing though so I guess it's not that much. Less than $10.00 an arrow. Magnus I 160 gn.
If there was a contest for cheap I would lose because I wouldn't fork up the entrance fee...
Thats one reason for starting this thread... seeing if anyone had any good ideas or see if it would be worth the switch to wood and such....
With aluminum shafts bought on here, about four bucks with target points. With Surewoods bought on this site, about the same without blades but I'll cut the feathers myself.
A lot more time, a little more expensive arrow, but worth it.
I thought switchin' to all trad would be cheaper...boy was I wrong. If I could afford to pay myself about $30 an hour for all the time I spend building and tinkering I think I could make the numbers work................
Tapered wood shaft $3.75
Turkey fletch x 3 $1.50
Broadhead $4.00
Nock .25
Stain, seal and crest .25?
Looks like a minimum $10.00
if I only charge another two bits for my time.
Somewhere in the 10 to $20 range depending on broadhead used.Not much when you consider I seldom loose or break one deer hunting.I can go through a few hog hunting however but usually not that many in a year.
$12 with Carbon Shafts, aluminum external footings and grizzly El Grande Heads.
I building some that are costing $46.50 ea.
Grizly Stik safari's $16.50 ea
Ashby Broadheads $30.00 ea
Kinda like what Whip said, only I would cry each time I destroyed one.
About $12.50 with a broadhead on it.
I don't want to know.. ;)
Enough that I'll spend 20 minutes looking for a lost one, not enough that I care if I break one in an animal ;)
I am super cheap when it comes to making arrows because I have a ton of kids and family members to make arrows for but I make good quality arrows for them. Explanation on how I get it so cheap below the prices.
doug fir shaft == 1.50
3 chopped feathers == .30
field tip == .25
nock == .10
finish == .14
color and cresting == .05
finished arrow with field tip or steel blunts == 2.34
finished arrow with broadhead == 6.13
A dozen finished arrows with field tip or steel blunts == 28.08
Shafts I buy off a friend who dowels them
Feathers I buy from a costume company in bulk by the lb I get about 450 cut feathers in the end for about 42 bucks plus shipping. I split sand and chop them. Comes out to 9 cents a feather but I rounded up.
Field tips / steel blunts and nocks I buy in bulk of 100 to 500 and I have so many from doing that I probably don't have to buy any more for many years but I put the price anyway. Nocks are often done a self nocks especially for the kids but I put a cost for them anyway because I do have a few hundred still left over from last time I bough bulk bags of them.
I finish my arrows with 3 coats of Tru-Oil that I rub on with a rag so there is no waste. A single bottle will finish many dozens so I am guessing at the cost there because the stuff will do so many I have no idea what the actual cost is but I tried to get close and err on the side of way more expensive than it probably really is.
If I color I use leather dye that I bought in bulk and if I crest I just do a base of cheap silver or white acrylic model paint and I do the lines with a colored or black permanent sharpie marker and then put the last coat of tru-oil over that. I still have the original sharpies and model paint I bought nearly ten years ago and I have done literally hundreds of arrows with them so coloring and cresting is just a few pennies at best.
Broad heads wise I use a two blade Zwickey Eskimo.
Great job Andy
Care to explain the bulk costume source more?
Who cares as long as you had fun smashing it, losing it, or getting it all bloody. You can't put a price on FUN!!!! :archer:
Like some above, I really don't want to consider cost. With a Grizzly stick shaft and one of several heads that cost in the 30 dollar each neighborhood, you can easliy eclipse 50 dollars each.
I hunt in a marsh. If from a tree, missed shots can easily be recovered, but from the ground, a miss is likely gone. Makes you really think about your shots and I think there is enough pressure to make a fine shot without the worry of a clean miss breaking the bank.
ChuckC
QuoteOriginally posted by nightowl1:
Great job Andy
Care to explain the bulk costume source more?
No problem I don't know what the policy is here for non-sponsor site links so I won't post a direct link on this thread but I sent you a PM link to their website. Long time back a friend who taught me how to build arrows showed me how not buying from an archery shop for feathers, glue(hot glue and nock glue), dye, finish, and crest paint really ads up. He was the one who originally pointed me to costume places for getting feathers from if you are willing to split, sand, and chop your own.
WAY too much! You should see the look on my face when I actually lose one.
And that's without broadheads!!!!
Not cheap but a good investment. I don't mind losing them on a hunt-that's the least of my worries. Always fun to make more anyway.
Someone once told me to treat arrows like golf balls. Greatest advice ever.
Dont know exactly, dont realy care either. Nothin fancy though, good wood shaft, 3 feathers and an under-rated $5.00 broadhead. As they say "its just cost of doing business.."
Eric
seeing that it empties my bank account to get 35" shafts, I HATE ALL OF YOU!!!!!!
:archer2:
Good thing I am single! I broke about 2 dozen arrows since March.I love to make arrows.
I don't get it. They aren't like bullets where you shoot it and it's gone forever. An arrow can last easily thousands of shots. So figure a $10 arrow over a thousand shots is a penny a shot. Can't beat that. Maybe wood won't and aluminum can bend but I'm shooting the same couple dozen carbons that I bought when they were the "new kid on the block". Beman 70/90's and 80/100's. I have no idea what I paid back then but they sure don't owe me anything anymore.
I never thought about it before, so I did some calculatin' based on 3Rivers prices and buying nocks and fletching in lots of 100.
douglas fir shaft = $3.00
nock = $0.11
fletching = $1.26
Magnus broadhead = $4.38
stain,finish, cresting(???) = $0.20
Total = $8.95
Without broadhead = $4.57 ($54.89 per dozen)
This was a good exercise because I can now understand why a dozen completed wood arrows without heads can cost arround $100. My cost per dozen doesn't include time and equipment to build arrows.
Oh well,all hobies cost money and it's better than blowing it in a bar or casino. I likes Pete's take on it in terms of cost per shot. Still a pretty cheap hobby.
I never really thought about it. Now that you got me thinking, I don't wanna think about it. Now what do you think about that? LOL
I'v ehad the same set for a fewyears now. If they can last that long, I got my money's worth. Same goes for target arrows.
mine come out to about 5.50 an arrow with field tip. but i have cut my old shot out targets to get my lost tips and when i break an arrow i reuse the tips. i am also shooting cedar shafts that i bought 10 years ago in a batch of 76.
i was just looking to see what materials cost now and figurred that the same set up at todays cost would be about 7.50 - 8.50. so it will be about 2.00 to 3.00 dollors per arrow more.
as far as time put in i consider it good relaxing work so i feel it comes out even.
Arrows are more important to shooting well than the bow is. If I don't think about the time and tools, I can make a pretty good field point arrow for about $4-5 at normal costs. Add to that the broadhead.
I've tried making arrows on the cheap, it ended up costing me.
$10-$15 material cost, but probably $25 with time
shaft, feathers, zwickey= 6.50. don't bother looking for it when i miss.
.21 cents for my Ramin shafts, .54 cents for the feathers, .12 cents or so for a nock, .36 cents for a field point and $1.60 for the eskimo two blades I bought years ago for $10/6.
With Field points = $1.23
With Broadheads = $2.10
As a class of archers we shunned the "compound" bow only to become manipulated into our current addiction to the "compound arrow", namely the carbon arrow with all of its attendant parts/pieces. Easton and others started this craze because (1) they needed a new product that they could charge more money for and (2) its just easier to make essentially 1-3 sizes of something and then sell a bunch of "parts" to help tune those three sized to each archers bow.
I refuse to drop a string with $8-$15 at risk of going over a cliff....but that's just me. Wooden arrows have been killing everything on all continents for a long time so I see no reason to change now. Plus, I look forward to sending them off of that cliff now!
I buy 3/8" birch dowels for .40, but would like to know where to buy ramin shafts for .21 and fir for 1.50. I have done the math before and they are cheap. I make broad heads out of old hay cycle teeth.
Funny you should ask this question...I was just thinking about it the other day because my broadhead choice is Abowyer and they are getting up there in price.
Add a CE 250 shaft with a brass insert and a steel broadhead adapter and you are talking about real money per shaft. Now that I know how much it cost per arrow, I'm going to stop thinking about it!
When I make my own they are priceless!! Due to the fact I can't put a price on feelings...LOL