Who hunts with heavy woodies?What type wood are you using?Do you hunt from treestand or groundHunt with recurve or longbow.........Sorry got cabin fever.
My lightest are some 640-grain firs I have...my heaviest are some 850-grain hickories. I love 'em all and shoot from both stands and blinds....
I love heavy wood shafts, i like to do an oil soak for days on end in a homemade dip tube! My last attempt i used some KK German mountain pine shafting 65/70 spine! I cut/tapered and gave a light sanding and a hand straightening before putting the entire dozen into the pvc dip tube! Check daily topping off oil soak! After a wk of soaking, i take 'em out and dry 'em for a wk! i then do a few hand rubbed coats of urethane! My 30" shafts went from 450gr before soak to 525gr after, fletching and with a 160gr point i have about a 675-680gr finished arrow wt! Thats goin to be my hunting arrow for a while as ive made 3doz of them!!!
Oh yeah, i shoot these out of my #55 Bear Montana! Its a heavy arrow in that aspect, but the bow loves 'em, whisper quiet and zero shock! They hit like a truck!!!
my longbow piulls 47# at 25" and I shoot 525 grain lodgepole pine
I liked ash for my heavy wood arrows.
I generally hunt with 600-650 grain cedars that I get that way by soaking in Watco oil. Also have some original Sweetland forgewoods I still use, but I'm running out of those. I use this arrow weight for mid-50s bow weights. I consider them mid-weight arrows. A heavy arrow is 700-1000 grains, IMO.
I like my 850 gr hickories out of my 65# NightHawk on the ground or in a stand!
I have used Laminated Birch...725 Gr out of a 51# bow whisper silent!!
I have surwoods at 625gr and some cedars at 680 ish.
are you guys including broadhead weight on these or is it just the shaft itself?
Thanks,
Joe
I am sure any wood shaft, short of a Sweetland Forgewood shaft, that weighs 600+grs is with broadhead Joe. I shoot Surewood Shafts that are douglas fir and they weigh about 600grs with heads. That's in 80#-85# shafts. Wood is wood...so you can get a wide range of weights with each batch of shafts. So, if you are really trying to get as heavy a shaft as you can you should talk with who you buy them from and tell them this is your intension. But over all every batch of Surewoods in the spine weights I have bought have given me an arrow with around 10+ gpp as a finished arrow. Good hunting weight.
700+ Ash shafts 160grn point treestand & ground.
Got some Ramins thi year from Greg Sweeny tipped w/160gr Ace totaling 750gr. Really like the way they shoot & sharpen.
I have Alaskan hemlock forgewoods that easily get 850+ and they are 5/16
For 600-650 I use internal and or external footed poplar. For over 700gr I go with ash. For over 800gr I use hickory, maple, and a couple of exotics yellow heart, leopard wood. I turn my own shafts so I can use and experiment with a wide varity of woods.
Like Orion, I love the discontinued Forgewoods and use those left sparingly. Have shot ash too with good, hard - hitting results from 70# LB from trees and on the ground.
Years ago I had Don Brown make me a couple dozen arrows out of Forgwoods by Sweetland. Some of the old timers may remember when Don was going to buy out Sweetland in Oregon and moved up there and started making and selling arrows from Sweetlands stock of shafts. He ended up selling off their inventory of shafts and then bailing out, leaving Sweetland high and dry.
Anyway, I killed a few deer with those heavy shafts. They were 5/16 spined for 100#, I don't remember what they weighed but they were heavy. :eek: I remember I shot a raghorn buck from a tree stand, the arrow had a narrow 2bld Hunters Head, the bow was a 90# Hill style bow by Brian Pridgon (remember him?) The arrow went through the buck like he was a cardboard silhouette and burried so deep in the ground that it must have killed a dozen night crawlers. Talk about overkill.. :biglaugh:
QuoteOriginally posted by Ron LaClair:
Years ago I had Don Brown make me a couple dozen arrows out of Forgwoods by Sweetland. Some of the old timers may remember when Don was going to buy out Sweetland in Oregon and moved up there and started making and selling arrows from Sweetlands stock of shafts. He ended up selling off their inventory of shafts and then bailing out, leaving Sweetland high and dry.
Anyway, I killed a few deer with those heavy shafts. They were 5/16 spined for 100#, I don't remember what they weighed but they were heavy. :eek: I remember I shot a raghorn buck from a tree stand, the arrow had a narrow 2bld Hunters Head, the bow was a 90# Hill style bow by Brian Pridgon (remember him?) The arrow went through the buck like he was a cardboard silhouette and burried so deep in the ground that it must have killed a dozen night crawlers. Talk about overkill.. :biglaugh:
How were these Sweetland Forgewoods manufactured to give such a high density and weight?
QuoteHow were these Sweetland Forgewoods manufactured to give such a high density and weight?
Sweetland had some kind of "press" that compressed a larger dowel into a smaller dowel making a small 5/16th shaft but retaining the weight of the larger shaft.....something like that. :readit:
Jack Harrison describes the process in his book, "Traditional Bowyer, More Unnecessary Fun." Basically, Sweetland would start with billets about 36 inches long and about 1 1/4 inches thick on one end tapering to 5/8 inch on the other end. These billets were compressed under heat into 3/8-inch slabs. 3/8 inch square shafts were then cut from these and then doweled, providing a very dense, weight forward shaft. The end of the arrow shaft with the greater density was intended as the point end, providing greater strength immediately behind the point. Of course, it also increased the FOC of the arrow, but no one used that term back then. Of course, the other big advantages of compressed shafts were greater spine and weight in smaller diameter shafts.
Sweetland used other board dimensions as well to yield different levels of compression, spines, arrow diameters, etc. For exmple, I had some 11/32 shafts that tapered to 5/16 a while back that spined at well over 100 pounds and weighed about 800 grains per shaft. I also have some 9/32 shafts that are tapered to 1/4 inch that spine 50-55# and weigh about 475 grains. Still have a few 5/16 parallel shafts as well that spine about 65-70# and weigh about 520 grains, give or take a little. These are raw shaft weights, not arrow weights.
Harrison and a couple of buddies bought the equipment and moved it to Alaska several years ago. I believe Bill Sweetland provided some consultation on getting the equipment up and running. Their company, Alaska Pioneer Supply, I believe it was called, did produce shafts for a while out of Alaskan hemlock. (I think that was the wood species they used.) The business has been for sale for several years.
Who makes custom heavy wood arrows now? I watched a 3Rivers video where Don Thomas killed a Australian buff with a heavy wood arrow make from "IPE". Anyone know who makes these? just curious.
I have some Forgewoods that are 80#-85# spine weight with 160gr tips. They weigh 800 grains. At 20yds they hit the mark with a 5" higher adjustment because of being heavier.
Thanks Jerry for filling in the blanks. If I remember correctly Sweetland stopped making the compressed cedars because they ran out of the "old" cedar that they had always used.
I won a set of compressed elm arrows at a banquet several years ago. They were really heavy, and like Ron said, the penetration is ridiculous.
Duncan,
I dont believe anyone makes Ipe arrows. Ipe is seasonal at best at least out west. It is used in decking. As for arrows it is supposed to make good footings (I am looking forward to trying some). If ipe was used it was a special made set of arrows. Having said that if you can find yourself an good Ipe board with straight grain you may want to give Allegany Mtn Arrow woods a call. On their web page on arrow shaft materials they say call them and they will give you a quote on turning shafts from your material.
good luck
I sent a bunch of teak over to Bill at Allegheny Mountain Arrow Woods, and he turned them into shafts for me, and best of all the price was right. I ended up with 3 dozen shafts out of 70 pieces of square stock that I sent him (the grain was hard to read till they were turned into shafts). They are very heavy, about 800-850 grains and spine out from 75#-102#. With just clear gloss finish on them, they are extreamly beautiful.
When I was researching the arrow shaft business in the late '80's I visited Bill Sweetland to get some insight into his process. I was doing some experimenting with compressed wood at the time. Bill was a gracious host, taking in a stranger and giving me an afternoon of his time. We talked technical for hours, but his advice was that the process he used was just too expensive to be worthwhile. I was able to imitate his process with other woods and chemical additives using presses at the local university, but finally concluded that he was right. Too expensive, when natural wood does such a good job.
My arrows vary in weight with the draw weight I'm shooting, but I am most comfortable with 12-13 grains per pound of draw weight. I can handle 15, but that's the limit for me. I achieve those numbers with yellow poplar shafting and 160-190 grain broadheads.
One of the benefits the Forgewoods had that no "modern day" shaft will is they were heavier at the head. Who I guess you can sink some metal in the front of a wood shaft to achieve this today. But Mr. Sweetland used planks of POC that were wider at one end. Then when compressing them there was more wood, thus heavier, at one end. Weight forward shafts way before anyone thought of it with carbons!
Lots of things are possible with wood. I had some POC made up with 8 inches of Cocobolo footed to the front end, including the splice the entire front end was footed
(http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q291/bjornweb/Schafers/DSCN1470.jpg)
The hard part is you end up running out of spine unless you are shooting a bow with a minimal shelf.
The Sweetands had that problem solved; but for a limited market when carbons came along.
Thanks, Jack.
I use Surewood Fir shafts starting on the heavy side, then jump up 10 pounds or so in spine and load up the point using either the Internal Point Jig or Woody Weights.
Shot one deer last fall with a Snuffer tipped 730 grain Surewood (point was loaded to 250 grains) and penetration was fantastic! It's not too difficult to locate Surewoods in the 500 grain raw weight range if heavier finished arrows are needed.
Is anyone still producing a compressed shaft?
Nice topic. I have always used heavy shafting, usually with heavy bows, however, waning years have cost me in poundage, so now am down to 40-50 pound draw weight. Wonder of all wonders, I have found that the heavy shafting works just as well or better with a lighter draw weight as long as they are spined correctly. I currently favour ramin or hickory - usually around 700 - 750 grain, point included. As has already been detailed here, the shot is quiet and hits hard.
No compressed shafts being made today that I am aware of MarkE2006. Port Orford cedar was "the" wood to do this with because it has a high level of a chemical compound called lignin that under pressure and the amount of heat glues itself together. The lignin in the wood polymerizes and flows once this heat and force are applied to it. Cooling the compressed wood re-solidifies the lignin. Other woods just don't have this in quantities that are sufficient enough to do the job.
Anybody use maple???
I havent been able to find good maple lately but I still have 7 maple arrows out of a dozen I had made 10 yrs ago, they are 790 gr with 160 snuffers and are whisper quiet and blow through deer. Only use them out of the one bow and only to hunt with. I also have 8 IPE shafts I picked up from Allegany at Denton Hill 2 yrs ago but havent got around to making them into arrows yet. They are spined 70-75 and weigh 740 to 760. I have been looking at laminated maple lately and may give them a try this spring. I have played around with weight forward wood (woody weights) and I dont seem to get as good of flight with EFOC as with overall heavy wood, but thats just me.