Much has been written lately about FOC, footing arrows, tuning, Ect....Several manufactures have been playing with potential ways to easily and cheaply foot arrows without much success. With Doc Ashby we've been playing with a method that works very well.
A few things we're looking for in an arrow. One is high FOC. Another is structural integrity. Many of the ways folks have been footing shafts is external sleeves. They no doubt help but increasing the shaft diameter is not ideal plus all it's doing is moving the weak spot behind the insert further down the shaft. Internal tubing, wood, fiberglass, ect...Again moves the weak spot to another spot. They may be better but not ideal.
Here are the parts:
Start with your shafts and brass inserts the weight you want. Aluminum inserts in a frontal hit can mushroom and deform. Brass is not as prone to do that.
The footing....Is 1/4" oak dowel you can get at most hardware stores. Make it about 7" long. The front 3" needs to fit your shafts perfectly inside. If too big it can be chucked up in a drill and sanded and doing so in a drill press with a sanding block works very well.
The remaining taper to about 1/8" in a parabolic taper, not a straight taper. Only the front 3" is glued in the shaft. What the parabolic taper does is as the shaft begins to bend from a hard angled hit, the shaft begins to contact the footing, the more it bends, the more contact is made. This spreads out the forces over a distance over time totally eliminating the typical weak spot behind inserts and other footing methods.
3" is the minimum for the parallel front section. This will keep from shoving the insert/footing back into the shaft on solid frontal hits. More then 3" could be used and more then 7" total length, just depends on if you want to increase spine and or get more weight up front.
Rough up the inside 4-5" of the shafts and swab out the dust. Smear epoxy on the 3" parallel part of the footing, slide it in almost flush with the shaft end. Slobber up the insert with epoxy and use it to push the footing into the shaft. If you push the footing in aways before the insert, you'll have an air pocket that will just push the footing too deep and leave a gap. At this time set it aside point down to cure.
Oak works well, I'm sure other woods and other materials like fiberglass or carbon will work just as well, maybe better. The oak inserts will weight about 60 grains and it's a good idea to adjust them so they are all the same. Carbon would be about 160 grains and glass a bit more.
With this footing, 100 grain inserts, 125 adapters, and 160+ grain heads, we're getting FOC's upwards of 25-30%. We've put brass, steel, or tungsten slugs, 1-2" long between the insert and the footing for some serious FOC. This also works with aluminum arrows. The 7" footing does not change the static spine but footings with longer parallel sections will.
Don't ask for "recipes" for given arrow/bow combinations, there are just too many possiblities. Have fun!
....O.L.
Topic: The perfect arrow (Read 6751 times)
