Some people assume that their draw length is their arrow length. That's not
necessarily true and I'm going to show you why in a second here.
But a real simple, the way that you can pick the correct arrow length for you is...
I have just taken a blank arrow shaft here. This is one that we're gonna cut down
later. but what I did was I measured from the throat of the nock. That's gonna be
where the string sits against the nock and measured down. I know that my draw
length is 29 inches. So what I did was just take a silver sharpie and I started
marking off 28 inches, 28 and a quarter, 28 and a half
28 and 3/4, 29, 1/4, 1/2 , 3/4 , 30. So I went 1 inch short and 1 inch long and made all
those marks on this arrow just to illustrate how you can get different
arrow lengths that don't necessarily have to correspond with your draw length.
We're gonna take my Mathews Halon 32 that I'm hunting with this year and I'm
gonna use a safe draw. This is a device that will not allow the release to go
off. Like a lot of archers, I use a drop away rest that's mounted on the backside
of the riser and that's gonna be what allows us to have some variation in
arrow length. So you'll see when I come to full draw any one of those marks is
inside my rest. So I could have an arrow from anywhere from 28 inches on out and
you know 28 to 30 or I can go full length. So you saw where we drew back
where the different lines were inside. Any of them would work as I had said.
Starting with your 28 inch mark was about in here 28 and a half. 29 inches
was out at the front of the riser. So that's what I go with. I like to use a
fixed head broadhead so I know that if my arrow comes
to the front of the rise, my blade is out in front of that on my fixed heads.
So I never have to worry about a blade coming in contact with the riser or the
shelf. So if I wanted to go to if I was shooting expandables, they're gonna fit
inside this shelf easily no matter what and if I wanted to go back to 28 inches
I could do that with a expandable broadhead. Why would I do that? Well it
cuts down on arrow weight these arrows are eight point seven grains per inch.
Just by going from 29 inches back to 28 inches I just cut eight point seven
grains off. That's gonna give me a little more speed so but like I said I like to
use a fixed head broadhead and so I like to measure. I like my arrows to stop
right at the front of the riser so I'm gonna go with 29 inches for my arrow
length. So now that we have our our length, I need to determine what's the
correct spine for my setup. And your spine is determined by your bow weight,
the draw weight as well as your arrow length spine. What that refers to is how
much the arrow flexes. You can imagine a heavier draw weight bow puts more force
on the arrow and it's going to tend to flex more. So you would want a
stiffer arrow. Lower poundage bows they're gonna have not as much force so
you can have a less stiff spine. So whatever arrow manufacturer you use, they
have charts to help you match the correct spine with your bow. We shoot
Black Eagle arrows here. Black Eagle has an arrow chart. You can find almost all
the arrow charts in our Lancaster Archery Supply catalog and if I take a
look at my bow weight, which is about 68 69 pounds with a 29 inch arrow what I
come up with is a 300 spine. Now these charts assume a 100-grain point up front.
So some of you guys who like to use brass inserts you like 120, 550 grain
points to get a real heavy FOC on your arrow. You're gonna need a stiffer arrow
because a lot of weight up front. What that does is it weakens the spine.
So like we said the charts assume 100-grain point if you have extra up front you may
have to go to the next stiffer spine to account for that extra weight. So one of
the things that we see guys want to do is they pick a particular arrow and for
whatever reason they decide that maybe it's too slow. They want to get some more
speed and so they make a common mistake that we see frequently at Lancaster Archery.
So this is the Rampage 300. It weighs 8.7 grains per inch. So we'll see
guys who want to cut weight to get more arrow speed and they'll simply choose...
they'll simply look at like the next spine down which would be a Rampage 400.
Now that arrow weighs 7 grains per inch. Yes that is a lighter arrow but you
don't want to change the spine. Stay with the spine recommendation on your chart.
A weaker arrow even though it's lighter will cause you other problems. You don't
want to have a weak arrow coming out of there. So if you want to play with the
arrow weight the way to do that is to just pick different arrows. I have three
Black Eagle arrows here. All of them are 300 spine. The X Impact up front is 8.1
grains per inch. As we said the Rampage is 8.7. Deep Impact is 11 grains per inch.
So you can see there how you can play with the arrow weight without changing
the spine and why would you want to do that. Well let's say you're hunting out
west. You're hunting antelope. You're gonna plan on maybe you will have shots
50 or 60 yards. Maybe you want a light fast arrow so you might choose the X Impact.
You're hunting elk or moose and you're worried about penetration you could
choose the Deep Impact. That's going to give you overall a heavy arrow that's
gonna have great penetration. Well thanks for watching. We sure appreciate it. If
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