You have probably read about my new arrows, Carbon Express Thunderstorms and how I shot them bare shaft (no fletchings) and how they went crazy wild and didn’t fly straight through the paper.  Well, Weasel and I went together and purchased a Bitzenburger fletching jig, then set up the jig to mount right helical feather fletchings to my new arrows.  It took me awhile to figure out this new jig and how to use it properly, but with a little adjustment here and there I managed to get all six arrows fletched up pretty good.  I’m sure I will learn more about how to do this as time goes on, but for now the feathers seem to stay on the arrow shafts pretty good.

Well, with working for a local nursery delivering plants to the Salt Lake City area and the weather, I haven’t had a chance to shoot my bow for over two weeks.  I don’t like not shooting my bow.  Well, last night, after getting off work a little earlier than usual, I went to the field to try out the newly fletched arrows.

These arrows come pre-vaned, with plastic vanes and they are all cut at 29 inches ready to shoot out of the box….They consider them youth arrows and we all know how youth are about getting new stuff and wanting to play with it until they break it.  I’m no different, but plastic vanes don’t shoot from my recurve bow and I had to wait until the feathers were on them before I could try and break them.

I put 100 grain tips on 3 of them and 125 grain tips on the other three.  This archery stuff is still new enough to me that I need to experiment with different things in order to see which works best for me and my bow.  I shot for a couple of hours and during that time I took a few pictures of some of my ends.  Of course I’m not going to show you the ones with the WIDE groupings.  To make this story shorter, I’ll show you the ends I shot and you decide what is good or bad.  To me, none of them are bad.  All shot at 20 yards and all shot with a canted bow, while I stood.

You are probably thinking, “there is always that one arrow that falls away from the rest of them”….Well, I can assure you that it isn’t always the same arrow that does that.  For some reason, I just have to have a “flyer” in each of my ends and it doesn’t matter if I’m shooting three arrows or thirty.  At least the bulk of them are falling into a group.

Well, I’m pretty happy with my new arrows.  I think they are a bit light weight for hunting and so I’ll still be looking for a heavier arrow for shooting at big game this fall.  For target shooting these are pretty good for being inexpensive arrows.  Also, as you can see, it doesn’t make much difference on 100 or 125 grain tips.  Soon, I’ll do a FOC on them and report it to you on Bears Butt Dot Com!  Every good arrow is FOCed.

Well, part of my shooting was to put on the broad heads that were so kindly donated to the Brigham Bowmen Club by the Badger Broad head company, and the Dirt Nap Broad head company.  I put one of each of them on my Warrior Arrows, and since I’m shooting right helical fletchings, I put on right bevel broad heads.

Right Bevel Badger!  Looks mean doesn’t it?  Two cutting edges.

Right Bevel Dirt Nap!  This little baby has two bleeder blades at 90 degrees to the two main cutting edges.  I’m not so sure I won’t change my mind before the hunt about these little guys.  I’ve been favoring the Badgers just because they look more traditional, but after shooting the Dirt Naps, that little bit of extra cutting surface does lend itself to more damage on the terminal end.

Well, I was pretty excited to give these guys a fling and here is the results!

To say I was surprised that both arrows hit the mark is an understatement!  I figured the first one was an accident but when the second one punched it as well, I felt like Robin Hood!  I took close up pictures of the cuts made by the broad heads and for sure you can see the extra cuts from the Dirt Nap broad head.

I didn’t realize until this morning that my picture angle was bad and only shows the one side of this Badger broad head cut.

Dirt Nap is sure showing it’s (4) mark here.

Another thing I noticed when I pulled the arrows out of the bale, they both had to turn as they were backed out.  Much like riflings make your cleaning rod turn when you are cleaning the gun.  I’m impressed!

So, folks don’t give up on me about my archery shooting.  I’m still trying to figure it all out and at the same time get better about hitting that target with every arrow.  At this point in my archery endeavor, I have to say a deer or elk is in some kind of serious trouble within 20 yards.  30 yards is too far for me right now, but I’m still practicing out that far and will continue to shoot even out to 40 yards and try to get my groups tight.

May 5, 2016

Bears Butt