My time has been consumed by trying to get my Trooper back on the road, but my mind is still in the archery game.  Always thinking about the upcoming hunt and how I want to put down an elk and a buck with one ethical quick kill shots on each of the animals.  For months now I have known I had to purchase some “higher quality” arrows for this hunt, some that are built straighter and more consistent than the ones I’ve been shooting at targets.  Don’t get me wrong, the ones I have been using are great, especially for how poorly I actually shoot, but I want to take a little of the fudge factor out of it for shooting at game animals.

Well, I finally went out and bought some Gold Tip Kinetic arrow shafts.  Just the shafts mind you as I wanted to put on my own fletchings.  The shafts come with inserts and nocks but no feathers.  They come in 30 inch lengths also and I had to have them cut down to my desired length.  Right now I know a lot of you are saying, “you need to tune them to your bow and cutting them down to a standard ‘what you think you need’ length won’t do that”….nuff said….My desired length is 28 1/2 inches.  So, I had the guys cut 3/4 inch off each end of the shafts.  Back home I rigged up the fletching device and started putting on the feathers.

A rather ‘busy’ looking picture, but I have found that 4 fletching my shafts gets my arrows stabilized quicker and they seem to fly better than 3 fletching.  I have chosen a parabolic shape to the feathers as well, only because someone said they would cause less wind deflection should the wind be blowing when I shoot.  I’m fine with that even though the more traditional look of shield shaped feathers are cooler looking.

And since I have chosen green as “my color” of choice in archery, I 4 fletched them alternate green and white.

Once the feathers were on the shafts I could glue the inserts in and let them dry.

The next day, I screwed on some field tips to 9 of the shafts and 3 of them were adorned with 125 grain “Badger” brand single bevel broad heads!  It is time to try these bad boys out.  My hopes were high as I headed to the field to fling them down range.  In the field the wind was blowing pretty hard but I decided I would shoot anyway.  At 25 yards, I shot my old trusty arrows first, just to get warmed up.  After 4 ends of 4 arrows, I figured I was as warmed up as I needed to be.

So, out came the newby arrows!

Those are pictures of ends one through four, all shot at the lower left circle.  As you can see, even though they are not all clustered together like a pro would have them, they are consistently low.  They actually weigh a slight more than my old arrows and so I will have to work on my aiming technique.  I really like the way they feel when they shoot.  They are much smaller in diameter than what I have been shooting and when I shoot the older arrows after shooting these skinny little guys, it feels like I’m shooting a broom stick.  Anyway, these are my “hunters”.  Speaking of hunters, I then decided it was time to try the broad head arrows out.  I have three with the Badgers on them and one with a field tip, all of which are in my home made quiver, you know the one with the spam can as the broad head end!

I gave them each a fling down range!

I have to admit to you that I did move up 5 yards and shot from 20 yards!  I am very pleased with this result.  Another thing about these single bevel broad heads is this, they twist in flight and continue twisting when they hit the target.  Each of these arrows went into the bale about 9 inches and when I pulled them out, the shafts turned nearly 1/2 a full twist!  What will that do to an animal?  I am extremely excited for the hunt now!  Not only do these arrows fly like darts, they will devastate what they hit.

So, if you are a new recurve bow shooter and are drawing about 45 pounds of draw weight and a 26 inch draw length, try my combo.  Gold Tip Kinetic arrows in 500 spine, cut to 28 1/2 inches and a 125 grain tip.  I’m not saying they will work as good for you as they do for me, but it sure is a good starting point.  You can refine things from there on.

Oh and by the way, I went with Weasel to shoot last night after it cooled down to 90 degrees.  I was rather pleased with my practice ends:

That was my first end at 25 yards!  Next is my second end.

We continued to shoot until we got wore out, but before we called it a day, I shot one end at 30 yards…the results?

They are still hanging around the bulls eye.  And then one last end to call it a day…back to 25 yards I went….

I’ll take that night of practice and call it good!  I’ve said it before, I’ll continue to say it….those critters are in trouble!

July 23, 2016

Bears Butt