# Tips to building a better long distance arrow



## Kevin2 (Apr 1, 2009)

I want to shoot 100 yards a bit more seriously this year & I figure building an arrow better suited for that distance would be a good place to start.

My bows are set at 58 & 63lbs now. My current arrows are cut 28", carbon to carbon, Gold Tip XT Hunters 5575. I shoot mostly for fun & to prepare for Deer Season/s. Our club has a great 3D course, and we have a range indoors and out. I shoot 99% of the time out at the 60-80 yard range. 

Just looking to get some tips on what would make for a really good 100 yard arrow. I was considering the Black Eagle X Impacts to help with the wind, but that is as far as I've gotten. I don't know how heavy to build them. 

The arrows are so expensive that I can't afford to make a mistake! 

Just looking for some input to get me off to a good start.


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## aread (Dec 25, 2009)

The main thing is to match your arrows as perfectly as possible. Weight , spine alignment & nock tuning. Then cull by numbering them and shooting groups at your maximum distance to find any that don't want to play with the group. Shoot them and keep track over a couple of weeks and you will know if you have any bad arrows. Then rebuild those and see if you can get them to shoot the same as the others. Sometimes, an individual arrow just won't make the grade, even among the more expensive arrows.

There are a lot of steps that the more obsessive compulsive go through such as float testing, filing points to the same weight, weighing every vane and nock, etc. I tried all of these things but found that going to extremes didn't add point to my scores. I was better off working on my form.

Many of the better shooters build their arrows to within 1/10 grain. Unless you are ready for the pro ranks, at 100 yards, 2 or 3 grains won't make much difference. Better is better, but there is a point of diminishing returns.

If you really want to put a lot of effort into it, select 3 arrows from your dozen. Build and test them as perfectly as possible. Then shoot those 3 for score at 100 yards. Keep track for a week, then trim the arrow by 1/4". Shoot them for score for another week. Repeat as long as your scores get better. At some point, your scores will begin to get worse. Then you will know the best length for that arrow shot from that bow. Note, the rule that if you change anything, you change everything applies to this procedure, so it's only valuable to those who are not testing DL, DW, etc. As I mentioned, this is a lot of work, but you are shooting your bow a lot


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## b0w_bender (Apr 30, 2006)

aread said:


> The main thing is to match your arrows as perfectly as possible. Weight , spine alignment & nock tuning. Then cull by numbering them and shooting groups at your maximum distance to find any that don't want to play with the group. Shoot them and keep track over a couple of weeks and you will know if you have any bad arrows. Then rebuild those and see if you can get them to shoot the same as the others. Sometimes, an individual arrow just won't make the grade, even among the more expensive arrows.
> 
> There are a lot of steps that the more obsessive compulsive go through such as float testing, filing points to the same weight, weighing every vane and nock, etc. I tried all of these things but found that going to extremes didn't add point to my scores. I was better off working on my form.
> 
> ...


I think that is good advise. 
Generally speaking the Olympians are the folks on the cutting edge of long distance shooting. They are shooting 70 meters or further in every competition so they are looking to maximize long distance shooting. The smaller the diameter arrow the better. Also heavier tips tend to keep the arrow on plane better against the wind. This heavier point also helps keep the arrow speed up over long distances. The super small diameters shafts tend to make the arrows lighter so you need to find some weight somewhere. Really light arrows loose speed to friction far faster so they tend to die and fall at a sharper angle at longer distances. It's this reason that the FOC tends to be really high on the Oly setups. 

You mention that you are also a hunter, getting the best possible arrow to flight at 100 yards is not necessarily a benefit to your hunting rig. I'm hoping that it isn't practice for hunting. This is going to sound a pit preachy so sorry in advance. I am far more impressed by a bowhunter who brags about how close he got than one who brags about how long the shot was. Now shooting at 90 meters is awesome practice and can really improve your archery skills please just do that as a practice exercise though.


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## Strodav (Apr 25, 2012)

I have been shooting Easton ACEs ($289 / dz) for years but switched to Black Eagle X-Impacts ($169 / dz) last fall and have found them to work as well as ACEs and they are a tougher. I check the shafts on a Ram Products spine tester, square both ends, add pin nock bushings and pin nocks, fletch, then weigh and match with glue in points. I file my points to get them all to within 0.1gr of each other. I do make sure they hit together with a home made hooter shooter. I might find one or two out of a dozen that I mark and put in the back of my quiver because they are a bit out. I'm sure it's overkill, but I can guarantee lost points are my problem, not my equipment.

Perhaps a more important factor is tuning your bow to your arrows. Need to start by picking as close to optimal spine shaft and cutting it to the right length as possible. I make up my arrows and keep 2 as bareshafts. I weight the back end with wraps so they are within a grain of my fletched arrows. I bareshaft paper tune at 5ft. Once I'm shooting bullets there, I move out to 10yds, once I'm shooting bullets there I check bareshaft and fletched at 20 yds and tweak until they hit together and the bareshaft hits the target at 90 degrees. That gets me 95% of the way there. After that I put a horizontal line (piece of tape) on a target at 40 or 50 yds. I'll shoot a few arrows pulling lightly into the stops and a few arrows pulling heavily into the stops. If I'm not happy with the results, I'll creep tune.

Picking and building good arrows and tuning the bow for them is not as important as good form. I hit a plateau of somewhere around 510 points on the NFAA 28 stage field course. I found a good coach, who helped me with my form and moved me to a hinge, which moved my better scores into the 520s in bowhunter class. I am still improving with practice, practice, and more practice.


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## Kevin2 (Apr 1, 2009)

*This is just for shooting at the club at long distances. I shot my deer last year at 14 yards. Straight threw the heart. Dropped the deer inside 50 yards. *

I shot one arrow hunting last year, so target archery at the club is where nearly 100% of my arrows get shot. Been shooting for 43 years, so target archery inside 50 yards got very boring a long time ago to me.

For what it is worth, there are places that you hunt where shots only come at long distances. For those that do such hunting, practicing for such long distance hunting is not wrong. *To me, if you are practicing for said long distance hunting & you can make the shot WHEN it comes time, then more power to you.*



b0w_bender said:


> You mention that you are also a hunter, getting the best possible arrow to flight at 100 yards is not necessarily a benefit to your hunting rig. I'm hoping that it isn't practice for hunting. This is going to sound a pit preachy so sorry in advance. I am far more impressed by a bowhunter who brags about how close he got than one who brags about how long the shot was. Now shooting at 90 meters is awesome practice and can really improve your archery skills please just do that as a practice exercise though.


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