Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Testing your newly built arrows before the hunt

This has been a long standing tradition for me. After they are cut fletched, wrapped, and assembled I field tip them and shoot at 20 and 35 yards. It's just standard practice. Once they all shoot at those two distances they have the field tips replaced and broad heads installed. Then into the quiver where they remain for the hunting season.

I was doing this last night when a friend of mine said why risk the flex and damage to the arrow for a couple practice shots?

In my experience, I have had a fletch that was not glued perfectly and it fluttered in the air upon release hitting about 6" lower then intended. I have also had an insert pull out of a 3D target leaving the field point and the insert inside.

So maybe the problems are that i am not a top line professional arrow assembly guy? I build about 3-4 dozen arrows a year, so this is a likely problem? However I have had pre-fletched arrows with inserts glued by a proshop to my length come apart as well. I've also had the fletching come off after a shot or 3 more then once

It's really pretty easy to test fire your hunting arrows for practice and then you have known functional well made arrows to hunt with. I don't agree that shooting them for practice or testing to verify is time wasting, or detrimental to them.

I like this idea - shooting them for confirmation once and put them away for the hunt.

Makes perfect sense to me. I'm always a proponent of non destructive testing of critical equipment. Beats the heck out of gut shooting an animal due to a undetected problem with an arrow.

I always shoot my hunting arrows several times before season. I first shoot them with field points, then switch to practice broadheads that are identical to my hunting broadheads (G5 Strikers). Finally I install the actual broadheads I'll hunt with and shoot them no more than twice with practice blades installed. At that point, I'm confident in my setup and I reinstall the unused hunting blades and go forth to kill stuff. This ritual is one reason I like replaceable-blade broadheads. It may not be the right way, but it has worked for 20 years.

Get properly spined arrows. Don't use a manufacturer spine chart because it's too generic. I personally use OT2 from pinwheel software for spine matching arrows to a particular set up. Run spine indexed arrows. That way you don't have to waste time nock tuning. Get your bow tuned by a knowledgeable tech. Nothing wrong with test firing arrows. But having everything else right allows more time for other things.

I shoot all of my intended hunting arrows (from distance) in lots of 1/2 dozen. The arrows that's fly true and have no issues are set aside and I continue to shoot the others to eliminate user error. It's not unusual (for me) to find a couple of arrows that just don't "act right". These go in the hog hunting pile.

Regardless of how you shoot your hunting arrows, number your arrows, I used to think this was just a for-score archer thing.

It's a heck of a lot easier to see if the "one" arrow is always the group breaker. Found several arrows over the last few years that were deflective in some way.

Yep, I have almost always , long as I can remember anyway, used a sharpy to number them. I write a number on the odd color fletch.

It's interesting after a while when you notice that pesky arrow number 4 is always to the left of the aim point about an inch further then the others. Without numbering them you don't realize it's always the same one!

I shoot all of the arrows i hunt with as well. It just makes sense to me. I shoot the broadheads i hunt with and replace the blades before the hunt. Kinda anal about that. If you take care of the little things prior to the hunt you are much less likely to have issues at the moment of truth.

Josh

I guess I never thought about not shooting them first, I don't think I would be comfortable with arrows that I haven't shot and verified. I also shoot them with the broadheads I'm going to be using, and then leave those broadheads with the arrow they were tested on. On most fixed blade broadheads its simple enough to remove and sharpen the blades after shooting them. I hate having little doubts in the back of my mind about my equipment, so for me the only way to feel comfortable is to know that the arrow/broadhead combo on my string will fly true and the only way I know to do that is to actually shoot them.

I have fletched all my own arrows for 30+ years.
I always test my hunting arrows by shooting them a couple times before they are used for hunting.

As simple (and probably obvious to most on here) as that recommendation is, I've never thought to do it. Will be numbering mine before I shoot some groups tomorrow. Thanks for the great tip.

And yes, I have always shot my arrows before hunting with them.

I'll shooot the arrows I will hunt with for a month or more with broadheads installed. Then resharpen the head when the season starts. Why wouldn't you shoot them?

I guess I'm either simple minded, hard headed or both. Can't imagine not being intimately familiar with my hunting equipment, but also can't wrap my brain around someone else tuning my bow.

It's quite easy actually. And as so many here have stated, it works. The trick is, all bows have a place where they shoot their absolute best. Where centershot needs to be set. What nock height they like best. Where they are at absolute peak efficiency. That's what I do. And most don't have the equipment or the time to do it themselves. My tuning also provides the absolute most forgiving setup for each bow. Meaning once it shoots a bareshaft perfectly, it makes it that much easier for the fletching to do their job. So slight form imperfections don't show up as much with arrow flight.

Well,

I'm not sure what kind of magic you do down there, but I can say when it gets up here it's as functionally accurate as it can mechanically be.

My consistency and groups sizes are so good, that my distance confidence is much further then ever before.

I'm not going to be shooting big game at 100 yards in my life time, but shooting to 35 is a chip shot! My groups to 50 yards are far better then my ability to shoot a handgun at that distance now as well.

My practice arrows i have shot all summer before season is the first arrows i use when hunting