Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Heavy wood arrows?

Well said and all true. Especially about the light bows working just fine after destroying your shoulders. 😆

Brinky, we may be in the same boat, my Toelke Montana Whip longbow draws around 70 lbs at 31 inches, our old dear departed friend here Ron LaClair set me up with a buddy of his that makes heavy wood arrows, that Gent sent me some test arrows at differing spines to shoot before he built.

The arrow i settled on mic's at .365" diameter, is 33 inches long at practice tip end and weighs 695 grains, they shoot great at 189 fps from my bow, i shoot 160gr ACE heads, leave me a ship too address and i'll send you those three arrows, hopefully one of the three will be what you're looking for, then you can have a couple dozen made.

Checkout stickbow.com forums some of those guys shoot 100# english longbows.
They can help forsure.

I had some surewoods that spined in 80/85. I’d check with Surewoods.

With that heavy of a broadhead you’re wanting to shoot and the long draw, finding wood shafts stiff enough is going to be a challenge but they’re out there. Good luck

Thanks for the advice and information. My bow was built by Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows. Yep a recurve built by a longbow guy. Begs the question and yeah he said it was a longbow-ish recurve. Birdseye maple and black walnut and it’s a center cut window. I’m going to do some research on all that everyone mentioned and if all else fails I’ll call Steve Turay. It dawned on me that he shoots heavy old English longbows with trad equipment and he has about the same draw length.

I called up Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows. Funny, he remembers building the bow and all the details from twenty years ago. Had a nice conversation about the bow, arrows and everything else in general. Great guy. He’s now down in Raemer Alabama for any of you guys down that way he builds beautiful longbows. At any rate he told me (like many of you) to go with surewood arrows and get some heavy spines Doug fir shafts. Avoid ash unless you know what you’re looking for and can hand sort them yourself. He shoots some pretty heavy stuff and his daily driver is an #86 longbow and he makes his own arrows using Doug fir shafts. I told him that I had picked up the bow again and was getting back into it after a little hiatus. I shot the heck out of it when I first bought it and hunted almost exclusively with it. Life got busy and as you all know, if you can’t dedicate the time shooting a trad bow or any bow you shouldn’t take it afield shooting animals. Currently I’m getting close to retirement and my time has become more available for shooting and relearning all the tuning and tweaking that goes along with it. I’ve always appreciated the traditional aspect of archery and as Steve said “carbon arrows are great from all angles but, they have no soul.” That’s pretty much where I’m at with them. So, now with a little extra time I’m going to get a Bitzenberger, and all the fun gear and start working on some arrows. Thanks for the input.

With that, I'd order up the heaviest spine shafts Surewood has and go from there. If they're too weak with the heavier points, you can always back off point weight until they shoot good for you. You can also use a thicker arrow plate to reduce the center shot which will accommodate a weaker spine.

That’s my plan. I’m going to contact them directly and see what they recommend. There’s people who shoot much heavier bows than I do with wood arrows. I’m certain that they will have a solution.

Its been years since I shot a bow due to my neck and back but back when I did I made a lot of european Flat bows as described By the Traditional Boyers Books.
Made them from Hickory treas I cut down on the farm.

I also used arrows thathat I made out of Hickory split from the same tree that I cut for the stave,split a piece about 30 inches long, basicaley got them into sorta square then I used Knife and a farriers rasp to work the 4 edges to 8 edges and then did the same procedure till I had 16 edges which is round for all practical purposes
Then Used sandpaper to get then real smooth.shaft ended up about 3/4 inch

Then I straightened them using crisco rubbed all over the shaft an held the shaft up to a propand 3 burner wall heater by using my knee to bend them till the were straight and remained straight.

Then I took a chainsaw file I filed a self notch into one end of the shaft for the bowstring(maded from Dacron B-50 flemish twisted). to fit into.

Then I used a sharp knife and some sandpaper to cut the taper on the other end of the shaft to a taper to accept the glue on broad head (either a 2 blade Zwickey Eskimo or Bear Broadhead with the inserts for a 4 blade)

Then I would use Turkey feathers and glue on 3 feathers in a slight Helical pattern and then put the broadhead on using glue.
Spin the arrow on a table to make sure there was no wobble ,if there was wobble I would heat the broadhead with a cigarette lighter and move it slightly and do the spin test again till I got it spinning straight with no wobble.

Rubbed on a little stain and after it dried I rubbed on some johnson paste wax for waterproofing and rubbed my bows with it as well for the same purpose.

Arrows ended up being a tad less than 3/4 inch and weighing about 750 grains complete with Broadhead and about 27 inches long as I release the arrow as soon as my middle finger touches my lip using a 2 fingers below and one finger above the arrow bare handed.

I experimented some and came to the conclusion thet a like a bow of 50 to 55 pound pull weight about 68 inches Long ,strung at about 6.5 to 7.5 brace height that works some in the handle and close to 2 inches wide at mid limb tapering gracefully to the ends.
Normally has 2.5 to 3 inches of string follow which for me makes for an easier shooting bow and a silent bow.


The Bowyers Bibles are some wonderfull Book's for anyone that is interested in making Traditional bow's, arrows
strings,horn bow's etc

Good stuff! I started my bow making with selfbows from Yew in the early '90's but also did some sinew backed Osage flatbows. I then turned to laminated bows which have been my focus since. I've been getting the bug to simplify things and do another selfbow and have a pair of Yew billets ready to go.

This is the last one I made over 30 years ago. I haven't shot it for years because I can no longer pull it. I need to work it down to a lower draw weight and refinish it. I climbed a mountain, cut the tree, packed it out, split it into billets and aged it for several years before starting on it. I ended up with one good bow for the effort. It's 67" and over 60 lbs now. I need to get it in the 50-55 lb range...

I would recommend that you contact someone who makes wood arrows. Give them the bow specs and see what they say. There was a time when I shot compressed and tapered cedars but they are long gone. Ash and hickory are tough and heavy but need a bit more straightening.

RMS comes to mind more so than someone like 3Rivers.
Check out Tradgang.com as well. Those guys will be more likely to have that knowledge base.

I'm confused how 58#@28" = 72#@31". I'm certainly not casting any shade, but typically one gains +/- 2.5# per inch. It should be about 65.5#. Have you put your bow on a scale? Unless your bow has some serious stacking. How short is it?