During the last few weeks I have been playing a lot with bow speeds and Kinetic Energy (KE) on my hunting bow. How much do you need, what does certain fletches do and changes to configuration of arrow FOC and weights, etc, etc, etc… So this morning I thought I should check to see how much energy an arrow loses on a typical flight in a hunt.
This was in no way an extensive test, but interesting nonetheless…
Arrow: GoldTip Pierce 340
Fletches: VaneTech HP
Arrow Weight: 410gr
Bow: Bowtech Prodigy, 70lbs at 30″DL
Shooting the Arrow through a Chrono at point blank range, I hit a solid 300fps consistently which would give me 82ft-lbs of KE
Moving to 20yds, a typical hunting distance, my speed dropped to 292fps. So in effect, my Kinetic Energy has dropped to 77.6 ft-lbs.
So in 20yds, I have lost just a bit more than 4ft-lbs of KE. which simply tells me one thing:
Having a bow that shoots straight is a definite bonus! Anything that causes drag will rob Kinetic Energy and momentum from you. Not the end of the world if you carry a lot of KE to start off with, but definitely could become a problem if you are shooting on the lower limits!
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