First Pass At Bolt Building

[longbow joe]

Congrats arrow building is a lot of fun .I really enjoy building arrows for my longbows complete with all the cresting and goodies. Im surprised your getting satisfactory flight with only 100 grain point i have used 2219s for years with 125 grain spitfires and the foc with a 125 grain spitfire is at minimum in my tests. And when you add a lighted nock with extra weight in the rear it gets worse..when excalibur sold 2216s and 2219s before the carbon arrow days they always recomended a 150 grain point up front for this reason. I switched to 2216s from 2219s which have a lower gpi and then go with a 125 grain head but i put an extra insert up front with a shaved off shoulder giving the xtra 25 grains .you will see a major accuracy increase with a simple change to a 2216 lighter gpi shaft and heavier weight up front. Your gonna loose some of the weight you shaved off from the heavier 2219 shaft n move it up front. Everyone thinks these zombies are the best thing since sliced bread but the real reason they get such good acuracy is the 80 grain heavy insert up front.make up a few 2216s with the standard insert and a 150 grain practice head n you will see what im talking about. Its just a shame there arnt a lot of 150 grain broadheads out there the extra insert would be unnessary. Horton used to sell brass inserts for alluminum arrows there hard to find .i have not found brass insert to properly fit a 2216 or a 2219 shaft

[drkeenan]

Congrats arrow building is a lot of fun .I really enjoy building arrows for my longbows complete with all the cresting and goodies. Im surprised your getting satisfactory flight with only 100 grain point i have used 2219s for years with 125 grain spitfires and the foc with a 125 grain spitfire is at minimum in my tests. And when you add a lighted nock with extra weight in the rear it gets worse..when excalibur sold 2216s and 2219s before the carbon arrow days they always recomended a 150 grain point up front for this reason. I switched to 2216s from 2219s which have a lower gpi and then go with a 125 grain head but i put an extra insert up front with a shaved off shoulder giving the xtra 25 grains .you will see a major accuracy increase with a simple change to a 2216 lighter gpi shaft and heavier weight up front. Your gonna loose some of the weight you shaved off from the heavier 2219 shaft n move it up front. Everyone thinks these zombies are the best thing since sliced bread but the real reason they get such good acuracy is the 80 grain heavy insert up front.make up a few 2216s with the standard insert and a 150 grain practice head n you will see what im talking about. Its just a shame there arnt a lot of 150 grain broadheads out there the extra insert would be unnessary. Horton used to sell brass inserts for alluminum arrows there hard to find .i have not found brass insert to properly fit a 2216 or a 2219 shaft

I haven't shot them yet. Gonna hunt in the morning and then try sighting in with this configuration. If necessary I'll use 150 grain field points to see if accuracy improves. If it does I'll just have to splurge on some NAP FOC Broadheads to add another 20 grains to the front.

We'll see but I'm betting that figuring it out will be fun!!!!

[longbow joe]

ITs a great time in the winter to experiment with new setups i even tried the new nap twisters . (The hot water boil ons) and cant say anything bad about them i get great longer range groups and so far have stayed tight on the aluminum shaft as well.I found the boil ons hard to swallow having all the fletchers n stuff but i guess you got to be willing to experiment.I tried to no like them but it didnt work .lol happy new year . Lbj

[hankenhunter]

Nice work. Looking foreward to seeing your results. I'm betting you're going to see a substantial increase in accuracy using 150 grns. combined with helical blazers. It's especially noticeable in windy conditions. Happy New Year.
Hank

[nchunterkw]

Congrats arrow building is a lot of fun .I really enjoy building arrows for my longbows complete with all the cresting and goodies. Im surprised your getting satisfactory flight with only 100 grain point i have used 2219s for years with 125 grain spitfires and the foc with a 125 grain spitfire is at minimum in my tests. And when you add a lighted nock with extra weight in the rear it gets worse..when excalibur sold 2216s and 2219s before the carbon arrow days they always recomended a 150 grain point up front for this reason. I switched to 2216s from 2219s which have a lower gpi and then go with a 125 grain head but i put an extra insert up front with a shaved off shoulder giving the xtra 25 grains .you will see a major accuracy increase with a simple change to a 2216 lighter gpi shaft and heavier weight up front. Your gonna loose some of the weight you shaved off from the heavier 2219 shaft n move it up front. Everyone thinks these zombies are the best thing since sliced bread but the real reason they get such good acuracy is the 80 grain heavy insert up front.make up a few 2216s with the standard insert and a 150 grain practice head n you will see what im talking about. Its just a shame there arnt a lot of 150 grain broadheads out there the extra insert would be unnessary. Horton used to sell brass inserts for alluminum arrows there hard to find .i have not found brass insert to properly fit a 2216 or a 2219 shaft

The Zombies and Executioners fly so well because of the stiffness....

Dr did you do anything to find the spine on these? Not how much spine, but where it is so you can fletch each one the same so they come off the rail the same. That will give you a big increase in accuracy as well. I would be interested to see how well these fly for you as your FOC does not seem like it will be too high. The inserts and nocks weigh about the same, so all your FOC will come from the point you use. If 100ge doesn't fly great try 125s, 150s, etc. Then you can slowly dial it in. But a heavier wt. up front may cause a little more flex in the shaft depending on how stiff they are so there might be a point of diminishing return by increasing FOC. Have fun tinkering and great first job!!

[wabi]

When I bought my first Excalibur arrow options were 2213, 2216, & 2219.
No carbons, no special 150gr points, and no such thing as FOC on people's minds.
Guess what! A 2213, 2216, or 2219 with aluminum inserts and 100 gr points were accurate! Robin-hoods were common with those old arrows with terrible FOC.

I still use them (2216s now) and still don't shoot 2 at the same target unless I feel like making more.

My suggestion is screw in whatever points you are using now and try them out. Don't measure FOC, don't worry about the inserts, don't run out and buy 150 gr points, just shoot a group of 5 arrows while aiming at the same mark on the target and see how many are undamaged when you are done.

[nchunterkw]

When I bought my first Excalibur arrow options were 2213, 2216, & 2219.
No carbons, no special 150gr points, and no such thing as FOC on people's minds.
Guess what! A 2213, 2216, or 2219 with aluminum inserts and 100 gr points were accurate! Robin-hoods were common with those old arrows with terrible FOC.

I still use them (2216s now) and still don't shoot 2 at the same target unless I feel like making more.

My suggestion is screw in whatever points you are using now and try them out. Don't measure FOC, don't worry about the inserts, don't run out and buy 150 gr points, just shoot a group of 5 arrows while aiming at the same mark on the target and see how many are undamaged when you are done.

Bows were also slower and more forgiving. Not saying they won't work, but as speed goes up, everything gets much less forgiving. Also as arrows get shorter - things get less forgiving. FOC usually helps but of course is not the be all end all to accuracy.

[longbow joe]

Hes shooting a matrix 330 not a 405 . I really dought a 2216 is not going to have enough spine . Fletching placed as far back as reasonably possible will almost always give you best accuracy ,especially in a short crossbow bolt. I totally agree with wabi but at 50 yards you will see a defined difference in your groups with a slightly higher foc especially adding a little wind in the equasion at 30 yards almost any heads gonna be ok.

[xcaliber]

Nice work, you can only go up from here!

[Michiganhunter]

Great job!! nice looking bolts /arrows.
Been making my own arrows since the late 60's. I have stayed with aluminum after trying wood, fiberglass and carbon for a few years. I make and use 2216 XX75 Easton shafts for my current 380 Matrix and love them. I personally cannot find a reason to use anything but aluminum. I don't worry about carbon fibers in any of the game I may shoot the aluminum holds up very well in terms of straightness and some of my shafts have hundreds of shots on them from my Exomax and now 380 with no issues. Speed and accuracy are as good and better as any other material and the price of aluminum shafts is hard to pass up. Moving up to carbons? I don't see that as a move up myself but different strokes for different folks..lol

[drkeenan]

When I bought my first Excalibur arrow options were 2213, 2216, & 2219.
No carbons, no special 150gr points, and no such thing as FOC on people's minds.
Guess what! A 2213, 2216, or 2219 with aluminum inserts and 100 gr points were accurate! Robin-hoods were common with those old arrows with terrible FOC.

I still use them (2216s now) and still don't shoot 2 at the same target unless I feel like making more.

My suggestion is screw in whatever points you are using now and try them out. Don't measure FOC, don't worry about the inserts, don't run out and buy 150 gr points, just shoot a group of 5 arrows while aiming at the same mark on the target and see how many are undamaged when you are done.

Thanks Wabi. I followed your advice and screwed in 100 grain points and after only one adjustment for height, this is my first group at 20 yds.. Certainly accurate enough for the hunting I do. (90% of my shots are 20yds of less)

I will fine tune windage and test again.

On a sad note, my brand new lumenoks don't work. I've used lumenoks before with carbon bolts and had no trouble. IS there something different I need to do with aluminum? Or could tha fact that I didn't use a bore brush as Boo suggested effected performance??

[HIGHBOW]

Nice group! I use to build all my own arrows when I shot compound and made the dumb mistake of selling everything when I got my shoulder hurt. I use to enjoy the whole deal of building my own, the only item I kept was my scales and they may come in handy now.

[Boo]

The bore brush is to get rid of any lose material that you find lots of in carbon shafts.
I think your main problem with the Luminoks is that you need to square your shaft at the nock.

[newbie]

Do the luminoks work outside the shafts? Batteries good?

[drkeenan]

The bore brush is to get rid of any lose material that you find lots of in carbon shafts.
I think your main problem with the Luminoks is that you need to square your shaft at the nock.

Lumenok mystery solved. I had 1 bad battery and the fit on the other two were so snug that tiny shards of plastic were being shaved off the nock by the ID of the aluminum shaft on compression and pressed between the shaft and the nock shoulder. This prevented proper contact. I just removed the plastic with an razor blade and repeated compression several times until no more plastic was being shaved. They now light well.

Anyone have thoughts on how to knock off the sharp edge of ID to prevent in the future?