Training Notes: Out of Ammo

As it stands, with my recent change in arrow spine, I have a grand total of three arrows plus two bare shafts. I think it's time to place another order for more arrows.

Now I normally wouldn't bother to tell the world that I'm ordering more arrows but it got me thinking about some larger picture issues that I think are worth the discussion. Whenever the time to order new consumables (arrows, nocks, strings, etc.) rolls around, I believe we all pause and consider switching to new gear. It's awfully easy to justify it with the words "...well I need it them anyway". So for me in this case I had to consider if I was going to make a switch from aluminum to carbon (or carbon/aluminum) shafts.

Easton Platinum Plus xx75

To this point I've been shooting the venerable Easton Platinum Plus xx75 aluminum shaft (1813s and then 1816s... and for those of you keeping score at home that's not a spine designation; it's an industry designation for shaft dimensions... their spine ratings are 0.874 and 0.756 resp
ectively). I chose this shaft because it's/I'm cheap and I've been moving around the board in terms of draw weight so there was no sense in forking over X10 level money (X10s run as much as my bow costs). However, now that I am at a weight I have no intention of changing weight for the next six months to a year I could theoretically entertain the idea of more expensive carbon fiber shafts. Not X10s but a nice set of Carbon Express Medallion XRs wouldn't be out of the ball park.

There are certainly merits to switching but ultimately I've decided to stick with the aluminum shafts. Carbon fiber can do great things. At almost half the weight of an aluminum shaft, an archer using a bow with a lower draw weight can more effectively shoot at distance due to increased speed. Having a lower profile, the arrow will experience reduced wind drift. And being constructed of a non-malleable material the arrow will (almost) never take a "set bend".

I don't even need hunting arrows and this makes me want to try them.

However, as alluring as all these things are; we can never forget that skilled archers were (and continue to) shoot competitive scores with out carbon fiber. Unfortunately, we as human beings often forget or get lost in the marketing jungle and assume that we just cannot live with out the latest and greatest whiz-bag and giggle-pop. As good as modern technology may be, never forget we were killing deer long before we broke the 300fps barrier; we were shooting perfect 300/60x scores before carbon fiber, and the laws of physics have not changed so we will continue to be able to do these things long into the future.