Arrow Selection Guide

How to Select Arrows

Once you select your own Bow you will need Arrows to suit it and you.
See this Video of an Arrow Leaving a Bow to see why you need to get the arrow stiffness right.

First find out your draw length: This depends on your arm length and also on where you pullback to and anchor with you drawing hand.

Arrow Types.

There are arrows made of Fibreglass, Carbonfibre, Aluminium, Wood, and Aluminium/Carbon Composite.

Which one to choose? Here is a brief guide to what most people use and why.

Fibreglass: Robust but heavy: Will take a lot of knocks. Usually used at the Leisure end of archery.

Aluminium: Made from light weight tubing: These make a very good reliable and relatively easy to use arrow for shooting at the short and middle distances outdoors. Also these are used by most people for indoor shooting as they are strong, accurate and reasonably priced. There is a wide range of sizes available to suit almost all sizes of archer and strengths of bow. There are also different models at increasing price. You pay more for increasing hardness of the alloy and better straightness tolerances which in turn provides more accuracy. Aluminium arrows are the most popular place to start with your first bow and when you are shooting the shorter and medium distances.

Choices of Arrows in Aluminium:

Easton Neos : excellent entry level arrow: one diameter of shaft for all different lengths,
Easton Jazz and Tribute Models 75 Alloy: Better arrow : greater shaft hardness and selection of diameters for different lengths and stiffness.
Easton XX75 Platinum Model 75 Alloy: Better again: A favourite of many archers good hardness but still able to take some knocks without being too brittle.
Easton X7 Eclipse: Best Hardness and Straightness: The top aluminium arrow.
Easton X23 & RX7 : Big diameter arrows for getting higher scores for indoor competition

Once you are shooting 70m, 90mor 100 yards or more then you should probably think about Carbon Arrows .

Carbon Arrows and Carbon/Aluminium Composite: Light and Stiff with smaller diameter than just Aluminium, this means they go further plus have less side wind drift and the arrows are faster with less rise and fall on the way to the target. Carbon arrows can be a little less forgiving of archer errors and need tuning to the bow well to get good clearance. Used by most competitive archers shooting the outdoor distances . Carbon arrows start at the Entry Level and progress to better quality models right through the range to the top level models in Aluminium/Carbon Composites as are widely used in the World Championships and Olympic Games.

Choices of Arrows in Carbon and Carbon /Aluminium:

Easton Inspire 750: Leisure and Entry Level one diameter, one stiffness, Carbon Arrow.
Easton Apollo: Next Step Carbon Arrows in Several Diameters and Stiffness grades( called spine), good for target and field archery. Need to select size from chart .
Easton Carbon One : All Carbon Construction, Step up from the Apollo, in a selection of diameters and sizes with sophisticated components for fine tuning and customising to your needs. Excellent for target and field shooting. Need to select size from chart.
Easton ACC Aluminium/ Carbon Arrows: The Aluminium/Carbon Composite Arrows are the top end range by Easton the worlds top arrow maker. ACC are parallel carbon shafts on a fine Aluminium core and excellent for all distances. Choice of Stiffness and diameter. Need to select size from chart. These are a very popular high end arrow and perform very well.
Easton ACG Aluminium/ Carbon Arrows: Similar to the ACC, parallel arrow shaft using one core tube size, different thicknesses of carbon to provide different stiffness sizes.
Easton ACE Aluminium/ Carbon Arrows: In particular the Recurve Target Archers favourite top of the range arrows. Used for long distance and all outdoor shooting. The Shafts are tapered to the ends and come in a selection of sizes. See Charts. Big range of components.
Easton X10 & x10 Pro Tour Aluminium/ Carbon Arrows: Top of the range arrows; Designed for the optimum result at 70 meters and for Recurve and Compound Shooting.

Easton Triumph All Carbon Arrows; Big Diameter Arrow for indoor shooting. Limited range of sizes and stiffness only , to suit indoor shooting.

Easton FMJ Carbon/ Aluminium Arrows; Limited range for Heavy Draw Bows and Compounds, Carbon on the inside.
Easton Axis Carbon Shafts Traditional Wood look finish 5mm Shafts. For the traditional Bow Shooter

Wooden Arrows: Traditional for Longbow and for Traditional Archers Generally. Starts at the entry level wood arrows and then there is a selection of wood shafts matched to bow weight and arrow length which are available as for Aluminium and Carbon arrows. Widely used by Field Archers ,Longbow Archers, and Traditionalists.

Choices of Arrows with WoodenShafts:

Longshot Economy Wooden Arrows: Two sizes, Small Diameter 5/16 " for lighter weight pull bows ,and Larger diameter 11/32" for heavier weight pull bows. Good for Longbow, Field , Roving..... and as ammunition !
Longshot Wooden Field Arrows: Choice of Two Diameters and a range of Stiffness .
POC Premium Wooden Fletched Arrows: Nicely prepared and selected shafts for matched sets of wood arrows.
POC Elite Wooden Fletched Arrows: Top of the Range Selected Shafts for good arrow match made in sets of 6 or 12.
Longshot Flu Flu Wooden Arrows: Made to set off fast and slow down rapidly. Not usually used in competition shooting but rather for have a go situations, or to stop the arrow travelling any distance.

Comment : You should to make up some of your own wooden arrows to understand about arrows.

The satisfaction of making your own arrows as well as the lesson from making them is worth the effort

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Arrow Charts

The Easton Arrow Chart. Easton are the world leaders in competition arrow making. Eastons Chart covers all the Carbon , Aluminium, and Carbon/Aluminium Composite Arrows that Easton produce. It also is a guide to the stiffness needed to get your arrows to fly from your bow even for non Easton Arrows. This can be done by looking at the range of 'Spine' number for the arrow most likely to suit your bow and arrow length. Spine is a numerical stiffness measure which is applicable to all arrows.

For Wooden Arrows there is a different chart on the pages for the Wooden Arrows but the principle is the same.

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Using the Easton Arrow Chart

It is not as complicated as it first appears.

Example: You have a recurve bow with a weight of pull of 32 lbs at your arrow length of 26".

-Go to the Easton Chart where it is headed YOUR ARROW LENGTH FOR TARTGET.FIELD.3D
-Go along the top row to 26" and select that column
-Go down the right hand side to 32 lbs, to select that line
-See where Column and Line intersect at a box. In this case Box T2
-Now go to the Box T2 below where there are the Arrow Types ,

The T2 Box lists all the arrow types for you to choose from. If for example you want a good aluminium arrow like Platinum xx75, then the 75 alloy arrow size is shown as1716 for this T2 Box. So 1716 is the arrow size you need. You can choose any of the 75 Alloy arrows and they will suit your bow weight and arrow length. You can also see the size of arrow in other arrow types. If you wanted Carbon arrows, in the same T2 Box there are the sizes for each of the carbon arrow types that will suit your needs and be the equivalent to the 1716 75 Alloy arrow.

If you want further guidance please give us a call.

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