Written By - Brad Swadley - 08/27/2007
Link to Original Article here

Let loose the arrow. Thats the plan for Africa. But before that, decisions have to be made. The Mathews ProStaff representative at my local archery shop asked about the situations I might encounter over there.

The talk ranged from the types of animals I might take to the types of equipment needed to handle those animals. Bow draw weight, arrow size and broadhead weight and style were also topics we discussed.

His suggestion was to try out the Beman 300 ICS Hunter Elite carbon arrow, tipped with Shuttle TLocs. The Bemans weigh in at 9.5 grains per inch. With the added weight of the vanes, nock, insert and 125 grain broadhead, that would put my total arrow weight at about 440 grains. The Carbon Express Terminator 2075 I used previously was a lighter arrow, so the extra weight would give more kinetic energy. I decided to give them a try.

The initial group of three arrows was fitted with regular vanes just to see how they would shoot on my Mathews LX. With these in hand, I headed over to my friends place near Cooper Texas to try them out on his broadhead target. The arrows performed well, and I was very pleased with the initial results at 20 â€\" 30 yards. Since the Bemans were a little heavier than the Carbon Express, there was a bit of sight adjustment needed to dial them in. Unfortunately, one arrow was lost to the “grass fairy” while trying to tune in. It’s amazing how something as large as an arrow can wedge itself up in the grass so well you can’t even see it. So it was off to the archery shop again to obtain another twelve arrows.

After a month of delay, I bought another dozen arrows. I was confident that these would be the ones to take to Africa. The only problem was that they were equipped with Blazer vanes, so it would be interesting to see how that affected the flight of the arrow. A friend shoots Blazer vanes on his shafts and he speaks highly of them.

I drove out to the local park, and set up a temporary range. The arrows were put through the shooting paces at 20, 30 and 40 yards. They seemed to fly well at all distances and with field points attached, and penetration was good too. I was pleased after doing some fine tuning that I could hit the bullseye quite consistently at the 30 yard mark. Backing up to 40 yards and after a little tuning on the sights, the grouping was about 2 inches around the bullseye. I was pleased with the performance of the arrows. For the last shot, I loaded up a Shuttle TLoc 100 grain broadhead and backed up to the 30 yard mark. The last shot of the day hit the bullseye.

On the Professional Hunters Association of Africa website they recommend a draw weight of 70 pounds and a 550 grain weight arrow for medium sized game. My bow comes in at the 70 pound draw weight but the arrow equipped with the Shuttle TLoc’s only weigh in at 440 grains. I sent an email to my Professional Hunter to get his suggestion, and based on his experience he felt that, with the 125 grain broadhead, the arrow weight would have enough kinetic energy at the distances we would be shooting to penetrate even an Eland. He currently shoots an arrow that weighs in at 436 grains, so he felt very comfortable the Bemans would be enough.

So it will be the Bemans in Africa. There is a plethora of information on the Beman website at http://www.beman.com to answer most questions you will have. So give them a look next time you stop in at your local archery shop.