Breaking Down the 2026 Arrow Ballistics Study (Broadheads, Vanes, FOC)

Bowhunting has a problem: we argue about arrow builds like it’s personal philosophy, then we expect broadheads to land true when the shot is rushed, the footing is bad, and the wind is doing what it wants. The 2026 Arrow Ballistic Study is the cleanest attempt I’ve seen to replace that noise with real measurements using a precision shooting machine, Doppler radar, chronographs, and an independent acoustic chamber, then sorting the results with regression analysis so we can separate what actually matters. 

We walk through what they tested and why it’s credible, then translate the big concepts into plain language: drag (trajectory and wind drift), lift recovery (how fast the arrow corrects after a bad launch), and accuracy at 70 yards with both field points and broadheads. On broadheads, the data again favors mechanicals for aerodynamic forgiveness, while fixed blades show a measurable flight penalty that gets worse when the human element shows up. We also talk about speed, because the high-speed testing suggests fast setups do not automatically pay a big accuracy tax if the components are solid. 

Then we get into the surprise most hunters overlook: sound. Broadheads and vanes were measured the way deer hear them, and the results point to a “system” mindset where broadhead design and vane choice work together. Finally, we introduce the new FOC protocol and the headline finding: higher FOC predicts tighter broadhead groups, with the real limits coming from dynamic spine and trajectory, not accuracy falling apart. 

If you want to build a quieter, more forgiving, more accurate hunting arrow with less guesswork, listen through and then go explore the linked data for yourself. Subscribe for part two, share this with a buddy who’s rebuilding arrows right now, and leave a review. What are you shooting for broadheads and what FOC are you running today?

See James Yates article on the study here: https://westernhunter.net/information/the-2026-arrow-ballistics-study-results/

See the interactive data from Precision Cut Archery here: https://www.precisioncutarchery.com/research/arrow-study-2026

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Transcript

Why This Study Matters

Zakk Plocica 0:00

All right, guys, today we are talking about the 2026 Aero Ballistic Study. So I'm going to be straight with you guys. I think this is probably the most important piece of arrow research that has ever been done, specifically for the bow hunter. We're not talking target archery, competitive indoor, 3D archery. This is for hunters who are trying to put an arrow in an animal under real conditions. So we've got James Yates, we've got Easton, Hoyt, and Precision Cut Archery. They've all teamed up and they spent four days in March 2026 this year in the Easton lab doing something nobody has ever done before. Running arrows through a nomadic shooting machine with Dopplar, with Dopplar, Doppler, radar, chronographs, and an independent acoustic testing chamber, and then running all that data through regression analysis. So this is science. This is not a YouTube opinion. This is not a form argument. This is true data. So this is going to be part one of a two-part series. So today we're covering what the study found, the methodology, the broadhead results, the vein results, and the intro to the FOC testing portion, right? So next week in part two, we're going to get into what all this actually means for how you build your arrow. And I'm going to get personal with it and talk through my own setup and where I sit on FOC right now and what I'd actually change based off this data. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Archery Project, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Zach Placea. Some of you guys know I have a company called Extreme Outfitters, one of the fastest growing archery shops and suppliers in the country. We serve archers across the nation. If you need anything archery related, arrows, releases, whatever it is, we can take care of you. Hit the website, extreemoutfitters.com. Use the code ArcheryProject, save you some money. You need anything, Archery, you know where to go. Hit the website, extremoutfitters.com. So let's get into this, man. And I've got a lot of notes here. So bear with me because I had to really kind of dumb this thing down for me. And I kind of wanted to share it with you guys and maybe, you know, kind of summarize it, maybe make it a little bit easier to interpret and give you my interpretation of it and kind of what it means, what it looks like, uh, because it's it's a lot, man. And they did a study in 2025, which was just awesome, right? Just very in-depth, um, data driven. You know, there was no guesstimation, it was all data driven. They've expanded on that this year, and it's bigger and better and more informative than ever. But with that comes an overwhelming amount of information. And realistically, too much information for most people, I think. But there's a lot that you can take away from it. Even the newer guy getting into this when it comes to arrows, understanding arrows, broadheads, vein selection, there's there's a lot of takeaway. And hopefully I'll be able to condense this a little bit and uh make it a little bit easier to understand and kind of summarize

The Team And The Lab Setup

Zakk Plocica 2:55

it. So before we get into the results, you need to understand who put this together and how they did it because the credibility of the data really depends on that. Right? Like I said, they did a study last year, 2025 aeroballistic study. Well, they've expanded on it. So you've got the leader in this thing, James Yates, right? He is just a true bow hunter, right? Hardcore Western hunter, mule deer, elk, backcountry archery. Um, a couple years ago, he got obsessed with the question what does aeroscience actually tell us about how to build a better hunting arrow? So we're not, he's not bro science, not form opinions, actual physics. So he went and built a study to find out and very, very in-depth study. I mean, they did it very, very well. He partnered with the data side, um, who is Tristan from Precision Cut Archery. All you guys know, Precision Cut Archery is the leader in sight tapes with the software that they developed for Bose. So Tristan is a software engineer who built the entire data platform for the study, did all the Python coding for the regression analysis, and built an interactive website where you can hover over every single data point, click on it and see how see the actual photo of the arrow group that produced that number. So that's the level of detail that we're talking about here. So I'm gonna link everything in the description for this podcast so that you can click on it and see yourself just because they've done such a good job. And I want you guys to be able to go reference it and look at the hard data yourself, not just what I'm talking about. Um, and then we've got Easton, you know, they were a major part of this last year. Easton came in as the primary funder and provided the most important piece of the equipment in the entire study, their nomadic precision shooting machine. So this thing shoots arrows at 70 yards and at a tuned bow with no torque field tips, group uh essentially in one hole. It doesn't miss. There's no shooter-induced error with this thing. So every time it's just consistent. So this is your control or that's your control. That's what makes all the comparisons valid because they've removed the human element from it, the human imperfections, and they've used this machine. Then you've got Hoyt. So Hoyt donated this year for AX333 bows, and which of course have their XTS tuning system on them, uh, which was very important because the FOC testing required the bow to be retuned over what I believe, I think it was like a hundred times as they changed point weight configurations. So the XTS tuning system made that fast and easy for them to do that. That's just an attestament to Hoyt and their new tuning system. It was fast, easy, and effective and worked great for this testing. And then finally, we've got um the sound testing, which was done completely independently by a guy named Jamie at the Archery Sound Lab. So he has a degree in acoustics and a purpose-built shoot-through sound chamber. So he has zero connection to any of the sponsors, which again, that matters for credibility of the sound data. Just, I mean, I don't think you could ask for a better group of individuals to run this test, this, this testing. Like these guys are thorough. It's about as unbiased as you can get, and it's just data driven, right? That's what this is about. Getting good data, providing it back to us, right? The the the public, the the end users, the bow hunters. And they did a good job with that. So,

Drag Lift Recovery And Accuracy

Zakk Plocica 6:12

what exactly are they measuring? There's three things, plus a brand new fourth one for 2026, which I think is everybody is the most excited about. So, first off is drag, right? That's the force that slows your arrow down in flight. So lower drag means a flatter trajectory and less wind drift, right? You want to minimize drag. Then we've got lift recovery. This is how fast the arrow corrects itself if it launches at an angle, right? So think about an arrow that comes off a bow slightly, you know, torqued or cockeyed. The veins need to steer it back into flight, like correct the flight, right? The faster that happens, the better the lift recovery. So you want to maximize this: minimize drag, maximize lift recovery. And then we've got the accuracy testing. So they did group sizes at 70 yards, they shot field tips and broadheads. So out of a perfectly neutral bro bow and a deliberately torqued bow is how they tested this. Um, the torqued protocol is how they introduced the human element into this out of using the machines, which is consistent, right? The machine with no torque is too perfect to represent how any of us actually shoot in the field. I can attest to that. If I was the guy shooting the bow, our data would be a disaster. So they did a good job, man. They eliminated everything they can possibly eliminate that uh would be the human element side, and we just get good data from this. And the new thing I think that everybody is most excited for when it came to testing is FOC or front of center. So the weight distribution of the arrow, how much point weight actually helps tighten your broadhead group. We're gonna get into all of it. It's a lot, man. It's a lot to take in. But um, like I said, they did a really good job of doing it and displaying all the data for us to reference. And you can go through it. There's so much information, man, between um James Yates website, Easton, and then uh Precision Cut Archery, the videos they put out on it, just fantastic. But you've you're drinking from a fire hose with this thing, my friends. So bear with me on it. And like I said, if you go and watch it, just it's something I had to watch a handful and read a handful of times to really figure it, kind of get a better understanding, a basic understanding of it.

Center Of Mass Vs Pressure

Zakk Plocica 8:21

Okay, so I want to spend a few minutes on the physics side of it because if you don't understand two concepts, so center of mass and center of pressure, the FOC results aren't going to make sense. I didn't understand either, so I had to do a little bit of digging research to really comprehend them. So center of mass is pretty easy, right? So you grab your arrow, right? As I knock everything down, you balance it on your index finger, right? Figure out that balance point. Right? There we go. That spot where it balances, that is the center of mass. So it's the physical balance of the whole arrow. So it's always gonna sit on the front half of the arrow because arrows are heavier in the front, right? Because we've got obviously, you know, we've got our point weight, we've got our inserts, we've got our collars, broadheads, whatever. There's always gonna be more point weight or more weight towards the front of the shaft. Um, when you add point weight, you move the balance point forward. That's literally what FOC means, right? That's your front of center. So how far forward the balance point sits. Now, this one was a little bit confusing for me. This is called the center of pressure, right? I had never even heard of this. Like, so it's more abstract, but it is also real. So think about like a good comparison is if you're sticking your arm out of a car window at a high speed, right? You feel the air pushing against your arm, right? So if you tilt your hand different ways, the pressure changes. So an arrow flying through the air at 280, 290 feet per second is doing the same exact thing. So the broad, there's the broad head has air pressure on it, the shaft has air pressure on it, and the veins, because they're the biggest surface area on the back of the arrow, they have the most air pressure on them. So the balance point of all that aerodynamic pressure is called the center of pressure. You can't find it by balancing the arrow on your finger, but it does exist. So it's, like I said, a lot more advanced than anything I've ever heard. So that's the two key things, right? We go, we look at center of mass and the center of pressure. So you have to have a basic understanding of those. So here's the key: the center of pressure needs to sit behind the center of mass on the rear half of the arrow. When those veins are generating more pressure on the back than the broadhead generates on the front, the center of pressure gets pushed rearward, which is exactly what you want. So now when we look at it, the distance between the center of pressure and the center of mass is called the static margin. Bear with me as we get through all of this. And this is the number that actually drives aero stability, right? So the bigger that gap, the more leverage the aerodynamic force has to torque the arrow back into straight flight when it gets knocked off course. So you have to think of it kind of like um a lever, right? The longer the lever, the easier it is to move something. This is what's important. You can increase that gap in two ways. So you can move the center of mass forward, which is increasing FOC by adding point weight, cutting the arrow shorter, or you can move the center of pressure backwards, right? That's your vein configuration. Um, adding surface area or going to a larger or a four-fletch setup. The catch, though, it's called dynamic spine because when you add point weight, I think most people understand this. When you add point weight and you increase your FOC, you also weaken the arrow spine, right? So the longer the spine, the more point weight you add, the weaker the shaft becomes. So that's how much it flexes coming out of the bow. We know that when it flexes too much at launch, it hurts accuracy. So there's a ceiling on how far you can chase FOC before it starts working against you. But the ceiling is determined by your draw weight, your draw length, your arrow length, and the shaft that you select. So this is the whole reason FOC is such a complicated thing to test and such a hotly, I think, debated topic. So more on that in a minute.

Broadhead Testing Baselines

Zakk Plocica 12:30

Let's get into the results. We're gonna start with the broadhead side of things, right? So for standard speed testing, let me back up a little bit. Let's talk about the baselines before we talk about the results for the broadheads. So they had up two baseline arrow builds. They had a standard speed baseline, which was 290 feet per second, is what they tested at. That was built, that was comprised of an Eastern Axis 5mm cut at 27 inches carbon to carbon in a match grade shaft, roughly 450-ish grains. The vein configuration was um, again, this is a baseline, uh three fletch AA max stealth, uh fletched out of a Bitsen burger with a right helical two degree offset. The field tip control was a hundred grain gold tip easy pull. The broadhead control for vein iterations was um 100 grain iron wheel wide. And again, the bow was the Hoyt AX333, 20 inch draw 28-inch draw length, 70 pounds. That was the standard speed baseline configuration. They also did this. Is this as we get into this is blew my mind, maybe not yours, but it did mine. They also did a high speed um baseline. This was 325 plus feet a second. So that shaft was an Easton 5-0. It was roughly 390 to 400 grains. Um, same thing, right? So they had two different configurations that they set. They did a standard speed and then they did a high speed baseline. And uh carbon the shafts were cut at 27 inches carbon to carbon across the board. They were all match grade shafts. Those were the tests, right? So there was a standard between the two. So let's move now into the actual broadhead side of things. So

Mechanical Vs Fixed At Distance

Zakk Plocica 14:21

getting into it, starting with the broadheads for the standard speed testing, which again about 290 feet per second, which is still fast. Uh, they shot every broadhead in groups of six arrows, two rounds at 70 yards with the same baseline arrow uh build rotating through all the broadheads, so there are no error biases, right? Uh, the group size was the metrics. The biggest takeaway from this, and this is now the second year in a row, the study has confirmed that mechanical broadheads are significantly more aerodynamically forgiving than fixed blade broadheads. That's not a surprise to me. Maybe it's a surprise to you. At this point, I think it's pretty well known. Um, but let's be clear on this. This is um external ballistics only. So it doesn't say anything about terminal performance, uh, penetration, blade durability in an animal, but in terms of flight, mechanicals win like every time. There's no debating that anymore. So the specific standouts at the standard speed were the Grim Reaper Fatal Steel. It grouped right on par with field points, which is awesome. That's what you want. So that's a you know, grim reaper fatal steel. I mean, I could see the sales going up on those. Um, you know, that's really kind of the big surprises from 2026. The the evolution, uh, the severs across multiple models, the jackal and then the beast, all grouped extremely tight. On the fixed blade side, the iron wheel wide, the iron wheel solid, the Tulu, we're gonna have those at Extreme Outfitters um this year. Looking forward to getting those in. The G5 Montex and the tooth of the arrow of the four blades were all wider. Um, they said not bad by any means, but the data shows the flight uh penalty of a fixed blade is real. So if you're not on par, if you're not up to speed, if you there's any issues with you, um it seems like there are going to be greater inconsistencies with a fixed blade. And um you just got to consider that with your build. The forgiveness is not there with the fixed blade, like it is a mechanical. So you need to keep that in mind, depending on your capability, what you're hunting, where you're hunting, how much time you spend behind your bow. So things to consider, right? That's what this brings to light. That's the great thing about it. Now, on to the high speed. This is crazy to me. 325 feet per second plus out of an 80-pound setup. Here's what's uh was very interesting. So most of your quality broadheads performed nearly identically at both speeds. Blew my mind, right? The severs absolutely dominated at high speed. I didn't, I don't think there was any doubt in that. The tooth of the arrow, this is crazy. Um four blade standard, which was a wider at standard speed, actually tightened up by about two inches at that higher velocity, which is interesting. Um, and then I got a note here. It says Yates called that really interesting, and I would have to agree with him, right? Overall, the data shows, uh, does not show a major accuracy penalty for shooting fast. Um, which let's be real, man. All the bows are shooting fast. Now, I've always been someone that, and I'll be straightforward with you, that I've always considered shooting between 280 and like mid-290s, that sweet spot for shootability, performance. Uh, but I mean, this kind of says otherwise at that point. Uh, so you guys that are really chasing speed and shooting those faster bows, there's based off the data, there's not a massive difference um in accuracy. It's so it's definitely something to keep in mind. I mean, a mechanical shooting fast, I mean, it seems to your margin of error is greater, right? You get the speed, you get the flatter trajectory, and your accuracy is not impacted negatively. Seems like a win. So now we're looking at these bows for 2025, 2026 that are faster, they're more forgiving, they're easier to shoot. So you can shoot those arrows with those broad heads fast and not be negatively impacted. Again, it all comes down to the individual behind the bow and your capability and how much time you spend behind it, your shot process and everything right comes into play. But based off this, if there's why not shoot a little bit faster? You know, kind of changes my thought process on it a little bit. I'd be curious to your guys, what you take away from this, you know, or does it change your thought process on maybe you want to, you know, lighten that arrow up just a touch to get it a little bit faster, to have a flatter trajectory? So, you know, when it comes to ranging animals, you don't have any issues. You know, if you're off a little bit, it doesn't matter as bad. Drop some comments and let us know. I'd be curious from you guys. This was kind of eye-opening for me. Um, so it is what it is, man. I'm um, like I said, this brought a whole lot to light. So now the broadhead

Broadhead Sound Through Deer Ears

Zakk Plocica 19:18

sound. Uh, this was again, this was a new new for 2026. Again, this is another big deal. So Yates couldn't get funding to do this in 2025, so they did a hybrid test in 2026 pulling broadheads from both studies. So everything was tested by an independent archery sound lab in a purpose-built acoustic chamber with a 22 decibel sound floor. So all results are weighed for how a deer hears, not for us. So this is based off how deer hear sounds. So obviously, deer are going to be more sensitive to higher frequencies, not obviously, but according to the study, deer are more sensitive to higher frequencies. So the weight um shifts the results in the direction that matter for hunting, right? So we're looking at how deer hear, not so much us. And there's a few things you need to know before I go through the numbers. The decibel scale is this is a tough, this is a tough one. Um not linear. Logramyth, logramythic. I don't even know how to say the word. I had to pull it up. It's be it, I don't understand it either, but it's not linear, is what I can tell you. There's a 10 decibel increase. Um, so a 10 decibel increase, I should say, is double the perceived loudness. So it's not 10% louder, it's double. The spread from the quietest broadhead to the loudest in this study was about 15 decibels. So that's roughly three times as loud. That's not a small difference. That's pretty massive, right? Three times as loud. Um, the quietest broadheads, they uh street, they were, I don't think there's a big surprise on what were the quietest ones if you look at the actual design of them, but it was the streamlined uh fixed blades, they topped the charts. Uh, but right alongside them, in some cases, equal to them, uh, were several of the mechanicals. So the evolution outdoors, we hear them over and over again, man. The evolution outdoors just perform well. The sever 1.5s, the sever 1.5 hybrids, um, the sever 2.0, and the beast titanium, these mechanicals were all as quiet as the quietest fixed blades. So there you go. If sound is concern for you, it should be something to maybe consider. Um, those were some of the top performers. The loudest broadheads, no co no, I don't think, um, no question here. The vented fixed blades, they're always going to be loud. Uh, and then your mechanicals with a lot of surface area, exposed blades, and then any internal cavities. Anywhere that wind can kind of cut through, it just makes more no noise and they are substantially louder. Uh, one of the most important findings from this section is a lot of the broadheads don't actually. Add much noise beyond what your veins are already generating with the field tip. So the broadhead doesn't automatically dominate the sound profile of the arrow, which means your vein choice still matters even after you screw a broadhead on. So this is a system. You've got to consider the vein and the broadhead. It works in sync together when we talk about how loud the flight of an arrow ends up being. So uh something I pulled from it is says the after the 2025 study last year, there was a lot of pushback on Yates and said vein noise is irrelevant once you put a broadhead on. And he disagreed with that. And in 2026, this year, he actually tested it. The results, uh, the flex fletch 360 paired with a Tulu broadhead was the second quietest overall setup in the comparison, quieter than the max stealth vein um with just a field tip. So, but but here's the nuance, right? A loud broadhead can dominate when they're pair. So when they paired the slict trick standard, um, which is a louder head with the different veins, the gap between the 360, the max stealth, and sk2 was only 1.6 decibels. So hardly anything, uh, which is they're saying exactly why you should not shoot loud broadheads if you care about this. So you've got to think of it the system, right? The broadhead and and the vein, and the broadhead being apparently a major factor in the overall noise of the arrow coming downrange towards the animal. So again, just kind of highlight some of those points. Um I've been building arrows for a long time. Uh, and you know, I would agree with, and I've kind of thought this from the beginning, most of the guys I talked to would kind of agree. You know, the um the bow is not really the thing I think that most people should think of when they think of loud, right? Because everyone talks about that, all the bows have a different sound, right? Some of them are a little bit louder than others, but Yates says the bow is not the the sound that you should worry about. And I think we uh majority of the guys that I've talked to would agree with that. The arrow um is what you need to consider when we talk about loud, because when the bow goes off, it's done, right? It's one and done. It's like a branch breaking. Yeah, pop your head up a little bit, that's it. Um it's not consistent. The the arrow, on the other hand, is continuous. It's a high frequency hiss that tracks getting that deer track as it gets closer to them. So again, their instinct is to react to the threats that are approaching. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Um, and it's I think it's should make sense to you now as they kind of unveil all of this, that you should probably focus more on the sound of your arrow than just the sound of your bow. Everybody wants to quiet their bow down, but they neglect how loud their arrow is, right? Based off the veins that they're running, the broadhead that they're running, kind of overlooked. So kind of gets you thinking maybe you need to uh reconsider where your priority are, your priority is as far as loud. What makes what's what's more important? And obviously, based off the study, it seems like it's the arrow. Um and the data from the study backs all that up. Uh, and it's the reason that I think most people, um, the newer, newer guys who are more into this, obsess about that uh quieter vein and broadhead um combination. So, you know, if it's not on your mind already, if it's not something you considered, it definitely should be now, especially if you're somebody that's into building your arrow specifically for hunting scenarios. We're not talking about tack, you know, where we want the best steerage, or we're, you know, we're not talking about um, you know, indoor anything like that. We're talking about real hunting scenarios where we're hunting live animals that potentially are already on edge, looking at how to make your arrow quieter more so than your bow itself. So good information.

Vane Results Drag Lift Noise

Zakk Plocica 25:56

Um, so moving on to veins, 23 different configurations, excuse me, were tested in 2026 with some repeats from 2025 to establish a baseline for the comparison, right? The vein testing covered three things simultaneously, as we discussed uh earlier: drag, lift recovery, and noise. So for lift recovery at the standard speed, that 290-ish feet per second, the AAE Air Razor Talon 3.0 won for the second consecutive year in a row. Best at steering fixed blade broadheads. Um, the hybrid HP was a strong second. So you have the AAE Air Riser Talon 3.0 and then followed by the hybrid HP. Uh, one of the most interesting findings in the four-fletch testing, this is it very interesting. Adding a fourth smaller profile vein produced better lift recovery than adding a fourth full-size vein. Is your mind's blown yet? Mine is. So they say it's not about piling on more surface area, it's about where the surface surface area is and what profile it has. Those are the things that are the most important. So, not just stacking more, but the actual um where the surface area is and then the profile of the vein that you're running. Excuse me. So now at the high speed, right, that 325 plus feet per second speeds, the hybrid HP slightly edged out the Talon and the Flex Fletch 360 in the stiffer 360X material outperform the standard 360. So according to this, based off the data, if you're somebody that's shooting those fast bows, right, maybe above 310 feet per second, the data shows that you should probably go with a stiffer vein material, right? That matches what a lot of manufacturers have been saying for over the years, but now there's data to back that. So if you're shooting very, very fast, very, very flat, 310 plus ish feet per second, look at those stiffer veins to steer your arrow. Uh on the noise side, the flex fletch 360 is the quietest vein tested for the second year in a row. Um, it's thin, gradual profile generates almost no aerodynamic noise. Pretty impressive. Uh, the 300 is right behind it, and then the UV vein was a new addition for 2026, and it landed in uh the top tier as well. Um, the bony heat vein was worth talking about. It was also incredibly quiet. And then on the loud end, the flex fletch SK2 is roughly twice as loud as the 360. And interesting here, the DCA mini saber, despite being a smaller vein, was louder than the larger Super Saber. So apparently, smaller doesn't automatically mean quieter, right? The shape matters as much as the size. So keep it in the back of your brain whenever you're selecting your veins. Um, so they said the single most important chart in the entire vein study is the three-axis scatter uh scatter plot that shows all 23 vein configurations simultaneously. So drag on the vertical axis, lift on the recovery, lift recovery on the horizontal axis, and each dot colored by its noise level. So yellow for quiet, purple for loud. So obviously, the ideal vein sits at the bottom left and is yellow. So low drag, great recovery, and quiet. Um, but unfortunately, that perfect vein doesn't fully exist because there's always gonna be trade-offs, right? And you got to consider those things based off application, based off what you're doing, based off your shooting capability, based off the broadhead that you're shooting. Lots of things to consider. This is just a starting point for you to kind of go through. Um but the chart shows you exactly where each vein lands across all three dimensions. It is a great reference. Uh, and like I said, it'll be linked in the description for you guys to go check these out. Uh so what you see in that chart are essentially two clusters, right? So you get one cluster has great lift recovery, but higher drag. The talon and the hybrid HP both live there. And then uh that's going to be your fixed blade territory, right? So greater lift, increased drag is going to steer your broad your fixed blade broadheads better, right? The other cluster has the lower drag, but gives up some lift recovery. The 360, the 300, and the UV all live in that area. That's where your mechanical territory or your high-speed western setup territory lives. So the DCA Super Saber is the best bridge between those two worlds. It's the most balanced option if you need a little of both, which makes a lot of sense, right? We've seen a massive uptick in DCA Super Sabres. That vein is just seems to be dominating right now, at least what we're seeing going out the door for people refletching theirs. And clearly, based off the testing, it is the best of both worlds. It bridges that gap. Um so if you need it to steer and want reduced drag, it's like it's the best of both worlds. So it's gonna be a really great option. I I would assume that's why we see so many of them selling based off last year's study. And I imagine that's gonna hold true based off this year's study. It just shows the DCA Super Saber is just well designed. Um, and it's gonna be the both the best world, the best of both worlds. So DCA Super Sabres, my friends. Um from there, I think um Yates says this better than than I can. Uh, he says, shoot as little vein as you can get away with, knowing your own shooting ability in the heat of the moment. If you're shooting a quality mechanical and you're a consistent shooter, you don't need the talent. But if you're shooting fixed blades or you know you rush your shot under pressure, you need more vein than you think. That's me, dude. So, like I want as much of a forgiving setup um as I can get. I gotta be realistic with it, right? Uh, but I'm not gonna shoot even on a mechanical broadhead for me. I still know that in the heat of the moment, whenever everything's happening and you know, I'm in an awkward footing position, whether I'm off the ground or in a stand, and everything's gotta come together. I want forgiveness in my setup. So I run maybe I'll I'll run maybe a little bit more profile just so the recovery of that arrow is a little bit better. And I'll sacrifice a little bit more drag for that, just for recovery uh sake. Not everyone's um like that. Some dudes are just better shooters, man. You can get away with less. And if you can do that, cool. But I know for me, I've got to be realistic within my shooting capability and what's happening within the heat of the moment. And um, I'd rather sacrifice a little bit of drag for a little bit more lift recovery just to uh improve the forgiveness of my setup. Not everybody's like that, and I completely understand that. But I think this does highlight you need to be realistic with yourself, your shooting capability, how often you shoot, and um, you know, just how good of how good of a shooter you are behind your bow under pressure. So keep that in mind whenever you're if you're somebody that's building arrows. Um don't just build it for the the least amount of drag and um you know where you sacrifice that amount of recovery whenever you're shooting maybe a fixed blade broadhead and you need a little bit more lift. Um things to keep in mind, man. I would definitely I would sacrifice a little bit of drag for a little bit more lift, just personally. I think that's and again, it's all personal, it's all personal preference, man. It's that's the great thing about this with this testing. This really gives you a lot of different ideas on where you can start uh and where you should be. Uh, and then again, it comes down to you. Do your own testing, man. See how good of a shooter you really are. Uh, obviously, this is with a machine that doesn't miss, right? So that's the great thing about it is the data behind all of this is good. Good data, man. It's not influenced by any human error.

FOC Testing Method And Headline Results

Zakk Plocica 34:03

All right, now the thing that everybody wants to talk about, we're talking about FOC. I think this is the big one for 2026, right? So this is a brand new test protocol, and honestly, the results I think have me rethinking some things in my own arrow setup at this point because you know I always kind of lived like 10 to 15 percent is where you need to be, tuning-wise, um forgiveness, all of that. 10 to 15 is where I've always kind of lived. Uh, so I'm gonna give go, I'm gonna go ahead and give you guys an overview today, and then we'll get deep on the practical application next week's episode. So obviously, FOC, front of center, is uh a measure of how much of your arrow's mass sits forward of the balance point, right? Higher FOC means the arrow is more point heavy. So it's been debated, I think, in the archery community forever. I mean, I think it's a constant weekly conversation we have. And you have guys saying you need 15%, guys saying you need more, less, it's all over the board. Um, and then you've got guys saying it doesn't even matter. So nobody had a real controlled data on FOC until right now. So the challenge, why nobody had good data on any of this um with testing FOC is that you can't just change point weight in isolation, right? So when you were when you increase point weight to raise your FOC, you simultaneously make the arrow heavier, slowing it down, weakening the dynamic spine, and changing the trajectory of the arrow's flight. So if you just shoot groups at different FOC levels and compare them, you don't know if the groups got better because the FOC change or because the velocity change or the spine change. So there's just so many different variables. The raw data doesn't tell you. So Yates said it in the video. He says, who's to say it's the FOC or just the mass of the arrow or a dynamic spine sweet spot, right? Those were all the questions, right? And it's just very hard to test. But they were able to do it. So here's what they did instead. So they built a massive matrix of arrow combinations, two shaft families, multiple spine ratings, front weights from 125 grains all the way up to 350 grains. They shot regardless of what the spine chart says. So there's hundreds of combinations. They added the weight. This is the big thing. They added all the weight internally. They screwed the goal tip fact weight inside the inserts so the outside of arrow looked identical. Same broadhead on every build, same veins. Only thing changing internally was the weight distribution, the FOC. Interesting. And never like didn't I never considered that, right? So after that, they fed all the data into a regression analysis, uh, statistical model that can separate what FOC is doing from what velocity and spine are doing simultaneously. Again, mind blowing. These guys are geniuses at what they do, clearly very intelligent individuals. How they even began to come up with this is unreal to me. But here's the headline results. So increasing FOC by five percentage points, say from 13 to 18% or 15 to 20 percent, predicts a two-inch reduction in broadhead group mean radius. Mean radius is half the group diameter. So a two-inch improvement in mean radius is a four-inch tighter group overall at 70 yards. That's insane. Right? The thing about it, too, they found no sweet spot ceiling. So there was no FOC value where accuracy started getting worse. It didn't decline anywhere. The ceiling isn't accuracy, it's the dynamic spine and the trajectory. So pile on enough point weight in your arrow, start bending, you know, flexing wrong out of the bow and arcing too much downrange, but the accuracy, the accuracy itself just continue to improve. So again, very mind-blowing to me. Crazy to think about, man. Like I like I always live by you know, 10 to 15% is where you need to be. The more FOC, the more issues you're gonna have downrange, the more tuning issues you're gonna have. Clearly, I mean, the accuracy does not suffer when you increase FOC. And the biggest, you know, the ceiling that you reach is gonna be the dynamic spine, the spine of the arrow. So um, Yates was very clear about this. Um, and I want to echo it just just because I think people are going to misread this data. This is important. I had to reread it a couple times. The answer is not just throw more point weight on your current arrow, right? That's not the message of this. So if you do that, you slow your arrow down, your trajectory is not as flat, you lose ranging forgiveness, which we know is critical in a hunting scenario. Um, again, for especially for your guys out west shooting those longer shots, total archery challenge style, shoots, it's a huge problem. You're trading one thing for another. Um, so that's not that's not the message behind this. Don't just go load up a bunch of point weight on your arrow. That's that's not what they're trying to get through. Looking at it though, looking at my setup, it made me reconsider some things. My current FOC on my hunting arrow, on my FMJ Max. I checked it again uh yesterday, is on like 11.9%. Pretty low. It's like right in that 10 to 15 percent. It's a total arrow weight of 465 grains. Not bad. It worked, it did everything I needed to for a white tail hunting. So I'm I don't know that there's necessarily a lot I need to change, but it does make me start thinking, right? So based on everything in this study, um if I were would char would change anything, um let me reword that. I don't know that I necessarily would change anything, but there's a couple things that maybe it does open my mind up a little bit more because based off performance, it performed exceptionally well for whatever what I did last year. I mean, I had no issues whatsoever. But I'm gonna walk through exactly what I change, how I change it without, you know, kind of wrecking the trajectory of my arrow and what the data actually says about where I should be in part two. So next week. So I'll break that all down next week and uh we'll discuss it a little bit further. So don't miss out on that. Uh, this that podcast will drop next the following week and we'll go a little bit more in depth on it uh because the S the FOC thing really has me thinking a little bit more. And like I said, I'm not I don't know that I necessarily necessarily need to change it, but clearly the benefit is there based off this study. Increasing your FOC to kind of getting it to wherever you can is going to improve the accuracy downrange of your arrow. So I don't know, guys. What do you think on this? Uh it's really got me interested, it's really got me intrigued, it's really got me kind of rethinking once again everything. And I don't think um not rethinking everything, but it's just got me thinking, right? There's optimal, there's more optimal ways uh to build these arrows based off data at this point. There's no real guesswork anymore, and we can they've really done a good job of eliminating that. So it makes me rethink. So my next set of arrows I could build more efficiently just based off the little bit of data that I pulled out of this, right? You know, maybe increasing FOC, going with a lower GPI. If you want to increase FOC, there's a couple ways we can do it, obviously. Cutting the arrow down, um, going to a lower GPI arrow, right? Stacking more point weight up front, but it's all got to be relation to the spine of the arrow. So those are all things you got to consider because when you cut an arrow down, it stiffens it up. When you add point weight to it, it weakens it. All things to consider, but this does a really good job of highlighting all this information to help you build a better arrow based off your goals, your needs, and what you're doing. I like it. Um, and I'm gonna have to go through it probably a hundred more times in order to really take it all in fully. But I wanted to go through it with you guys and kind of get your feedback on it. What's your thoughts on the study from them? I think they do such a good job. I don't think there's a better set of dudes to do this, just obviously much smarter than I am. Uh, and they do a really good job putting it down. But I'm trying to interpret it and I just want to share with you guys my thoughts on it. Uh, it really intrigued me, and uh, I can appreciate the effort that they put into it. So shout out to James Yates, um, you know, Precision Cut Archery, Easton Hoyt, all those guys. They built like a thousand arrows, man, and put them through the works just to give us this data. And I think it's important. I think it's important for the archery community. And you don't have to overcomplicate this, right? You don't have to, but it can give you some insight to selecting a better broadhead for you, selecting a vein to pair with your broadhead for you, you know, based off your shooting style and everything you're doing in the animals that you're hunting.

Takeaways Part Two And Resources

Zakk Plocica 43:16

So that's part one, guys. That's kind of I wanted to break it down, kind of get an intro to this thing, kind of cover what it was all about. Um, so we covered the methodology, the team, the physics, the broadhead accuracy, and um sounds the sound test at two different speeds the vein, drag, lift, recovery, and noise, and we introduced the FOC results. So next week is where it's gonna get a little bit more personal. I'm gonna do a little bit more testing this week. And part two is gonna be all about what this data means for how you actually build your arrow. Uh, I'm gonna walk you through my own setup. If I make any changes, what changes I might um consider making for this hunting season and uh get into the FOC number specifically and give you my honest take on what needs to change and what maybe doesn't. So, in the meantime, go check out Precision Cut Archery's website. Uh, Tristan built those interactive plots where you can literally hover over all the data points, click on it, see the actual photo of the arrow groups from the study. It's genuinely impressive and it'll make everything we talked about today a little bit more um easier to understand because you can see it visually. So also don't forget you need to head over, check out James Yates stuff, go to his YouTube channel. He's a wealth of information. He's got videos out already on FOC, perfect arrow builds, covering this whole study. Obviously, him being the one that did it, a very intelligent individual. He's gonna relay it much better than I can. But, you know, go check his stuff out. And then, of course, you know, all the other guys, Easton, make sure those Easton arrows, man, they're bangers. Um, but yeah, just a great, uh, a great study that they did, man. I am pretty stoked for it. I think it's just more information. And yes, I think it's a more information than most people need, like all of it, but there are tidbits that you can take from it as you advance in your archery journey to improve the efficiency of what you're doing and your recovery rate too, right? If you're somebody that's really getting into arrow builds, you might as well have a deeper understanding of what affects the arrow flight, the sound of the arrow, the penetration of the arrow, the accuracy of the arrows, the more you know, the better you are. And especially like shop owners out there, right? We need to read up on this stuff so we can put the right arrows in the right people's hands, right? We know we got a new shooter, we need a more forgiving setup, right? We want those bigger veins on the back. We want to run a mechanical on them. But if you're somebody that's more advanced, you know, you got a lot to play with. So as always, guys, I appreciate you following along. Give me some feedback on this. Let me know your thoughts on it, man, because it's again, it's a lot of information, but I think it's a great information. And um I'm curious to hear your guys' thoughts on it. Does it change anything for you, right? Are you gonna change the amount of FOC you run? Are you gonna change the vein, the broadhead? Let me know in the comments. Uh, I'm always curious to hear from you guys. Thanks for following along. As always, if you need anything Archer related, head over to the um my company's website, extremoutfitters.com. We've also got an FOC calculator on there. If you type in FOC calculator, we've got an uh kinetic energy calculator over there. So you can put in all your information in those calculators and figure out exactly what FOC you're at currently and the kinetic energy that your arrow is producing. So check it out. Head over to the website extremoutfitters.com, use the code ArcheryProject if you need any uh arrows, right? We got them all, we sell them all individually. You want to do your own testing, buy arrows individually from us. We can do it, man. You want one arrow? We will build you one arrow. We offer free cut and glue. Check it out. Head over to the website streamoutfitters.com, use the code ArcheryProject. It'll save you some money. As always, thanks for following along. Thanks for watching, guys. Stay tuned for part two next week as we dive a little bit more into FOC. See you guys.