Good Better Best Hunting Arrow Builds for Every Scenario

A lot of bowhunters build arrows the same way every year, then wonder why broadheads drift, groups open up, or deer react before impact. We want to change that by using real testing from the 2025 and 2026 aero ballistic studies to build a hunting arrow on purpose, not by habit. The core takeaway is simple: your broadhead choice sets your vane requirement, and everything else follows from there.

We walk through four honest questions that decide your priorities: what you hunt and the distances you actually shoot, mechanical vs fixed blade broadheads, how steady you are under pressure, and how much arrow noise matters in your woods. From there, we lay out the correct build order (broadhead, vane, shaft, then FOC) and explain why each decision constrains the next. Along the way, we hit the practical stuff bowhunters search for: arrow noise, vane steering and lift recovery, four-fletch tradeoffs, shaft diameter for wind drift, dynamic spine choices, and how FOC affects broadhead grouping without turning your trajectory into a rainbow.

Then we get specific with scenario builds. We share good, better, and best setups for whitetail hunters in tight timber, western hunters who need flatter trajectory and range forgiveness, and fixed-blade purists who want the most accurate fixed-blade arrow possible. We close with six rules that apply to every arrow build, including squaring the shaft ends, tuning and retuning, matching vane material to bow speed, and building the entire system so one loud part doesn’t ruin a “quiet arrow.”

If you get value from this, subscribe, share it with a hunting buddy, and leave a review so more bowhunters can build smarter arrows for this season.

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

🏹 Shop Extreme Outfitters for all of your archery & bowhunting needs: https://extremeoutfitters.com

Use code ARCHERYPROJECT to save 10%

Quick reads, pro tips, and the latest episodes—delivered straight to your inbox every week.
👉 Sign up here: https://thearcheryproject.com/

✅ Watch the video podcast here!       
https://www.youtube.com/@thearcheryprojectpodcast

✅ Watch the  podcast clips here!
https://www.youtube.com/@thearcheryproject

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY:

► Facebook: http://bit.ly/44UD7Vo
► Instagram: http://bit.ly/40Q2jLf

Transcript

Hunting Season Arrow Build Reset

Zakk Plocica 0:00

All right, folks, hunting season is on the way. We are not far out. And it's got me thinking, right? Back to arrows. We know I've been talking about it, the 2026 Aeroballistic Study in the last couple of episodes. And as this season gets closer, I wanted to kind of talk about some different scenarios and then how I would build air or arrows for those scenarios and how I would use the data in order to do that. So that's what we're going to talk about today on the Archery Project. Welcome back, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. I am your host, Zach Flasica. Some of you guys know I have a company called Extreme Alfreders, one of the fastest growing archery shops and suppliers in the country. The bow shop for the Americans, right? That's what we do. We serve archers across the U.S. So if you need anything archer related, head over to the website, extremeoutfitters.com, use the code ArcherProject and save on anything and everything. And in particular, getting ready for the season. You need arrows built, we can build them for you. We sell arrows individually, we sell them by the dozen. Doesn't matter. You need them, you need to do testing. We sell them for you. We can cut and glue them, absolutely no cost. And we've got a new arrow builder. We are unveiling. It's live for Victory. It will be live for Easton here before long. So you can custom build one arrow. You can build as many as you want. You let us know. We'd be happy to help you out. But we're back at it at another episode. And like I said, I wanted to talk arrows and I wanted to dive into this a little bit deeper and, you know, kind of go through how my brain is working, how I'm interpreting this information and how I'm going to apply it to my setup this year and in the future. Right. So let me start off with this. Let me ask you this. So when was the last time that you actually thought about why you built your arrow the way you built it? Right? You didn't just grab an arrow off the shelf. You didn't just take somebody's word for it, but you actually thought through the logic behind the build. Broadhead first, then vein, then shaft, then FOC, in that order for a specific reason. Right. I think most guys or most bow hunters don't do that. I know I'm guilty of not doing that, right? So usually I'm grab an arrow, that's the arrow I'm going to shoot for the year, then the broadhead comes, veins, whatever. It's all second thought. I really have not been as data-driven as I probably should be. Um, but this has been an opportunity to learn from that, right? I think most bow hunters pick a broadhead based off what they killed previous seasons, or they grab whatever vein is in stock in the shop next to them and they call it a day, right? And then, you know, you kind of wonder why you're not as proficient or consistent or as accurate as you would like to be with your particular setup. So the goal with this episode today is to fix that, right? To help you guys and kind of walk you through exactly how to build the right hunting arrow for your specific situation, right? So this is based off of two years of the most rigorous aero science testing data that's ever been done for the bow hunter. So this is a combination or pulling information from the 2025 and 2026 aero ballistic study. So as you guys know, James Yates was the leader in this then, this thing. And then you've got precision cut archery, you've got Easton, you've got Hoyt for 2026, and then you've got the Independent Acoustics Lab. They've got their pneumatic shooting machine, their Doppler, their Doppler. I don't know why that's such a hard word for me to say. Doppler radar chronographs, and a regression analysis on 34 different aero builds for the FOC section alone. 1,500 shots in 2025. So I went through as much of this data as I absolutely could and combined it all together, both years, all the articles, the YouTube videos, I mean the results from Precision Archery's website. This is kind of everything put together and how I'm interpreting it. So here's what I'm not going to do. So I'm not going to spend this entire episode explaining the aerophysics side of things. If you want more information on that, we have a couple episodes prior to this, which was, I think, one's titled The 2026 Aero Ballistic. Let's let's take a look real quick. Um, breaking down the 2026 Aero Ballistic Study and then how to build hunting arrows using the 2026 Aero Ballistic Study. And this is just building off of that. So I don't think you need to understand the static margin, the center of pressure uh to build better arrows. Um, I think what you need is a framework and a parts list, which is what we're doing today. So there's four questions that you really need to answer about yourself. Three decisions in the right order. Um, and then I'm going to give you some good, better, and some best builds uh for different hunting scenarios, right? Kind of what I've put together, what I think, how I've interpreted this. And then we'll close with six rules that apply to every single arrow you ever build, regardless of the scenario or the budget. Let's do it. All right.

Four Questions That Decide Everything

Zakk Plocica 5:15

Before I say a single product name, I need to ask you guys four fairly simple questions. And you need to be honest when you answer them. I know I have to be honest with myself with it, uh, not how you wish your hunting season looked or or anything like that, but what it truly and actually looks like. Because the answers to these four questions are what determine, you know, where you need to be and what kind of arrow you need to build. So, question one, this is I think a pretty obvious one, or at least

Game And Distance Drive Priorities

Zakk Plocica 5:50

for most. What are you hunting and what are the distances you're looking at shooting? Right. So if you're hunting a white, if you're hunting white tail from a tree stand off the ground in the tight timber within 25 yards, you have a completely different uh set of priorities than someone, I would say, chasing mule deer in the open country, you know, at 60 plus yards. Right. The timber, the whitetail hunter hunting that thick vegetation needs a quiet arrow or should prioritize a quiet arrow and penetration, right? Trajectory is almost irrelevant at 25 yards. It's not a massive thing you need to consider. Obviously, you're not going to shoot a thousand grain arrow, but it doesn't need within those distances, within those distances, you don't need to have a major, um, it doesn't need to be the priority when building the arrow, I would say. But for the Western hunter, trajectory, I think, is everything because the number one cause of misses in open country is a ranging error, right? So if you have a flat shooting arrow, being off two yards on your range estimate might not matter. Um let me rephrase this. If you have a flat shooting arrow, being off two yards um because you have a range estimate error is not gonna be that big of a deal, right? But if you have an arrow that is arcing like a dang rainbow, two yards can be the difference between, you know, a wounded animal or a complete miss. So those are things to consider. So Yates said it in a 2025 video, and I'm gonna paraphrase this, but if you get a miss range at 70 yards and you're off two yards, if you've got a flat shooting arrow, that um those two yards may not push you outside of the kill zone. That's what a flat flat trajectory buys you range forgiveness. So figure out what you're hunting and at what distances. That's question one. That's what you need to start with. That's what you need to answer honestly. So if you're a white tail hunter, think about it. What are your distances that you're shooting? If you're within 30, 30, 35 yards, trajectory is not priority one. We want to look at something that's a little bit quieter and penetration being probably the key factors. If you're a Western hunter, you probably want to prioritize trajectory over um you know, quietness in anything, I think. Just because we know if you misrange an animal, the likelihood of missing if you have a massive arcing arrow is much higher. So those you need to start with with that question. And then question two This is a highly debated topic.

Mechanical Vs Fixed Blade Reality Check

Zakk Plocica 8:27

Are you shooting mechanical or fixed blade broadheads? So I want to give you a number here because it's the most important number in this entire episode. The 2025 study used a nomadic shooting machine, which means there's no human error, no torque. It's perfectly consistent every time. As you know, us humans are not. So it shot every broadhead from a tuned bow at 70 yards. The average field tip group from that machine was two inches. The average group, let me say it again, was two inches. The average mechanical broadhead group was four inches. The average fixed blade group was six and a half to seven inches. So that gap is not a tuning problem, right? That gap is obviously physics. The fixed blade has more drag, it creates more lift on the broadhead itself, uh, that the vein has to overcome and is less aerodynamically forgiving than a mechanical. It is what it is. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just relaying the information. So this study confirmed for the second year in a row. Um, this isn't a knock on fixed blade broadheads. Obviously, there are some very good reasons to shoot them, and we will talk about that. But you have to understand the flight penalty you're accepting when you make the choice because it changes everything in your vein selection. So here are the rules that flow um that flow from this, right? Your broadhead choice is your vein requirement. I think this is like the biggest takeaway from me. It's easily overlooked, and I'll say it again. Your broadhead choice is your vein requirement. Decide this first, everything else follows. Moving into

Build For Who You Are Under Pressure

Zakk Plocica 10:10

question three. How honest are you about your shooting ability under pressure? Dude, I think this is the one that most of us overestimate, and it's very easy to do. So I think you really have to take a good hard look in the mirror and really assess yourself critically. So we're not talking about at the range, we're talking about in the field when that buck of a lifetime, that elk of a lifetime step as steps out in front of you at this crazy angle, this awkward shot uh that you weren't expecting. Your heart rate's elevated, you've got all these emotions and endorphins running through your body, and you've got a narrow window opportunity before he wins you and you lose that shot opportunity. Can you keep it together? Are you somebody that rushes the shot? Do you pull the shot? Are you someone who occasionally shanks um a shot in the heat of the moment? You have to be realistic with yourself here. So I know I have to be uh especially, right? I already know I'm not the greatest shooter in the world, but I spend a lot of time shooting my bow and I'm very comfortable with my bow. But at the same time, I do know that whenever the heat of the moment happens, I want a forgiving setup. Therefore, that's what I kind of build around. I want forgiveness within my bow and with my arrow combination. Uh, so I think you need to really think about that critically and be and have an honest assessment with yourself. And there's there's no reason to to kind of lie to yourself about it. It doesn't make sense. The goal here is a successful hunt and then a successful recovery. And if that means you need a little bit more vein or lift recovery or you need to run a mechanical, why not? What's the put set the ego aside and look at the data and put yourself in that position and see what makes the most sense for you. So Yates said this in the 2025 video, and it's really kind of stuck with me. And like I said, I'll quote it. You can't really hold your stuff together in the heat of the moment. If you can't really hold your stuff together in the heat of the moment, you're going to want to have more vein on the back of your arrow. No, no reason not to, right? If you're a disciplined shooter with consistent form, you can optimize for drag efficiency and go with less vein. If you know you rush it, you need more lift recovery, which is more vein to compensate for the angular error you induce at the shot. Be real with yourself here. It matters. Dude, I don't think you could say it any better than that. Just be realistic with yourself and build an arrow that is optimized for your shooting capability in the scenarios that you'll be hunting. And then the next question is how much does arrow noise actually matter for your hunting,

Arrow Noise And Why It Matters

Zakk Plocica 12:44

right? So the 2026 study tested every broadhead in vein combination for noise through their independent acoustics lab, which weighed it for how a deer hears, which is about an octave higher than humans. So the spread from the quietest broadhead to the loudest was roughly 15 decibels. On a logromythic scale, that's roughly three times louder. So the spread from the quietest vein to the loudest vein was about 10 decibels, twice as loud. And here's the thing that people push back on. I think both matter, right? I don't think you can really debate that anymore. The study tested vein and broadhead combinations and found that a quiet vein paired with a loud broadhead is not a quiet arrow. No surprise there, right? And a loud vein paired with a quiet broadhead also is not a quiet arrow. You have to engineer the entire system. Both choices matter. Take that in consideration whenever you are building your arrow. Now, if you're a Western hunter and you're shooting those greater distances, deer sound reaction time is probably not quite as important. At that distance, even if they jump the string, the arrow is already there. But if you're in the tight timber at 25 yards on pressured public land and deer that are skittish, like they are here in eastern North Carolina, this is a very real consideration. So when we talk about it, the bow makes one short, non-continuous crack, right? Like stepping on a stick, breaking a stick in the woods. It's one and done. The arrow, on the other hand, makes a continuous hissing sound that they hear tracking towards them. Their instinct is to react approaching threats. The data now backs that up. So take that into consideration with what you're doing. Obviously, in the perfect world, we're able to quiet down our bow and our arrow. Like that's ideal, right? But if I had to prioritize one personally, I would probably prioritize the sound of the arrow over the sound of the bow. I think they're pretty on par with that. Once that bow goes off, it's one and done. But that arrow makes a continuous noise. I don't know. There's I would honestly be curious to hear from you guys what's your thoughts on it. What's the priority for you? Um, honestly, if you can do both, obviously do both, quiet them both down. That just makes the most sense to me. But the priority lies within the arrow for me. You guys let me know your thoughts on that.

The Correct Build Order Explained

Zakk Plocica 15:21

All right. So now that you've answered those four questions, let's talk about how to actually choose your components, right? And the order matters. And I think um most hunters probably do this backwards. So the right order broadhead first, then vein, then shaft, and foc. Because each dis um each decision constrains the next. The broadhead you choose determines how much lift recovery you need from your vein. The vein you choose affects how much weight budget you have for your FOC, and your shaft choice affects your dynamic spine. It's a system built in that order. I would also like to include on that is your shaft choice, the overall GPI of the arrow is going to affect the um FOC of that arrow. Obviously, some arrows have a higher GPI, which is going to have less FOC. A lower GPI arrow is going to be able to increase that FOC easier without increasing the overall weight dramatically. So those are things to consider. So, broadhead first, right?

Broadheads Backed By Two Years

Zakk Plocica 16:19

On the mechanical side, the study gave us a clear hierarchy across two years. The Sever family, the Sever broadheads, the 2.0, the 1.5, the 1.5 hybrid are the most consistently validated mechanicals across both studies. You cannot deny it. They just absolutely pound and they absolutely perform. The Sever 2.0 won the 2025 Accuracy Crown, and it was shooting field tip equivalent groups from the machine. Dude, so when we talk about accuracy and consistent consistency, like that broadhead has proved it time and time again. And then you've got the Sever 1.5 and 1.5 hybrid, which dominated the 2026 high-speed testing at 325 feet per second and came in as the quietest mechanicals tested, rivaling the quietest fixed blades. Two years of consistent data, consistent results. It's really hard to deny what Sever is doing. They clearly have produced a phenomenal broadhead. And the cool thing about them is you can buy them individually. They've got some new ones that just released that no longer require the collars. They are um they are on a magnet, I believe, and you don't have to replace the O-ring on them in order to close them anymore. I think the Sever is just a great broadhead in general because you can lock it, close, you can test with it, you can shoot it, you can practice with it, take the set screw out, and then you can use it to go hunt with. It's a fantastic system. They've done an incredible job. I wish we could carry them in the shop. I do, because I love that broadhead. There's also a lot of other great broadheads in there, but that is one that has just dominated this testing. So then we have the Thorn Rift 2.2 and the Beast Titanium. Uh, they were the most aerodynamic broadheads tested in 2025, and they tied for lowest drag among all broadheads. And then you have the Grim Reaper Fatal Steel was the uh biggest accuracy surprise, I think, for 2026. It grouped with your field head or your field points at 290 feet per second. Impressive. So we can carry all of those. So the the Grim Reaper Fatal Steel, gonna be a popular broadhead this year. Obviously, the Beast Titanium has picked up a lot of speed, and then the Severs, just absolutely bangers, broadheads, and then the Thorn Rift 2.2. For fixed blade broadheads, the Evolution Jackal was the best flying fixed blade in 2025. Three inch groups twice from the shooting machine. Nothing else came close in the fixed blade realm. The next best was the Slick Trick Standard Four Blade and the Grim Reaper Micro Hades at about five and a half to six inches. Man, it's just hard to deny how much more forgiving a mechanical is than a fixed blade. But I understand the fixed blade guys, I completely get it. The Tulu is the quietest fixed blade that showed up in the 2026 combo noise test as part of the quietest arrow combination tested. And then the iron wheel solid, the 100 grain, surprised everybody by out um competing several mechanicals on drag. So not something you would expect from a fixed blade broadhead. Impressive. And uh I want to say this before we move on. Um, broadhead flight problems are almost always a tuning problem within the bow. Right? So we see it all the time. We see it every week, especially as we get closer to the hunting season. If your broadheads aren't flying, you need to make sure your bow is tuned before you do anything. You have to start with a tuned bow, right? That's critical. Start by paper tuning the bow. You can't just start changing out these heads and going from one another without retuning. You have to retune after everything you do. It is critical if you neglect that step. You will never have an arrow or a bow that performs or is accurate downrange, especially as the distance is opened up. You guys that are shooting these extreme distances, right? You Western hunters, you really need to make sure your bow is dialed in, especially if you're going to put a fixed blade broadhead and shoot those distances. You need to test with your equipment, you need to make sure your equipment is optimized for what you're doing, and then that you have confidence within that equipment. If you don't have confidence with it, it is going to kill you your capability within the season, right? As soon as you start lacking confidence, you start questioning things, your shots become worse. It's not a good combo. Test with your equipment to retune your bow, make sure it's tuned correctly for what you're shooting and have confidence in that quick equipment. That's why it's so important to shoot all year round. So, moving on

Vane Picks Plus Four Fletch Tradeoff

Zakk Plocica 20:42

from that rant. Let's talk about the veins now. So, once you know your broadhead, you need you know how much lift recovery you need, right? This is all based on the data. So you need to reference the data for this. So, your fixed blade shooters, you need maximum lift recovery. The talon and the hybrid HP are your data-backed choices for this. The Talon won the lift recovery category in both 2025 and 2026. So both years. It drifted 6.3 inches less versus the average drift at 70 yards. That is massive. So that is uh, I would say a pretty meaningful number. The hybrid HP was right behind it and actually slightly edged the Talon out at the higher speeds. So the difference between them, the hybrid HP weighs about 18 grains, total vein weight, um, the best weight to steering ratio in the entire study. So that means more weight budget available for your FOC, right? So those are things to consider. So for your mechanical shooters, i.e. me, uh, who want the best blend, the DCA Super Saber is your two year confirmed answer. This vein has been so popular, man. Everybody's running it. We've seen a massive uptick in sales uh on these, and for good reasons. The the vein is like the best combination or the best blend for for. What you're after is whenever it comes to shooting mechanical broadhead. The DCA Super Saber is just on fire. Top three in the 2025 drag lift scatter and then confirmed again in 2026. It is the most versatile hunting vein in the study based on two years of data. The Tack Driver two and a quarter, which again is another vein that I'm very fond of. And then the Flex Fletch Silent Night two inch were also in the top three cluster in 2025. So you've got some really good vein options. And obviously, there's a lot more if you look at the uh the data that they've collected on the website. You've got more vein options that you can select from. Um, but you can look at the scatter plots and see exactly how they performed. So now, if noise is your priority, which it should be in somewhere in your priority list, the Flex Fletch FFP360 is the quietest vein tested in both 2025 and 2026. Again, two years confirmed. And according to this, Yates has been shooting it for 10 years, specifically because it's the quietest vein he's ever found. Uh, and this the study again proved that. So it's actually quieter than veins half its sides, half its size due to the gradual profile, which is kind of cool. Uh the flex fletch 300 is nearly identical on noise with a slightly with slightly more steering, and then the UV vein, which debuted it this year, 2026, and it landed in the top three for quiet category immediately. So lots of vein options, man. So a few quick rules on veins to consider, right? The four fletch question. This is a big one. This has always kind of been a question of mine as well. So the 2025 study measured it pretty precisely, I would say. Um, adding a four-fletch costs you roughly 7.3% more drag, but it buys you 3.8% better steering. So, according to that, that's about 0.9 inches less broadhead drift at 70 yards. And it adds less than one decibel of noise. So for fixed blade shooters, the trade-off I would say is absolutely worth it. For mechanical shooter shooters, I don't know that it necessarily is, right? So if you're shooting above 310 feet per second, um one of the other things you need to consider is going with a stiffer vein material, right? Like a flex flex fletch 360X. Um, the 2026 high speed data is definitive on this. If you have a bow that is shooting extremely fast, we know a lot of these bows this year, the arcs, the scicarios, all these bows are putting up crazy speeds, especially with guys shooting a little bit, even not even really light arrows, but like a happy medium arrow, 440 to 460 grains. If it's shooting that fast, you want a stiffer vein on the back of that arrow steering it. The data prove that. So if you are shooting a bow that's high speed, look at running stiffer veins on the back of your arrow.

Shaft Diameter Spine And FOC Rules

Zakk Plocica 25:00

Now, shaft and FOC. The 2025 study confirmed that four mil arrows have exactly 10% less drag than a five mil arrows of the equivalent build. So that's 10%, right? That's not nothing. That's quite a bit. So at 70 and 80 yards, that translates to, I would say, real inches uh of wind drift and elevation drop, right? Less drag. I mean, that's critical when you're shooting that open country at those far distance, right? Less wind drift. Uh so if your hunting application allows it, go with that smaller diameter. And I think that more caters to your Western hunters and your distance guys, not so much your guys in the whitetail woods who are hunting within that 25 or 30 yards. This is interesting too. So on spine, the 2026 study tested every spine from 200 to a 340 spine on the modern current bows, right? The Hoit, in particular the Hoyt with the XTS tuning system, and found that a stiffer always performed better. So going from a hundred nominal spine unit stiffer, say from a 300 to a 200, predicts about 0.9 inch inches tighter mean radius on your broadhead group at 70 yards, and there was no sweet spot, no spine at which accuracy reversed. Stiffer was better all the way through the tested range. So but with that, let's not jump off the deep end here. You should run an optimally tuned, slightly stiffer dynamic spine, especially when shooting broadheads. We don't want to go to one extreme to the other. That's not what this testing is about. Um, it does in the testing, the study cautions against going excessively stiff as it adds overall mass, overall weight, which reduces aero velocity and trajectory forgiveness. So going and just going to that stiffer spine doesn't automatically mean better. You need to find a happy medium within all of these different areas of building your arrows, right? We can't go from one extreme to the next, or you're gonna lose somewhere. We want to optimize for what we're doing. It's easy to do. I'm trust me, I'm somebody that jumps off the deep end very quick. So, front of center, FOC. The 2026 study ran 34 arrow builds and a regression analysis to isolate pure FOC effect. The result, this is also very interesting, increasing FOC by five percentage points, say from roughly 13 to 18%, 10 to 15%, whatever you want to call it. It predicts about a two-inch reduction in broadhead group mean radius at 70 yards, which they say that's four inches on total group diameter. And there was no ceiling to this. Accuracy kept improving through the entire tested range from 10 all the way to 25% FOC. So the limit to this though, the ceiling is your dynamic spine tolerance and your trajectory goals, not accuracy degrading. So again, we don't want to just jump off the deep end and just load all this point weight up front because there is a point of like no return or where things get worse, right? In particular, overall weight and trajectory of the arrow. When you add so much weight, you increase the overall weight of the arrow, your trajectory is greater, you get that more arcing uh arrow, and you have less range forgiveness. All things you need to consider with this. So you again find the happy medium if it works with what you're doing. So I think the three smart ways to raise FOC. I don't think this is anything groundbreaking. Most people know this. If you don't, these are good refreshers or good information to have. Obviously, you can take and cut your arrow shorter. So this is going to move the balance point forward and stiffens up your dynamic spine at the same time. So you get two wins, you get a little bit stiffer arrow, you get more FOC. Um, the other thing you can do is drop to a lower GPI shaft and redirect the weight savings to the front via insert weight, right? In particular, fact insert weight or weight added internally to the shaft. This is probably going to be the direction I go. Going to a lower GPI arrow. There are trade-offs when you go to a lower GPI arrow, though, and particularly the durability side of things. So, again, with everything, there's good and bad, there's pros and cons. Um, the other thing you can do is use lighter veins, which also redirects those grains to the inserts. Uh, what you do not want to do, again, is just add tip weight to your current arrow. Again, the regression actually showed that less total point with FOC already had, or excuse me, already held constant in the model. So it improved groups by about 0.7 inches because lighter point weight stiffens dynamic spine. It's counterintuitive, but it's what the data says. Very confusing trying to interpret this, some of this stuff. So that was a little over my head. This is just a note I had on it. Um, you just got to be within reason of what you're doing, man. Just I think be realistic within your setup. We don't got to go to extremes with this. Again, our goal is to optimize. All right.

Good Better Best Builds By Scenario

Zakk Plocica 30:06

I think this is the part that most of you guys have come for. If you were listening, we're looking at a couple different hunting scenarios, right? And a couple different tiers within each of those scenarios. So, kind of some goods, some betters. Um, and every component in this that I've kind of put together has data points behind it. So I'm going to move through it kind of at a fairly quick pace. We're already 30 minutes in on this thing. Um, if one of the scenarios is yours, you can pause it, you can write it down, keep going through it. And all this is in the show notes as well. So all links and everything are in the show notes if you're looking for one particular point within this podcast. So just go down to the show notes. Whether you're watching on YouTube, listening on a podcast, doesn't matter. Should be in the show notes. All right, scenario number one. This guy, well, not always this guy, because I got some other hunts hunting hunt uh going on this year, but in particular, guys like me. So you're white-tail hunters in the timber, in the thick, close range hunters, right? Tree stand, ground blind, out of a saddle, all your shots are within 35 or 40 yards. You're hunting pressure deer, which is what we have here. I think noise matters, penetration matters, trajectory is not the primary concern for this, right? We're our distance is short. I don't think trajectory should be the major defining factor when it comes to building an arrow. So a good build. I think this is this good build, honestly, is a great build, but it's a basic build, right? In Eastern Axis 5mm, the most durable shaft on the market. The Axis 5 mil is a machine. I think it is a phenomenal white tail arrow. Cut it short. Your FOC with this, with a stock insert with the collar, is for me uh on mine, it was somewhere between 11 and 13 percent. Not a big deal, nothing, no crazy FOC, but the arrow just performs well. It's a great white tail build. AE max stealth on the back in a three-fletch, two degree right helical. That has been my go-to for years. Pair that with like a sever 2.0. The sever 2.0 was the best group in mechanical in 2025. Field tip equivalent group from their tuned machine. It's a started, solid starting point um build. It's very simple. There's not, you don't got to overthink it. It's available everywhere. The Axis 5mm is phenomenal. Paired with that two-inch cutting diameter for a white tail. I think it's fantastic, right? Pick the spine based off the amount of draw weight and the uh draw length of your bow. Don't overthink this build. It's very simple. Use your stock components, put that uh Sever 2.0 on there. They come pre-flex with the AE hybrid, which is the equivalent to the max stealth. It's a ready-to-go arrow. Fantastic for white tail hunting. Now, if you want to step up from that, you want a better arrow, similar GPI, I would look at the FMJ Max. I ran this this past year. So, same thing. Cut it short as short as you can, right? So we can increase our FOC, decrease the overall weight of the arrow, stiffen it up a little bit, depending on the total weight in it. I would the difference with this though, because it's almost identical in GPI with the Axis 5 mil, it's the FMJ Max is their lower GPI FMJ. It's the carbon interior, um, aluminum outsert. So the penetration on it's better. It's just it pulls out of targets fantastic, too. Um, just a great arrow. Same GPI, like I said. The difference with this one is what I would do is I would add a little bit more weight inside of it. And in particular, I wouldn't go to an outsert system and based off everything they say using fact weight, weight, increasing the FOC internally. Use Easton's hit insert. They have a 50 or 75 grain option and stainless. You can break it off, add additional 50 grains up front. It's gonna be virtually be the same um style build, but you're gonna have a little bit more point weight. The overall weight of the arrow is gonna be a little bit more, not a big deal because trajectory is not priority one, but you get more FOC, you're gonna get a little bit harder hitting um arrow. Run the same veins on the back, I would say a max stealth three-fletch, two degree right helico, or if you buy it pre-fletched with their hybrids, run that same thing. Pair it with a 2.0. Um, I think that's a fantastic arrow, personally. I mean, that thing works fantastic. Now, if you want to improve it a little bit more, you can run um a four-fletch on it, get a little bit better steering, same thing, two degree right helical, pair it with the FFP 300 um Vang, excuse me. You're gonna get an incredibly quiet arrow plus an arrow that steers extremely well. Now, is it maybe a little bit overkill for steering? Probably. I would personally probably still stick with like the max stealth, or I would go with that arrow and just run it in three fletch personally. Um, but that's gonna be a fantastic arrow build, I think personally. Um the big change for me with that is you're getting a little bit more FOC, a little bit more overall arrow weight. It's just gonna hammer through whatever you shoot. Uh, so you kind of got a good, you kind of got a better there for white tail hunting. Those are kind of my go-to. If I was building specifically for white tail hunting, and that was all I was doing. Axis 5 mil, FMJ Max. I like the five mil because of the weight I can uh add internally, all your different component options. Components are just a little bit more affordable. It's just really, really great shafts. Durability, if that's your priority one, axis five mil. If you want a little bit harder hitting with a little bit, I think maybe a little bit better penetration, go with the FMJ Max, add that a little bit more, insert weight internally, and you're gonna get more FOC hard hitting arrow. That thing's just gonna hammer. So great arrow builds for white tail hunters. Obviously, there's a lot of other ones out there, guys. So don't harp on me. These are just some examples that I've come come up with based off of the study from this. The next scenario, the Western hunter, right? So the open country, the mule deer, the elk, those shots that are further, 40, 80 plus yards, right? Ranging error is the number one cause of misses out there. So a flat trajectory and ranging forgiveness are a non-negotiable when it comes to you guys building arrows. Wind matters out there. So I think a good arrow build, starting off a good one, sticking with five mil right now, the east and five.

unknown 36:13

Right?

Zakk Plocica 36:14

So we got a lower GPI 5 mil option. I think is is great. I personally am just a huge fan of the um the 5mm stuff in general. Doesn't matter if it's a victory, if it's an east end, five five mil is like my go-to. I would run that, you can run that with a stock insert. You're gonna get decent FOC out of it already because it's a low GPI 5 mil. Cut it short enough, as short as you can get away with with the broadheads you're running, run it with the collar. A same thing. AE max stealth or the pre-fletch hybrid in a three-fletch two degree right helical. I would personally, instead of running a sever 2.0, I would probably look at a sever 1.75, maybe a hybrid. Uh, or even the evolution hide, another great option. The hide was one of the most aerodynamic broadheads in 2025 study. So it really surprised everybody just because of the design of it. Um, so that's a really great option. Very simple, not overthought, use a lot of stock components, get a good broad head, run it with the factory veins. You still get a good arrow that's not overly heavy, it's gonna be light. You're gonna get a very flat trajectory with this arrow. It's a five mil, so you're gonna your wind drift is not gonna be bad with it. It's just gonna be a good basic arrow build. Now, from there, if we want to step up to a better arrow build, same thing, 5-0, so you can get that FOC increased. Cut it where you would there, cut it nice and short, add a little bit of point weight to it. Same thing. Internally add some point weight with the the Easton hit insert system or a fact weight system, so you can add maybe between 50 and 75 grains to it to up that um foc. Throw some DCA super sabers on the back of that thing, fletch them up two degree helical. Um, I think you pair that with a sever 1.5, 1.75. You're gonna get a very good steering broadhead, a very flat trajectory, and you're gonna get a lot of FOC out of this uh arrow build. You could also pair it with a Grim Reaper Fatal Steel, another arrow that just absolutely performed exceptionally well um this year. So as you guys know, like I said earlier, the Super Saber is the two-year confirmed best balance vein. So it was top three in 2025, and then again it was confirmed in 2026. And then when we talk about the fatal steel, obviously severs are phenomenal broadheads, but the fatal steel was um incredibly accurate in 2026. It grouped with field tips at 290 feet per second. So the sever, the 1-5, if you're shooting really fast over 310 feet per second, look at the sever one five, it dominated at 325 plus feet per second. So again, another really great arrow option, kind of a good better. And then best, man, if we're looking for best, I would probably aim for like a four-mill shaft in this scenario. We know you get 10% less wind drift, right? Or 10% less drag, excuse me, with the going from a four mil to a five mil, or going from a five mil to a four mil. I'm backwards on that. You're gonna get um better penetration because there's less surface area, it's easier to pass through what it's hitting or shooting. Um, the four mil, I think, as a like a Western guy, is just gonna be a premium build. I think that's what James Yates runs out there. It's just gonna be a fantastic build. So, with that, you want to get a decent FOC out of it. I you they come if you go with the Axis 4 mil with a 55 grain outsort system, you can always bump that weight up a little bit, go from 55, maybe 75, even all the way up to 100, depending on how overall heavy you want that arrow. Uh, but I don't think you can go wrong even with the stock components. But if you can go with like a titanium version, something that's a little bit harder, probably worth doing, maybe add a little bit more weight relative to your draw weight and draw length to increase that FOC a little bit. Um, ideal FOC for that, I would say somewhere between 14 and 18% would be probably ideal. So you get a good combination of you don't want it to be overly heavy, you want a flat trajectory and you want good FOC so that it steers really, really well, and then you get that good kinetic energy on impact. A flex fletch FFP 360X uh would be a good vein uh on the back of this thing. It's that stiffer material version. Uh again, three fletch and a two-degree helical. Same thing. If you're shooting fast, sever 1.5 or 7 1.75, and then the grim reaper, same fatal still, both good broadheads for this. Um, and like I said, the four mil shaft just has um exactly 10% less drag than the five mil on an equivalent build. So, and that's again, that's confirmed from 2025. So if you you know you're shooting that open country where you have to consider wind, um, you want to maintain energy as long as you can, going to a four-mil, I think, is a no-brainer. It is just a more costly build, it can be, especially when we talk about components. So uh the when we talk about the vein on the back of this, the 360x outperformed the standard 360 at 325 feet per second, and the uh 2026 high speed data. So, all things considered, man, if you can shoot it fast, if you can shoot it flat with good FOC, that is ideal, especially for the Western guys. Um, you know, and that kind of looking at this, the best tier, you're chasing a flat trajectory from every angle simultaneously, right? So a narrow shaft, you want that little bit stiffer spine by cutting it down nice and short, you want that stiffer vein material for the speed, and you want the most aerodynamic, accurate mechanicals the study found. That is the setup for it. Based off the data, we're taking the data, we're applying it to the builds. That's based off the data. All right, and then the next scenario is for our fixed blade purist guys, right? The guys that are just solely focused on penetration, that is your primary goal. You're committed to the fixed blade, regardless of the flight data. Um, you want the most accurate fixed blade build possible. So when we talk about penetration, we want a little bit more overall weight behind that. We want a bit a little bit more FOC. I think it's hard to deny the Axis 5mm again is just a great arrow in general. The GPI is a little bit greater. Um, it's just a very durable arrow. It pairs well, it's a hard-hitting arrow. It pairs well, I think, with a fixed blade broadhead, probably for a lot of people. Uh so again, axis 5 mil, basic insert. You're gonna be somewhere between 11 and 13% FOC with that and the collar on it, depending on how long you cut the arrow. Same thing, running the stock, fletchings on it, the hybrid um 2.6s or the the max stealth in that three, three fletch, two degree helical. It's gonna steer fairly well. Broadhead, uh, the evolution Jekyll. Um, if you're going fixed blade, it only makes sense to start with the broadhead that gripped the best in the study, in my opinion. I mean, that makes the most sense. Everything else in 2025 was with within a few inches of the Jekyll, it just was incredibly accurate. So accuracy is key in recovery, right? Good shots mean everything. It's hard to deny how well that broadhead shot. So it's worth starting with. From there, moving on to maybe a little bit better build, going to the FMJ Max. Again, I think stepping up from the FMJ Max or the access to the FMJ Max, it's not the overall weight or GPI that's greater. It's it's that blend, that carbon and that aluminum exterior. You just get the vis the when the when the arrow hits and impacts, it just passes through extremely well. You get a little bit more penetration. Um, same thing. Cut that arrow as short as you can. I would add weight to the front of this again, internally, to get that FOC up a little bit greater. And then on the back of it, because you're running a fixed blade, you might want to look at running like the AAE talon in a three fletcher two degree. A helical, uh, the evolution jackal or the Tulu, right? If you shoot fixed blades, the the Talon is the data-backed vein. It just makes the most sense. It's going to provide the the lift recovery that you need in order to steer these veins exceptionally well. Um it had 6.3 inches uh less drift than your average veins. So there were two years that confirmed that. So just keep that in mind. So that's kind of what we got. Good, better, best on some of them, good, better on a lot of them. There's so many options out there, but those were just some ideas or some um some of the the builds that kind of came to mind. My my head when I was putting them down on paper, how I would kind of apply the data to them and what I would look at. Not saying it's necessarily right, but it's just options out there in the world of infinite options of arrow building. So um lots to take away, a lot of data. There's just it really gives you a really great starting point for

My Personal Setup And What Changes

Zakk Plocica 44:58

this. Now, for me, what am I gonna do? That's kind of what I had to think, right? My build. How am I gonna take this data and build around what I want to do? I know this year that I will be doing a lot of white tail hunting, I will be in North Carolina, Kentucky, and potentially Texas. So I and I want an arrow that's gonna be kind of optimized for those things. So I'm currently on the FMJ Max. It's got an FOC of like 11.9%, an overall weight of 465 grains. There's nothing special about that arrow. It's very simple. It's a fantastic white tail arrow. I shot white tail with six, five white tail with it last year, or three with that, and then three with the 5-0. And dude, that thing just hammered. Nothing stopped it, nothing stood out of its way. I recovered everything within 50 yards using a sever 1.75 hybrid. But I can always optimize, right? I know I might potentially be taking a couple further shots if I go to Texas, potentially. Not saying I will, but I want to be set up for it. So I'm gonna change some things. My bill this year is gonna look a little bit different. I'm gonna go back to the 5-0. I think I'm gonna run a 300 spine. I'm gonna cut it down to probably about 27 and a half inches. I'm gonna add somewhere between 50 and 75 grains to the front of that shaft internally using the hit system from Easton. I'm gonna run the collar on it and I'm gonna stick with 100 grains on the front of that arrow because that's what I've used forever. Ideally, I would go to 125. I just think the broad head material is a little bit better, but I'm gonna stick with 100 grain. I'm going to stick with a, I think at this point, I'm torn. I'm either in AE max stealth, which is what I've always run. They perform exceptionally well. I mean, they're fairly quiet from what I can tell. Um, and they've just I've I've used them for a long time. But I may go to a DCA Super Saber. I might do some testing on my own, even though the data's there. It's always good to test your test for yourself and find out. I'm kind of torn between those two, but that's gonna bump my FOC up pretty dramatically. Um, going from that lower GPI, right, uh from a FMJ Max to a um staying in the same five mil category to a 5.0. My GPI is gonna be much lower. So that way my FOC is gonna be greater. And my goal is to get my build somewhere within the same total weight. Ideally, for me, I want it to be between 440 and 465 grains coming out of my bow. And I would like it to be shooting in the 290s this year. Based off the study, shooting that flatter or that faster bow doesn't negatively impact the accuracy of the broadhead. So if I can get a little bit more speed out of it, I'm going to. And realistically, that's probably gonna be 440 to 460-ish grains at 80-ish pounds, 28 and a half inches with my Mach 33, because I'm gonna hunt with my Mach 33 again this year. I think I just love that bow, shoots good. So that's kind of the direction that I'm going, and that's my thought process behind it, and that's what I'm going to do build based off application behind based off my goals. I also know that I am not the best shooter in the world. That's why I'm gonna run those veins. The DCA Super Sabres or the AE Max Stealth have done a good job of providing enough lift recovery for my um my shooting, from what I've I've been able to tell. So there's my reasoning. That's me going through the questions in my head and answering them and building accordingly. And like I said, obviously, if we can get more FOC out of the arrow, it's just gonna improve the overall arrow itself. Um, the accuracy was greater, cutting the arrow down, um, all of those things combined, just optimizing the efficiency of the arrow and optimizing it for me and my shooting capability. So that is that is that, my

Six Rules For Every Arrow Build

Zakk Plocica 48:36

friends. I hope um some of it made sense to you guys. But um, before we wrap this thing up, there's six rules that also apply to every single arrow build, uh, regardless of the scenario, uh, regardless of the tier, regardless of your budget. These are things that you should do and you should consider whenever you are building arrows, things that I took away from the study. Rule number one is square the knock end of the arrow. So square the front and the rear of the arrow. The 2026 team did a before and after test during the study. They use the same machine, same bow, same arrows, just squared the knock in between the two sessions. The groups tightened up dramatically. It costs literally nothing to do this, right? Get a cheap squaring tool, spend a couple minutes pulling the knocks off, squaring the front and the rear. Um, there's really not an excuse to skip it. It just improved the accuracy and the consistency of the arrow. So squaring front and rear of the shaft makes a difference. The next rule: tune your bow before you do anything. Make sure the bow is set up and tuned correctly before you start slapping broadheads and stuff on there. Um it's critical. A tune bow is everything. In order to shoot a bow accurately, the bow needs to be set up for whatever you're shooting. So take your time and tune the bow prior to even starting the process. Make sure it's set up correctly, it's center shot, it's timed, everything's level as it should be. And then rule number three, you need to retune after every meaningful change you make within that arrow. Every FOC change, everything you do, you need to retune the bow. You have to do it. Any changes impact the tune of the bow. So the 2026 study, um, they retune the bow after every single arrow category in the 34 arrow matrix. So obviously it's not optional. You need to change so if you change your point weight, you cut your arrow shorter, you change your broadhead, you need to retune every single time. And you got to tune according to what you're you're doing and the arrow that you're setting up. So keep that in mind. Make sure you do those things. Um, another good rule that I took away from this was match your vein material to the speed of your bow. This is easily overlooked, right? So if you're under 310 feet per second, the standard a little bit softer material like the flex fletch 360 was fine, right? If you're over 310 feet per second, you want that stiffer vein material, right? The flex fletch is 360f, something like that that is stiffer. The 2026 high-speed data show the 360X outperformed the standard 360 at 325 feet per second. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Um, so same quiet profile, you got better performance at the speed. So know the speed that you're shooting and pick the right material accordingly. Faster bow, stiffer material. Keep that in mind. Uh, and then rule five build the system, not just the parts, right? This is the one I think people miss quite often, and I think we are all guilty of it. A quiet vein paired with a loud broadhead is not a quiet arrow. In the 2026 combo noise testing, it proved it. So when they paired a loud broadhead with a quiet vein versus a loud vein, the difference was only 1.6 decibels. The broadhead dominated. So if you want a quiet arrow, you need a quiet vein and a quiet broadhead, right? You got to engineer the system together. Every component affects every other component. So when you're building, think through this logically and think beginning to end, right? It is a system and you need to build accordingly in order to get the most out of it. And then finally, rule six, according to the study, it says go stiffer than your your spine's uh spine chart says. That's you can't you don't want to go off the deep end though, right? So it says on the modern bows, anything with your limb shift capability, you know, your your ability to shim the cams. The the 2026 study tuned every spine from a 200 to a 340 to get a bullet hole with zero rest adjustment. So stiffer performed better every time. There was no s no sweet spot, no reversal. But it's a big but you should run an optimally tuned to slightly stiffer dynamic spine, especially when you're shooting broadheads. However, there's a big however in there. The study cautions against going excessively stiff as it adds, you guessed it, overall mass and overall weight, which again is gonna reduce the overall speed of the arrow and the trajectory forgiveness. So back to what I said before, don't jump off the deep end and go from if you need a 340 to a 150, that's not gonna make sense. You're gonna add so much overall weight to that arrow that you're gonna lose so much speed and the trajectory is gonna be so much greater, it's gonna be a less performance-driven arrow. So keep that in mind. Everything's relative to your draw length and your draw weight. You have to keep that in mind. We can't go from, you know, zero to 100. So you still need to have a basic understanding of how your bow's set up, the draw length of your bow, the poundage of your bow, and somewhere within where your the spine of your arrow needs to be based off the total point weight on it. So, yes, there's room to play, but you don't want to go excessive in one direction, which is going to limit you in the speed of the bow and the trajectory, right? Range forgiveness is still critical, especially for you guys shooting those further distances. So that's it, guys. That's the framework, the four questions, three decisions in the right order, multiple builds across different scenarios, and then the six rules that apply to all of them. So, again, I want to leave you on a personal note. You know, my current setup. Like I said, I'm shooting the Mach 33, it's got the EC2 cam on it, roughly 76 to 80 pounds with that current FMJ max at 465 grains, sitting at 11.9% FOC right now. There's room to optimize it. And the way I'm gonna optimize it is I'm gonna go to a completely different arrow. I'm pretty sure I've made my mind up. I'm going back to an to a 5.0 with that lower GPI, increasing my FOC by adding uh roughly 50 to 75 grains with 100 grain point weight and the collar, which is gonna significantly increase my FOC while keeping my overall weight the same and utilizing either a DCA Super Saber or an AE max stealth on the back to steer that Sever 1.75 hybrid. I think that's gonna be a phenomenal setup for me to do everything I want to do this year. And um based off the study and all the information I've taken in, I feel like that puts me, that's moving me in the right direction and gonna not say I'm gonna be that much better, but it's there if there's room for optimization and improving on what I'm doing, and I get a little bit more forgiveness, range forgiveness, um, better penetration, better steering, why not do it? So that's the approach I'm taking. Uh, and I think it's gonna work out well. Uh, we'll see this year based off my hunting. And um, obviously I'll have to report back later on this hunting season with how it goes, but I just think it makes sense. So that's

Resources, Arrow Builder, And Wrap

Zakk Plocica 55:33

it, guys. As always, I appreciate you guys following along and listening to me rant and rave and put my thoughts out there on these different things. I always enjoy do it, and I always enjoy the feedback from you guys. So let me know your guys' arrow build thoughts on this based off of the data that you've seen. How are you going to apply it to your arrow build this year for this upcoming hunting season? And let me know also too, what kind of hunting do you primarily do? Are you a Western guy? Are you a whitetail hunter? Are you doing you building an arrow to do it all? I'm always curious to hear from you guys. So drop in the comments and let me know. And then give me some feedback too, what else you'd like to hear about, man. Um, you know, I put a lot of time and energy into researching for these podcasts and providing as much quality information as I as I absolutely can. And I'm not saying I'm always right, so remember that. Um, but these are my interpretations and me thoughts and you know, kind of open dialogue and open conversation on it. So I always appreciate you guys uh following along and listening and supporting us and everything that we do. Uh it means the world to me. Also, just so you know, I'm gonna drop some fruit, some re some resources in the description for this. So Precision Cut Archery's website, um, it'll have all their interactive plots uh from both years, and then you'll be able to so you can go through and hover over every single data point and click on it and see the actual photo of the arrow group from the study. It's just honestly like genuinely impressive. And it's free. So go check it out, use it to your advantage. Uh, and then I'll include you know, Yates, his YouTube channel at Yates in the Backcountry. Uh, he's got FOC deep dives, perfect arrow builds, things that are already published. So I'll link that as well. Um, I think all of that is worth your time if you're really serious about building a great arrow this year. And then I'll link the Western hunting, the Western Hunter articles from both years in the show notes as well. So you'll have all the resources down below. Check them out. Um, you know, help those guys out. They put a tremendous amount of effort into what they've done and they've done a fantastic job for us bow hunters, giving us data to utilize for our own personal gain. But as always, if you need anything archer related, if you need arrows, if you want to do testing, if you want one-off custom arrow builds, you know where to go. Streamoutfitters.com. We've got a new arrow builder that's coming out. It's already available for victory. It'll be coming along for Easton. It's kind of in the beta testing phase right now. Um, but it's there, it's live, it's ready to go. You can custom build one arrow. You can you can buy one arrow at a time. We offer free cut and glue. Arrows are all about testing and building what works for you. I've all it's always been important to me. So we want to be able to share that with you guys so that you don't feel obligated to buy a full dozen whenever you're in the middle of testing. So hit the website, extremoutfitters.com, use the code ArcheryProject, save some money on it. Um, if you got questions on anything, by all means, reach out to us. We'd be happy to help you out. And if this episode helps you at all, dude, if you don't mind, share it to man. Spread the love. I appreciate that. That's how we uh continue to do these things and continue to grow. So give us support support. It means the world to me. Uh and your guys' support means everything for what we're doing. So, as always, I appreciate you guys following along and listening to me talk arrows and archery. I love it. Appreciate you guys. We'll see you guys in the next episode of the Archery Project.