Does Arrow Spine Matter? Primitive Archery tips and how-to 

I am quite aware that this subject rubs Modern, tech-driven Traditional archers the wrong way because it essentially challenges their archery religion, however, it is important to realize that this is crucial for the understanding of the context of primitive archery in the ancient world. Even though I spine test and match all my arrows built for customers because of variables outside my control, this video merely shows what is possible and repeatable in the pre-historic world of primitive archery. Arrows can still fly great and straight even with no points and unmatched spines, weights, or diameters. Our team here at HuntPrimitive certainly has the data, hunting success, and shooting success to back it up. Also keep in mind, we have nothing to gain by lying to you about the results...lol We simply want to share our positive experiences an offer explanations of if/how/why/why-not primitive cultures matched arrows for the purposes of subsistence hunting.

I have no idea what he's talking about. I just enjoy primitive bushcraft, so have been following.

@HuntPrimitive ... i have been watching several of your videos and this video hits the nail on the head. I live in Guyana - South America, and all our bows by the indigenous Amerindian peoples of Guyana and many other 'amazonian' based tribes, make 'primitive bows and arrows', and they/we do not weigh or spine arrows. our arrow-tips are build based upon the type of 'game' we are hunting... be it from fish to Tapir. what sometimes differs, is the shaft of the arrow; wooden shafts for shooting fishes (heavier shaft to penetrate water) and different types of fishes have different bard-points of very different wights! Our typical shaft is made from a grass that grows as tall and have the same 1.5 - 2m inflorescence as the sugarcane plant. Our arrow shafts are normally 1m in length and then the additional tip that can be 5-inches to as much as 14-inches. the Wai-Wai tribe in Guyana shoots 2m arrows (mainly of wooden tips) - and they shoot these 'arrows' at 45 - 90 degrees up into trees at birds and monkeys that are 25 - 40m in the canopy. They use Curare-poison on their tips. Most Amerindian archers use knives and machete blades filled down to 1-inch at its widest point as spear-shaped arrow-heads for hunting Tapir, Peccaries and Brocket Deers, and barded wire-points for smaller games and some fishes. they will also hammer 5-inch nails into small broadheads, but this is to either shoot a specific fish called Pacu/Tambacqui or they will use it to punch through the shells of amazonian river-turtles.We do have river-canes, but i haven't seen anyone using this as an arrow-shaft.... so i will be trying this one out...smile.... thnks again for your channel....

Saxton Pope doesn't mention spine once in his opus, "Hunting With The Bow And Arrow", nor does Maurice Thompson in "The Witchery of Archery"; both books talk extensively about technique and equipment, both men were prolific and capable bow hunters.

This is so satisfying! Thanks. I read a lot of nay sayers claiming that primitive peoples wouldn’t have been that accurate with their non-spined / weighed arrows. This is pretty conclusive: a skilled primitive archer (with a bow made by a skilled primitive bowyer) would have been very accurate! Thanks and a sub from me :)

Great info! This addresses the whole adding a point later and practicing with stone tips issue too.

I'll add a counter perspective here and I feel it's important as it may help others since this rarely seems to come up in the "primitive" forums. I think the spine is definitely important, not necessarily as weighed and tested on a scale, but by shooting and knowing how to adjust arrows to fly right. I've been building and shooting bows/arrows from self-harvested wood/natural materials for >20 yrs (the only thing I'll purchase is sometimes a string and field points) and this was always one of the biggest challenges - straight flying arrows. I would also posit that our ancestors would have been very well versed in matching arrow to bow, if not by scales and jiggs, certainly by shooting and adjusting arrows/bows/strings etc... There are many factors, but for me, I've noticed that it's absolutely critical for me to match the spine of my arrows to the bow, bare shaft shooting - shave/cut them down until they are flying straight before fletching. If I do this, I get a way more accurate set of arrows (no wobble) and I get way better penetration. No spine testing, weighing, etc... just shooting and scraping/cutting/checking weak spots-knots etc... without this step, I might as well be tossing wet noodles - deadly noodles, I concur, but wiggly noodles nonetheless (and I did so for years frustratingly - learning process). In this instance, looking at 11:54 , this is exactly what I would expect from a set of non-spine-tuned arrows and I'd be pulling out the card scrapper/hack saw(s) - they don't look to me to be flying/hitting straight - even if grouped (would be even more evident without the big fletchings and notwithstanding the hay bail). We can almost pick out that ~40lb and 70lb one... I don't know, but I also suspect that spineing may be more of a factor with hardwoods like dogwood, viburnum, etc... than with cane. Thoughts?

I totally agree with you, I build and shoot primitive bows with no shelf and every one of them the string favors one side or the other and I shoot on the side that makes the bow more “center shot.” I’ve don’t own a spine tester and I never have a problem with shooting different weighted arrow shafts. Now I always attributed that to the fact I really cant my bow almost horizontal when i shoot but in retrospect your explanation about the string makes more sense.

Amother fantastic video and great content. Really enjoyed this, thanks Ryan 👍

Thank you for all the great vids and info. Your bows and arrows are always beautiful.

Great video, lots of great info. Thanks!

My grandfather got so much hate for doing and saying what you just have said here. He won lots of tournaments and he never had 2 arrows with the same length, weight nor spine

I think this is a really good video this is a problem I have been dealing with and this has answered all my questions as always thank you

I've been messing around with archery since I was a kid in the early 80s. Back then, we had a few fiberglass bows and some wood arrows. My brother and I each got Ben Pearson compound bows for Christmas in the late 80s, with aluminum arrows. I just recently got back into archery. Started doing some research. Arrow weight and spine were not even factors for consideration until recently. And while for hunting purposes, I am curious about overall arrow weight because I want to make sure I am shooting enough mass to make an ethical kill, I really don't care about spine testing. If you are shooting for competition or long range hunts, yeah, I will agree that having properly tuned bows and properly tuned arrows is a factor to keep in mind. But, for me shooting just for fun and the occasional small game hunts with everything no further out than 20 to 30 yards, I'm just not going to worry about it much.

Can't wait for it, hurry up!! lol Ryan, I am passionate about primitive archery and making my own bows and arrows. At soon to be 72 years old I got a very late start but just want you to know you have helped me immensely with your tutorials and knowledge. I am on a quest to take all five Georgia big game species with my primitive tools. So far I have turkeys, pigs, and deer which leaves me with bear and alligator to complete the quest. Working on straightening river cane now and trying to get my stone points thin and sharp for a late June bear hunt in Canada. Thank you so much for sharing, you have been a blessing to me!!

Very interesting, i asked myself that a long time ago. Thanks

Great video Ryan. I imagine the spine matters even less with a lot of modern trad bows that are mostly cut to center. Also, with you and Vastin laying down hard to kill critters like wild pigs consistently it's hard to argue with success.

Good video and great subject. Subscribed.

Can you put the rest of this series into a playlist? I’m very interested in the results.

I love your videos! By the way, that seems to be a great shooting bow for Hickory!

I'm no archery expert, but I do shoot an 80lb warbow and a 45lb recurve. I don't claim to have done any kind of scientific research or anything, but both my arrows spined for my 45lb recurve and my 80lb warbow shoot similarly on the warbow, with the heavier arrows knocking the target backwards a little harder. Otherwise they fly the same, and are similarly accurate. I shoot instictive.

Excellent Thankyou !!

Hey ryan, first off I wanna say you're one of my heroes totally got me into primitive archery. I have a question tho. Have you ever shot a short bow? I'm looking at a lakota style short bow that is around 3 ft. Long and pulls about 50-60 pounds and I'm curious to what you think about that.

Howdy Ryan ! I’ve followed Yu & yur channel Fur several years & Yu always put out the best primitive info for us ! Question - Is there a specific length & weight of yur stone arrowheads that Yu prefer , especially for hunting pig & deer ?

thank yew.

awesome talk, very inspiring and confirming, thanks. In the end it is 90% about form , the other 10% 'aiming' and hardware more an excuse. Do you also add some form of khatra? Interesting the string orientation. This is what facilitates the spin of the kyudo Yumi after release too I would imagine. With tumb release how much draw length could your hickory selfbow handle?

That bow is soooooo quiet. I love it

good vid all true info. built my first bow 67 years ago. my dad built bows. grew up down the street from Flight Daily, champ. flight shooter and bow builder. just cant your bow untill it shoots stright. go stumb shooting a lot. if you got a bad arrow throw it away. the more you shoot the better you get. the more you hunt the more you eat. i remember when all bows were made of wood. in the west we shot u wood it was every where the loggers burnt it in their slash piles. i have cut lots and lots of u wood. most of the stuff people build bows out of we would have never cut. we would season all wood 4 years. all bows were built from billets. splice and glue one day build bow the next. we would build a bow in 4 hours ready to test shoot. don't over draw your wood bow beware of hot and cold weather warm up the limbs before you shoot. ha,ha, have a good day. im still building bows but don't kill game soft hart.

Superb!👍👍

Hey ryan. I was curious, how far does your string sit away from center? Currently making a bow, and i plan in cutting a bit of a shelf into it. What would you consider ideal? Cut to center? Or perhaps somewhat off? How far off center is your hickory bow?

I appreciate your philosophizes regarding coming full circle, funny how often that happens in life. Thanks for touching on the dry time from tree to bow too. In that 2-3wk period did you let it air dry naturally? Is hickory just that conducive to being bent green without warping or taking excessive set?

Great video. How much do you allow past your draw length on your arrows. Some say 1" - 3" passed the bow.

wow, thanks for this video. But I have to ask you a question. Probably if you added some weight for a tip, the spines could make a big difference in the shot. A stone, obsidian, or even glass or metal point would easily weigh 150 grains, so the swing of the arrow really changes a lot. What do you think?

AWESOME.

Epic beard bro. Question on the tee shirts.........do they fit slim? Or true to size? Made in China/Vietnam, the shirts usually run small.

Is this bow tip alignment going to work for high recurve bows? Because i thing that the bow would flip or twist in your hand. Great video by the way

Ryan What is the length of these arrows?

What length are the shafts? Is any additional length necessary to compensate for lack of a point when practicing?

Experience should account for a lot,!

When the string favors one side of the bow does it create torque in your bow hand? Is that an issue?.

Nice

What about arrows shattering due to very high lbs bows?How do you compensate for that?I myself agree with your point of view that unmatched arrows can also work well with fine tuning as I have unmatched arrows with my bow with groupings of 8 inches at 20 yards.

Same experience!

Espero que entiendas esto, pero desde España tienes mi apoyo 💪

In my opinion it's all about the archer, I mean a primitive archer should in my opinion adapt to the bow (and arrows of course), using khatra and other techniques to avoid problems, archery is not only about instinct, but also about thinking, understanding the bow you're using

Is arrow sizing also unnecessary? Ive been recommended to get my hardwood arrows the EXACT same diameter by using an arrow sizing tool. Your thoughts? Thanks

Why did you say small stone tips? Does it make a difference if you have larger tips when you use stone?

I keep getting mixed sources about good bow woods, I live in North Florida and I want to get into bow making but I don't know if I can use the wood in my area, IV looked it up and I keep getting mixed up things about making bows with oak or cypress, do you, or anyone else know if you can make a long term bow out of iether of these woods or any others that are not difficult to find in my area?

Do you spin the shafts in the spiner?

Ryan, this May have already been asked already. If so, I didn’t see it. In your opinion, how much of the success of the flight of these “mismatched” arrows lie in the natural taper of the shaft? I think that the naturally tapered cane or shoot shafts are much more forgiving of spine and weight variations as opposed to manufactured straight, non tapered shafts. Nature has a way of making things work.

Try using khatra to avoid the archer paradox problem

From my experience if your arrow have to bend around the bow, got to have heavy point and weak spine, a 40 pound bow with out cut for arrow pass , or handle, 31 inch arrow 600 spine with 200 grain point weight will flight out so straight. What happends here is the spine is to stiff and arrow flights out very straight, its not bending around the bow, but shoots to the right , most people get use to it shooting to the right and adjust their shooting, for the most part people use to stiff of a spine on self bows,but over a distance it starts to matter alot its just not going to shoot were you aim. I do that when I shoot for distance, use 20 grain aluminum point weight, the arrow flight out so straight not waisting energy on bending the arrow but to propell the object. But o boy you can tell it goes to the right, it can be 30 yards off at 250 yard distance. Im sure in military back in the days they knew alot on how and why arrows behave in flight, its was at goverment level, like rockets and jets now a todays. Before i never cared for a spine , but some of my arrows spine was to weak and i couldnt understsnd why some fly good, some perfect and other ones would flight to the right, some would flex so mych and go to the left,, so I started studying the spine, point weight, arrow length,arrow pass. Im a left hand shooter so if your right hand shooter then its other ways arrond with arrow going to sides. Hope Im making sence here.

If u sinewed backed that bow would it for sure take any game in north america... basing this question from the bow making video

What poundage is that bow?

Do you sell your river cane arrows?

Are you going to seal that hickory bow?

Any chance that you could do this Barefoot?

I'll vouch for all of this. Much of what "experts" have written about and pushed off as gospel (even trads) is just "somewhat" wrong, or maybe they themselves were just ignorant at the time and clinging to conventional wisdom. My best wood arrows are made from an old wood plank I pulled out of my house (built in 1942). It was a hearth above a gas fireplace. The wood is likely old growth pine, super straight, tight, and consistent grain....and I have no clue what they weigh or spine. They shoot great out of basically every bow I make, ranging from about 48-65#. My river cane arrows are the same, and I've never spined or weighed them either, I just don't have the tester and scale. I have had a few duds, so I just toss them aside. The real test anyway is if your bows and arrows can perform out in the woods. The deer meat in my freezer is proof enough for me.

I notice that you use a short draw and long arrows. Could this make a difference in how straight the arrows fly, especially if they're being shot from a center shot bow with a longer draw. I like a longer arrow myself and shoot, at present, a bear longbow. The arrows of the appropriate weight tend to fly straighter. When inlengthened the arrows they still found the target but tended to hit knock left. To me that means less penetration. Am I correct? I'd appreciate your input. Really enjoy your videos. I'm a longtime longbow and recurve shooter and have made a couple black locust bows of about the 40 pound range. I'd really like to be able to make a stronger bow and go the primitive route. I pull about 28 inches at 60 to get the full 60 pounds out of the bow. But I have shot heavier weight bows at a shorter pull for years.

Exact same crowd exists in every niche you can imagine. As a photographer (an actual photographer who works with real people) I have to deal with gear heads all the time. They switch brands constantly, think that there's an Ultimate Camera, that certain formats are superior and that not using SoCaNikon camera means you're not a pro. Essentially people who spend all their time talking about doing it but never actually go out and do it 😂

If you're making arrows out in the bush with nothing but stone tools getting an exact spine is going to be next to impossible anyways. It's more of an over-complication, especially if you shoot thumb release with khatra lol

Why did i hear gunshots at 11:11

im new to the channel bro

Arrow spines matter ✊

I’m honored to be the first to see this.

‘Gear heads’ how dare you! Lol

Man I'd love to hear you and Clay Hayes in conversation with Joe Rogan. Shut him up talking shit about trad and primitive.

This is a very nice video. Has a lot of good basic information. However, while the author is quite correct when discussing primitive archery, spine does matter as one moves up the "sophistication" of the equipment. The original gurus of modern archery never mentioned spine because in a lot of ways, they were "relearning" a "lost" art, and the spine of an arrow is not a factor of the basics of archery. So, what difference does spine actually make? For me, as a young archer the difference that spine made was arrow cost. A too light spine results in many more broken arrows. When spine is matched to the bow, arrow breakage goes way down. What about too heavy or strong a spine? The only real difference that makes is available distance. Too heavy a spine shortens range. What about, as this author has, mixing spine? That affects accuracy. However, as most archers don't "reach out" with arrows, that factor is fairly small at closer ranges. On the other hand, when reaching out to 50 yards or more, it is a factor that shows up in a big way. So, does spine matter? Yes. Does spine matter as much as many people think? No. Especially not for those starting out, or for those who practice primitive archery. On the other hand, if you want to shoot aspirin tablets swinging on a string as some exhibition archers do, then you can bet your last dollar that their arrows are matched by spine, weight, diameter, smoothness, and anything else they can think of.

I got a fun fact for you: Arrow spine was firstly described in "Archery: The Technical Side" in 1947. Before that, our modern definition of spine didn´t exist. So Horace Ford, who was the best archer in the Victorian era didn´t know about spine. And Howard Hill didn´t know about spine for the first half of his career ;)

In asiatic style archery, using thumb ring, spine absolutely does NOT matter!

lol lets go

I'm third

Yes yes yes. I never weight my arrows. I never know the draw weight of my bows. I just made it strong enough to kill animal.

My god of course that spine doesn't matter if no points or broadheads..it matters because you need points or broadheads and then spine changes according to weight.weight doesn't want to move in momentum therefore flexes arrow. ..guy has no idea .on 70lbs with 100grain point need sp350 but if point 8s 160 grain then sp300 minimum. ..if no points or broadheads obviously it's not gona flex due to force present to stop momentum of mass.

Primitive archery is not a skill until you have failed many times,.....you can learn your self or cheat,.... and buy the 4 volume set of The Traditional Bow Hunters Bible,.......and learn all aspects. If you like archeology,... The Bow Builders Book,... all great books.

Hahahah i am second Nice video

Shooting a 340 spined 28 inch arrow from a 45 traditional bow will impact the way an arrow flies so spine does matter.

I just watched about 5 minutes of the video and I'm sorry to say that what this guy is trying to sell don't fly and I will tell you why if you're a traditional shooter you seen in the very beginning the spine and arrow weight was within tolerance for a trad. Bow now go get some arrows with the spine and weight outside of the tolerance and I mean outside not close then show me it dosnt matter I'm open minded show me, most traditional shooters are not robin hood level that's why we tune those arrows for a definite kill shot and the bow don't forget archers paradox how you get around that? Literally. So get outside the box with a 340 spine and something like a 6 or 700 don't even make weight an issue lets see how the theory work's then respectfully disagree and submitted

Stoneage and teknologi does not work in the same sentence LOL

What pants are those?