I just bought an Excalibur Equinox and I would like to buy some bolts for it. I have the stock carbon bolts. I've heard that there are some carbon bolts that are "weight forward" and that they hold together really well on impact. Does anyone have any opinions on this?
I have been looking for good arrows for the excalibur for awhile now and think the excalibur arrows are really the only thing out there. There are aluminum arrows out there that the weight is there but as for carbons 20 inch 350s are hard to find. If you find anything please keep me updated.
Ok now i have a question and I think it will help Island Rain aswell. Does the Excalibur 350 minimum mean the shaft or the shaft and heads?? I ask because walmart shaft and tips comes to more than 350 but behaved like crap and excalibur said not to use them. The Gold Tips everyone says are great but are they too light?? I buy excalibur bolts and think they are really good and not stupid pricy but would like to have something new to play with. Some of my arrows have been shot hundreds of times and seem fine.
Mike, when "they" say 350 grains minimum, they're talking total arrow weight. That includes insert, tip, shaft, nock, vanes and/or feathers.
The main concern with bolts is the spine of the shaft - will it stand up to the force of the string trying to over come the inertia of the bolt - that's the key factor.
You notice that the longest crossbow bolt seems to be in the 22" range and that the grains-per-inch are not much heavier than a regular arrow shaft?
Well, if you take a standard 7595 GT Expedition Hunter shaft at 8.9 gpi (they come standard at 32") and IF you are using a 16" bolt, you can cut the shaft in half to get two very stiff crossbow bolts. The 7995 black shaft comes standard with a .340" spine.
Even if you only get one crossbow bolt out of each shaft (say 20") they'll be heavy and stiff enough for you to make bolts out of them. If memory serves me correctly, I believe crossbow bolts are more $$$ than regular arrow shafts.
There are also plenty of shafts out there that are heavier (gpi) so you can basically have your pick.