Quote Originally Posted by fusilier View Post
A couple of things:

1. Doesn't the arrow stabilize fairly quickly (i.e. stop bending), although I understand that the bending would take off some of the initial energy.
How and how quickly arrow stabilizes depends on how well is it's spine matched with the bow, as far as I understand... And simply, on how stiff arrow in general is.

Longer lenght for the weight = more bending even with lighter head.

And on the bow itself in general too.

There are plenty of instances of slower bow sending x arrow further than faster one - slower arrow had less velocity initially, but were loosing it slower.

In any case, arrows bending back and forth well after they left the bow are very common.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96KGWC0PB6s

2. If I recall correctly, somewhere in a previous incarnation of this thread, crossbow bolts became unstable in flight as they lost energy. So the result was a fairly flat trajectory, then the projectile fell somewhat abruptly due to it becoming unstable. So it's flight didn't have a typical parabolic arc?
Well, I would have to read, sounds interesting.

Anyway, bolts can easily have pretty nice parabolic arc, Payne Gallaway was sending bolts at well over 400m.

Theoretically, they will tend to 'dive' faster and more abruptly, because they center of gravity will tend naturally tend to be closer to the head, I believe (?).

Kinda like with olympic javelin redesign.