Moose are big animals, which means you need a heavy arrow to take one down. But how heavy? How should you go about calculating how heavy of an arrow you need? Once you get done reading this article, you will know everything you need to about selecting the right arrow for moose.
Here is the short answer:
For most bow setups, you will want a 550-650 grain arrow. If you have a bow that is lighter in poundage or short in draw length you will want to stay closer to 550 grains. If you have an average bow setup or a stronger bow setup, then you will want to stay closer to the 600 to 650-grain arrow mark.
With the short answer out of the way, we can take a deeper dive into finding the best arrow weight for moose, cause there is a lot of narrowing down to do to find the right arrow weight.
Factors to take into consideration
You need an arrow between 550 to 650. But that is a 100-grain difference, which is a lot of grain weight to choose from. So let’s find out what considerations you will have to take into account when building an arrow.
Moose are huge, so hitting them is not a problem. The problem is getting enough penetration to kill it. This is why most moose hunters shoot a 600-grain arrow or heavier. They also shoot that heavy of an arrow because most shots are within 40 yards, so you won’t need an arrow that shoots super flat.
Moose are huge which means they have giant bones. This means that the ribs and shoulder are going to be way thicker and heavier than your average deer or elk. You will need a heavy arrow to prevent deflections and get maximum penetration.
How to choose the right arrow weight
Now that we have all the factors accounted for, we can start to narrow down the right arrow weight.
Bow poundage Draw length arrow weight
| 50 | 26 | 550 |
| 50 | 27 | 555 |
| 50 | 28 | 560 |
| 50 | 29 | 565 |
| 50 | 30 | 570 |
| 60 | 26 | 560 |
| 60 | 27 | 570 |
| 60 | 28 | 580 |
| 60 | 29 | 590 |
| 60 | 30 | 600 |
| 70 | 26 | 570 |
| 70 | 27 | 590 |
| 70 | 28 | 600 |
| 70 | 29 | 615 |
| 70 | 30 | 630 |
| 80 | 26 | 585 |
| 80 | 27 | 595 |
| 80 | 28 | 605 |
| 80 | 29 | 630 |
| 80 | 30 | 650+ |
Draw length and weight can be huge deciding factors on what arrow weight you use. If you are shooting a 50-pound bow then you won’t want a 650-grain arrow because your arrow will not have that much energy past 30 yards. You will also not get maximum penetration because the contrast between weight and speed will be too great.
Important note: You should pull as much weight as you can when hunting moose. This is because you will need all the energy you can get. But you do not want to pull so much that you get fatigued after 30 or so shots.
Other things to help you kill a moose
There are other things to help you kill moose other than arrow weight. To kill a moose, you also need a good broadhead, arrow, and arrow weight.
Broadheads. Moose have heavy bones and a lot of muscle, so you don’t want to use a weak or dull broadhead, and You don’t want to use a mechanical broadhead as it would probably fail. Replaceable blade broadheads can also break when going through a moose’s strong bones. What you want to use is a cut-on-contact broadhead—ideally a single bevel, with thick blades to minimize the chances of failure. Buy from Broadhead companies like bone, kudu, RMS, Strickland, steel force, bishop, and VPA these companies offer strong broadheads that will maximize your chances of killing a moose and will last a lifetime.
Arrow flight. Arrow flight is a key component to killing big animals. If your arrow impacts off, you will lose a lot of penetration. Your arrow has to impact straight and go straight through the moose. So before moose hunting, you must achieve perfect arrow flight. You can do this by getting the right point weight, bare shaft tuning, normal arrow tuning, and broadhead tuning.
Strong arrows. If you hit a moose and your arrow breaks on impact, then all that work will have been for nothing. To avoid this happening, you should buy a good quality arrow from a reputable company. Make sure to do your research to see which arrow will work best and get the right spine.
FOC. FOC, or Front of center, is how forward of center the balance point of your arrow is. A higher FOC arrow will help get the penetration necessary to kill a moose(a high FOC arrow being anything above 15%). FOC helps to drag the arrow through the moose. If you think about it, if your arrow is front heavy then all that forward weight will help to keep the momentum towards the broadhead where it needs to be.
Gold tip arrows has a calculator that will help you calculate your arrow FOC.
Conclusion
All long as you have the right arrow weight, good arrow flight, a good broadhead, a strong arrow, and high FOC, then you should be a moose killing machine. You should not base your arrow weight on one article so do your research before you go moose hunting.
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