Due to the cold weather I decided to defer any more testing until more favourable shooting conditions prevailed. It is now the beginning of June and I decided to try the nocs again, this time I was able to do some flight-testing with them, rather than just to see if they would light up.
They weighed in on my Grain scale at exactly 35 grains, and easily slip into the Carbon shafts that I am shooting, replacing the standard noc that weighs 13 grains for a difference of 22 grains. {The LUMENOK should not be glued in as this may prevent it from working.}With the added weight there will be a slight difference in FOC and arrow weight, resulting in a drop of a few feet per second of arrow speed. In the tests that I did with the LUMENOKS the drop was insignificant at ranges out to 30 yards. The set-up I was using shoots at 292 FPS with normal arrows and 289 FPS with the LUMENOKS installed. You can have this much variation in velocity with any set of arrows if you draw slightly more or less to your anchor point, like when the shot is to the left or nearly in front of you. The point here is that this weight difference is not a big concern at hunting ranges.
For the discriminating shooter who wants his arrows weighing the same, there are other options that will look after this. My normal set-up has 3 vanes .The vanes weigh 30 gr. and feathers weigh 5 grains for a difference of 25 grains, or 3grains difference if you make up the LUMINOC arrows with a feather fletch. You get the point now. I made up an arrow with the "LUMENOK” and 3 feathers fletches. The results were exactly what I suspected they would be, I could group the new arrow with the standard arrows at ranges out to 65 yards and the speed was exactly the same from both the LUMENOK arrow and the standard arrow with vanes installed on it.
As the lighted noc arrow will normally be used for low light shooting in the early morning and late evenings this different fletched arrow is easy to tell apart from the rest in my quiver. By using the method I described above I have an arrow that will show its trajectory and impact when I cannot possibly see a normally noc'ed arrow. For me this is the best of both worlds, with a special arrow that I can see in flight that flies exactly like all the others in my quiver.
The benefits of the lighted noc do not stop here. After the shot it remains lit for approximately 40 hours, so there is ample time to recover the arrow, and if it is not a pass thru it will aid in finding your animal after it gets dark. To turn off the LUMENOK you just wiggle the flats of the noc from side to side and it is ready for use again and again. This worked every time, but when it was -25 it was a bit harder to turn off the noc due to it being frozen stiff.
Still another benefit is to be able to see an arrow’s true flight characteristics at the range when you are tuning your equipment. Often we are misled when we see the odd colour fletch rotating and we think we are seeing erratic tail flight. With a LUMENOK installed you see the trailing noc light as it flies and if there is rear tail wagging it is instantly and unmistakably visible.
I will be shooting the LUMENOKS this fall on each of my set-ups and recommend these lighted nocs to all hunters and shooters that want to see for themselves how and where their arrows fly.
PETE WARD
