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Recently I had a chance buy a
set of Beman Thunderbolt arrows
As the seller on the internet
was asking a cheap price I bought 2 dozens so I
have now some material for my review.
The Thunderbolt is a classic
product from Beman meaning that it has been on
their catalog for several years.
This carbon arrow is pretty basic in
design as it finished just with a glossy clear
paint that leaves the underlying carbon
structure visible. The set that I bought was 20”
in length and fitted with half moon nocks. The
Thunderbolt is available also in 22” length and
with flat nocks.
The Thunderbolt sports 4”
vanes , the spin seems to be enough to steer
large broadheads, at least coupled with our
standard NAP Thunderhead 125 provided good
results.
The vanes are glued to the
shaft without leaving traces, a good indicator
of the quality of this product (see picture)
The arrow come standard with
aluminum threaded front inserts for replaceable
points.
Speaking of quality we
measured several samples and out of a set of 6
we measured the following arrow weights (20”
with moon nocks and 4” Vanes)
Sample 1: 293.4
Sample 2: 293.6
Sample 3: 293.8
Sample 4: 294.1
Sample 5: 294.8
Sample 6: 294.9
As you can see the weight is
really consistent and this is a good point
especially for arrows that are not that
expensive and matching the advertised +-2 grains
weight tolerance.
The arrow features an outside
diameter of 22/64" that is standard for crossbow
arrows.
The Beman Thunderbolt also
proved to be very durable, I have been using the
same arrow for testing all crossbows and so far
the finish is holding very well.
You can see in the pics two
arrows have numbers marked on the vanes, this is
because we use a set of arrows of different
weights to test all crossbow and derive an
efficiency chart, this puts the very same arrow
samples under a good test with very powerful
crossbows such as the Barnett Predator (375 FPS)
as well make them take a tremendous stress being
stopped in our ethafoam target.
The only negative point is
that this arrow is on the light side and with
some crossbow in order to reach the minimum
arrow weight needs to be coupled with a heavy
point (125grains to reach the standard 420
grains)
UPDATE: Beman no longer sells
the Thunderbolt arrows the new model is named
ICS LIghting Bolt, it features the company
patented ViBrake bolt insert.
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