Review: Victory NanoForce Arrow Shafts

Victory Archery released their NanoForce arrows and shafts in May of 2009 and have made some pretty hefty claims as to their consistency and quality as a high-end target arrow.  They sent a dozen of the NanoForce 350 V1 allong with 120 grain points to Archery Report to test (and destroy!) to see how well the claims hold up.  NanoForce specifications for the 350 spined shafts call out 7.6 grains per inch, 0.350″ spine, +/- 0.001″ straightness and an astounding +/- 0.5 grains variance per dozen.  To get such tight tolerances on the weight of the arrows, Victory sorts each dozen of NanoForces to guarantee the archer as much consistency as possible.

There isn’t much more that I enjoy than a fresh dozen of arrow shafts (well, maybe a new bow!)  Something about nice, clean shafts and the possibilities they hold that gives me a little thrill.  When the NanoForces arrived last week, I immediately opened the box and inspected them. 

One thing that Victory Archery does with their target series of arrow shafts is the Spine Align Process (SAP).  Nothing in this world is absolutely perfect and top dollar carbon arrow shafts are no different.  Every shaft is going to be stiffer in one certain position and SAP was developed to indicate this position on all of the shafts.  Each shaft is individually tested to find the stiffest side of the spine and the shaft label is oriented over this position.  This way if the archer fletches all of the shafts with the label in the same position, the arrows should come out as close to the same as possible resulting in tighter groups.

All measurements testing will be done in accordance to the methods outlined in the following documents:

How to Measure Arrow Shaft Specifications

How to Destroy and Arrow (in the name of science!)

Victory NanoForce:  Models, Price and Availablity

NanoForce Shafts are available in 0.350″, 0.400″, 0.500″ and 0.600″ spines with 7.6, 6.8, 6.0 and 5.4 grains per inch respectively.  All models are available as V1, V3 and V6 versions with  +/- 0.001″, +/- 0.003″ and +/- 0.006″ straightness tolerances, respectively.   Also available are outserts for each size or points in 80, 100 and 120 grains.

About 3/4 of the online archery shops I checked carried the NanoForce shafts with prices ranging from $125-$155 for V1, $92-$115 for V2 and $64-$85 for V3.  The glue in points were generally $20 per dozen and outserts $10 per dozen.

Victory NanoForce Shafts and Points:  Weight

	Shafts			120 Grain Points
	Grains	Variance		Grains	Variance
1	230.204	-0.517		119.354	-0.417
2	230.251	-0.470		119.755	-0.016
3	230.359	-0.362		119.832	0.061
4	230.374	-0.347		119.925	0.154
5	230.698	-0.023		120.002	0.231
6	230.791	0.070		120.017	0.246
7	230.868	0.147		120.017	0.246
8	230.976	0.255		120.064	0.293
9	231.022	0.301		120.110	0.339
10	231.130	0.409		120.125	0.354
11	231.208	0.487		120.141	0.370
12	231.238	0.517		120.187	0.416
	Average	230.760		Average	119.961
	Median	230.721		Median	119.771

I was skeptical when I read that the NanoForces would be +/- 0.5 grains per dozen.  Shafts holding +/- 3 grains per dozen are consider to hold fairly tight tolerances.  The NanoForce shafts and points proved my skepticism wrong and were very impressive.  The shafts ended up with +/- 0.517 grains for the full dozen and the points +/- 0.417 grains.  This translates into a worst case scenario (matching the lightest arrow with the lightest point, and heaviest with heaviest) of a total difference of less than 2 grains per arrow across the dozen due to components from Victory.  Adding vane and glue difference could change this, but that is out of the shaft manufacturer’s control.

The specifications from the Victory Archery website call out 7.6 grains per inch for the 350 shafts.  This dozen of shafts measured 30 15/32″ which results in an average weight per inch of 7.57 grains.

Victory NanoForce Shafts: Inside and Outside Diameters

The inside and outside diameters of every shaft measure within .ooo5″ of each other, inside diameter 0.166″ and outside diameter 0.228″.  Victory’s website states the inside should be 0.166″ which was spot on and the 0utside 0.224″ which is 0.004″ lower than measured.

Victory Nanoforce Shafts: Spine Consistency

According to the SAP process the stiffest side of the arrow should be where the label faces up (same for opposite the label).  For the most part this held true, though the difference around four points on the circumference is so small that it’s very hard to measure.

	Label	Side 1	Opp. Label	Side 2
1	0.351	0.350	0.351	0.351
2	0.354	0.355	0.353	0.356
3	0.355	0.356	0.355	0.356
4	0.355	0.356	0.358	0.358
5	0.355	0.359	0.356	0.358
6	0.355	0.358	0.354	0.356
7	0.356	0.358	0.356	0.358
8	0.356	0.359	0.358	0.359
9	0.356	0.354	0.356	0.355
10	0.356	0.359	0.358	0.358
11	0.359	0.358	0.359	0.358
12	0.359	0.358	0.355	0.359

The overall spine consistency is very good with the maximum variance being .008″.  The stiffest shaft in particular skewed this number a bit and if it is thrown out, the maximum variance drops to .005″.  Overall, the consistency is quite good.

Victory Nanoforce Shafts: Straightness

Straightness
1	0.0005
2	0.0010
3	0.0010
4	0.0020
5	0.0020
6	0.0020
7	0.0025
8	0.0025
9	0.0025
10	0.0030
11	0.0030
12	0.0030

Victory has been in the middle of some significant changes at their home base and I am still working on getting an answer as to  how they take their straightness measurements.  The specifications for the NanoForces are +/- .001″ but across what length of shaft I am not certain.  My testing showed that across a 26″ span the straightness was very tight, with the worst shaft being .003″ out of straight, which translates into +/- .0015″.  The straightest shaft had barely a .0005″ inch variance that was difficult to even detect.

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