Before an outdoor competition with wind in the forecast, one of the questions I am asked most often is about the arrow rather than the sight: is it better to have a thinner shaft, which offers the air less surface, or a heavier arrow, which the air finds harder to push around? Both answers usually come back, given with the same confidence, and on the field they end up blurred together, because, for a given spine, the thinnest shafts are not the lightest.
Research on the question is almost entirely calculations and shooting machines: no study has put archers on the shooting line with the wind measured and different arrows in the quiver. Here I set out what the models and the few machine tests say about diameter, mass, speed and the way the arrow leaves the bow, and for each one I say how firm it is. How to read the wind on the field and correct the aim is covered in the article on wind and weather conditions; this one starts a step earlier, with the quiver.
How far the wind moves the arrow at seventy metres
To judge what the choice of arrow is worth, the size of the problem comes first. At 70 metres, in a crosswind of three metres per second, two independent simulations of a recurve arrow's flight put the shift in the point of impact between 26 and 36 centimetres, while the same wind taken head on or from behind is worth between 8 and 10. The registry rates this difference as transferred: three models agree on the direction, but nobody has measured it with archers in competition. That is why the rest of this article deals only with crosswind, the wind in which the choice of arrow can make a difference.
One more figure helps keep things in proportion. In the model that comes closest to the question of this article, a recurve X10 in a crosswind of three metres per second drifts more than four 61-millimetre rings at 70 metres, and the author makes the point precisely about the shafts he considers best in the wind. Whatever arrow is chosen, then, most of the drift still has to be corrected with the aim: the choice of shaft moves a few centimetres, and the sections that follow say how many, according to the models.
The push of the wind and the drift are two different things
The reasoning heard on the field runs in a straight line: a thinner shaft exposes less surface, so the wind pushes it less, so it drifts less. The first step has some physical logic to it, the second much less so, because how far the arrow moves does not depend on the sideways push alone. It also depends on the mass that the push has to move and on how long the arrow stays exposed to the wind before it reaches the target.
A calculation made alongside a test with a shooting robot shows the difference clearly. It takes two real arrows: a training arrow, 7.5 millimetres across and weighing 26.22 grams, shot at 18 metres, and a competition arrow, 5.24 millimetres across and weighing 17.57 grams, shot at 70. The competition arrow takes about two thirds of the other's sideways push, 0.67 times, and yet drifts about 3.8 times as far, because with a flight time of 1.58 seconds it stays in the air 1.95 times longer. The comparison says nothing about diameter on its own, since the two arrows also differ in mass, in length and above all in distance; what it does is pin down a point that gets lost in practice: the cross-section of the shaft, even when it reduces the push, does not decide the drift on its own.
Even the first step rests on an inference rather than a measurement. Nobody has measured the force with which the air slows shafts of different diameter: in a magnetic suspension wind tunnel two competition shafts without vanes, one barrelled and one thinner and more elongated, showed the same drag coefficient, and if the coefficient is the same the force grows with the cross-section. The force itself is not reported, though, and the registry keeps the claim that a thinner shaft offers less air resistance among those not studied.
Diameter: two tests pointing in opposite directions
On the direct question, whether a thinner arrow drifts less, the registry has two tests on equipment, neither of them with archers, and they point in opposite directions, which is why the claim is contested. The first is a review of target archery that summarises tests its author had carried out years earlier, shots through a wind tunnel and lateral groups at long range in gusty wind, and concludes that other things being equal the shaft of smaller diameter drifts less; it does not publish the values, though. The second is the calculation on the two arrows just described, which points the other way but compares arrows that differ in every respect.
The 2011 tests the review refers to do have figures, and they help explain why the question is hard to settle. In the wind tunnel, over 10.3 metres at 4.41 metres per second, the arrow that drifted most of the five tested was the heaviest, at 29.35 grams, but also by far the thickest, at 9.92 millimetres: 18 millimetres of drift, against 13 for two arrows close in diameter (6.71 and 7.44 millimetres) and very different in mass, 27.16 and 20.97 grams. Outdoors at 70 metres, with a compound mounted on a shooting machine, gusts above 10 metres per second and 36 shots per arrow type, the thin arrow (5.04 millimetres, 23.52 grams) had a lateral spread with a standard deviation of 44.6 millimetres, against 58.6 for the thicker one (7.44 millimetres, 20.97 grams). The thin arrow grouped better, but it was also heavier, and the measurement does not say how much of the advantage comes from diameter and how much from mass. For that reason, in the claim on mass, the registry treats these measurements as context rather than as evidence in favour.
There is also a constraint in how shafts are built that helps explain why, for a given spine, the thinnest shaft is not the lightest. A model of carbon shafts shows that, with spine held fixed, widening the diameter thins the wall, and that the lightest shaft is neither the thinnest nor the thickest but somewhere in between: to keep the same stiffness the thinnest shafts need a thicker wall, and they weigh more per metre. The registry rates this as transferred, a calculation compared by eye with five shafts from a single manufacturer, but it helps explain why, in the tests that exist, diameter and mass can hardly ever be separated. In the same paper the author also notes that a stiffer carbon would allow thinner shafts, but lighter ones too, and that drift would barely change, because what is gained in cross-section is lost in mass.
Mass: three calculations pointing the same way
On mass the picture is tidier, but it is made of calculations alone. The registry rates as transferred the claim that a heavier arrow, or one with the balance point further forward, drifts less in a crosswind: three models, from 2011, 2020 and 2025, point the same way, and no measurement in the wind has ever separated mass from diameter.
The 2020 model is the closest to a choice an archer actually makes, because on the same recurve X10, with the same bow and the same draw weight, only the point changes. With a 100-grain point the arrow weighs 21.2 grams, leaves at 58.2 metres per second and, at 70 metres in a crosswind of three metres per second, drifts 261 millimetres; with a 120-grain point it weighs 22.5 grams and drifts 253; with a 140-grain point it weighs 23.8 grams, leaves more slowly, at 55.7 metres per second, and drifts 245. That is 16 millimetres gained with 40 grains of point, about a quarter of a ring, and the author concludes that for the same diameter greater mass reduces drift and that a heavier point is worth having.
A 2025 fluid dynamics simulation widens the range of masses and also shows where the gain runs out. At 70 metres in the same wind, drift falls from 32.2 centimetres for a 14.2-gram arrow to 27.4 for a 19.7-gram one and to 22.9 for a 29.1-gram one: the first step, five and a half grams, takes off almost five centimetres, the second, nearly ten grams, takes off four and a half. On arrows that are already heavy the difference becomes small, so much so that taking 3.2 grams off the 29.1-gram arrow raises the drift by just 1.3 centimetres. The same model finds that moving the balance point towards the tail adds about three centimetres of drift, so a balance point further forward helps, but this too remains a result of calculation.
The two series in the chart look at the same thing from two sides. The 2025 series runs from a very light arrow to a very heavy one, and shows the curve flattening out; the 2020 series covers only the step taken by changing the point, and shows how short it is.
Speed helps only if it does not cost mass
This is where an apparent contradiction comes in, because archers also hear that a faster arrow holds the wind better, and making the arrow lighter makes it faster. The registry rates the claim about the faster arrow as transferred, and the calculations back it on one specific condition. In the 2011 model, which compares compound arrows launched from two bows, the more powerful bow takes the same Protour 420 from 78.2 to 86.5 metres per second and lowers every drift contour at 70 metres: the lowest on the author's chart falls from 175 to 150 millimetres; in the 2020 model, on the other hand, the X10 with the lighter point leaves faster and drifts more. Speed helps when it comes from the bow, not when it comes from mass taken off the arrow, because the heavier arrow also takes more energy from the bow.
Nobody has yet measured the same arrow outdoors at different launch speeds, so this too is a conclusion of calculation. For a recurve archer, whose draw weight is chosen for other reasons, it mostly gives a negative indication: in the models, lightening the arrow to gain speed is not a way of defending against the wind.
A clean exit
The last variable cannot be bought in a shop, because it is the way the arrow leaves the bow. It is said that an arrow that leaves cleanly, without kicking sideways, holds the wind better, and the registry rates this claim too as transferred, with two models that give it very different weight. In the 2025 simulation an X10 that leaves aligned with its path, in a crosswind of three metres per second, moves at most 12.5 centimetres, while one that leaves tilted by three degrees reaches 27, more than double: at that angle, according to the authors, the air separates behind the shaft and drag rises. Leaving tilted by three degrees is also the condition in which the same paper calculates the drifts in the chart on mass. In the 2020 model, which lets the shaft flex, one degree at exit shifts the drift by about ten millimetres out of 245, and in the direction the author expects from a well-tuned recurve it actually reduces it; what matters more is the rotation the arrow leaves with, which changes the point of impact even with no wind.
The two models, then, do not agree on the size of the effect, and nobody has measured the exit angle of arrows shot by archers in order to link it to their drift in the wind. The reasons for wanting a clean exit are there anyway in still air, and I have gathered them in the articles on bow tuning and on arrow flight.
What I take from it for the field
Taken together, these results do not say which arrow to buy for windy competitions, but they clear up a couple of misunderstandings and show where a gain might lie. The first misunderstanding is to think about diameter on its own: a thinner shaft should take less push, but if getting it means dropping mass, the advantage shrinks or disappears in the calculations, and the machine measurements have never separated the two. The second is to lighten the arrow so that it flies faster, which in the models makes it drift more.
Where a gain might lie is something the models suggest, within their limits. Between shafts of different diameter, the only outdoor machine test came out in favour of the thin and heavier one, and in one model a heavier point on the same shaft takes a centimetre and a half of drift off at seventy metres. That is little next to the 26 to 36 centimetres the same wind produces anyway, and the point also plays a part in tuning the arrow, so it has to be chosen together with spine, as I explain in the article on the archer's paradox. How much it shifts the tune, though, is less clear than most archers assume. The registry rates as transferred the claim that tail weight matters more than point weight in tuning a recurve: in the only model that calculates it, going from a 120 to a 100-grain point shifts the draw weight needed for a launch without rotation by half a newton, when one spine size is worth about eleven, and the author concludes that the point should be chosen for other reasons, wind among them. Nobody has checked this with a real bow and arrows, and changing point weight for the wind alone, on an arrow that is already tuned, remains a trade no study has measured on the target.
The rest, which is the larger part, comes down to reading the wind. Even with the shafts the models rate best, three metres per second across the range at seventy metres is worth more than four rings, and the choice of arrow, in the models, takes a few centimetres off that.
Where the research stops
None of the claims this article touches rests on measurements with archers, and the table sets them side by side.
| Claim | Status | What it rests on |
|---|---|---|
| At 70 m a crosswind moves the arrow far more than a head or tail wind | transferred | three models in agreement |
| A thinner arrow drifts less in the wind | contested | a review in favour with no figures, a calculation against, no archers |
| A thinner shaft offers less air resistance | not studied | an inference from a wind tunnel |
| A heavier arrow, or one with the balance point further forward, drifts less | transferred | three models; the measurements do not separate mass from diameter |
| A faster arrow drifts less | transferred | models, and only if the speed comes from the bow |
| An arrow that leaves aligned drifts less | transferred | two models that give the arrow's attitude very different weight |
| For a given spine the lightest shaft has an intermediate diameter | transferred | a model compared by eye with five shafts |
| Tail weight matters more than point weight in tuning a recurve | transferred | one model, never tested with real arrows |
Everything there is comes from calculations, a wind tunnel and a shooting machine; no study has measured the drift of different arrows shot by archers. Above all, the simplest test to imagine is missing: arrows of the same diameter and spine with points of different weight, then arrows of different diameter at the same mass, shot from a machine at seventy metres with the wind measured by an anemometer beside the line and the drift read off the target. As long as diameter, mass and speed change together, the measured drift cannot say which of the three is causing it. The models themselves do not agree on size either: in the same wind and at the same distance they give 26 or 36 centimetres, and a gap of a third between two calculations is larger than almost every gain discussed here.