The test results (remarkable, anyhow!) says how good is one set of arrows today, as purchased from a shop the day before. Results are related to the yeld you can get of good to bad arrows from a set of different arrows. Nothing statisycally valid, but for sure a good indication. If arrows were numbered and registered for each shot, we could easily see how many relly good arrows were available in each set.
From all tests performed in the years, for sure Nano Pro have been the most consistent in one single setm of 12, with a yeld for bare shaft of around 10/11 over 12 that may become 12 over 12 with fletching.
For
ACE's is a different story. Yeld until the 2000 was close to 70%, or 8 over 12,while X10 were at that time just over 50%. But in recent years yeld is dramatically dropped for
ACE's, and is not uncommon to get very bad sets with less than 50% yeld, while X10 have slightly increased their consistency.
Also, not statisticallly valid numbers, just refrences from several test performed in the years.
At present, at national team level, it is known "by experience" that to get 12 workable arrows for top level competition you will need probaly 13 Nano Pro, 20 X10 and 30 ACE's. Other arrows are usully not used at top level, so I have no references for them.
A good question for Easton should be why their quality for ACE's is dropped so much in the years. Some malicious comment has been that if they did not drop the quality of ACE's sets, they could not sell X10 as "better" arrows.... I can't beleive this, I just imagine that material (carbon) quality and some production process are changed during the years.
Unfortunately for archer's pockets, above yeld numbers have nothing to do with arrow performance when shot with fingers from a
recurve bow in a top level competition. Just changes the real final cost of a top performing selected arrow...
Quite often I have imagined a situation were the amateur archer returns "not good" shafts to the shop and gets replacement for them... It may happen, if archer is in a condition to measure tolerances of the arrows he has bought and demonstrate they are out of published specs and tolerancies. But I'm curious to hear if it really ever happened anywere ...