Bare shaft tuning issue?

[Holocene]

Mighty Mouse, kudos for the kind and well-explained myth busting about arrow spine and compound bow tuning.

Zooming out, let’s remember that the main goal in compound bow tuning is just getting the power stroke of the string to be behind the nock. Vertical or horizontal nock travel can be cleaned up or created a number of ways. All bows will have some intrinsic nock travel, and the shooter will introduce some more dynamically. Shimming cams and moving the rest (slightly) or whatever tuning mechanisms your bow uses are ways to tune out whatever torque you apply to the shot process so that the string is pushing the arrow straight.

If you have a really good tune, then you should be able to shoot a variety of spines from the same bow without abysmal performance differences like you’d see with trad gear.

 

[sndmn11]

Bare shafts are exceedingly responsive to any input whether it is from the bow or the shooter or the environment. All that matters is the point of impact counciding with fletched from a bow setup perspective because making changes for shaft angle due to shooter or environment would be separating the two. The result would be a less forgiving setup. The ideal situation would be a setup that puts shafts and arrows together with multiple shaft angles. This tells us that shooter is applying some minute influencer, such as varying hand pressure or varying loop torque, but the setup is correcting and still putting poi together.

If the setup were not correct or not forgiving, or the shooter influence were extreme, the shafts and arrows would be in different places. Stepping back in distance would allow fine tuning of either equipment or shooter if shafts and arrows deviate, but messing with equipment when poi is the same would be un-doing good.
If the goal is to get broadheads happy, then 20/30 yard shaft and arrow poi is great to get to before shooting broadheads. I believe if the broadhead isn't spot on after that, it's a broadhead issue.
If the goal is to tinker with both shooter and equipment to perfect, then keep walking back. I regularly shoot shafts to 60-80 yards as a check and challenge of myself, but it well beyond needed for a hunting goal.

 

[Billy Goat]

So if you can shoot very consistently with your form that is comfortable and repeatable you should change your form instead of just manipulating the arrow to suit your form?

According to Griv, yes.

He has said the best thing is to tune a bow thru a shooting machine, then learn the form it takes for you to shoot the bow in tune.


I tune to the shooter, but he is also in a position of teaching kids proper form, so rather than have them repeating poor form from the jump and ingraining it, let them work to the best form.



I find a weak arrow with a compound usually manifests as an inconsistent group, especially with broadheads.

 

[mww982]

Think I’m going to end up taking the bow to the shop to shoot bare shaft through paper with the 300, 275 and 250 spine. Broadhead head flight is a little inconsistent for my liking. Luckily the shop is close to the house. Still thinking the 300 spine is right where I will need to be as both AA, and OT2 say I’m right where I need to be.


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[mww982]

I also did switch from an index release to a thumb release this year and my form may be inconsistent.


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[mww982]

Thanks for all the help on this one. Ended up taking the bow to the shop to shoot through paper. Nock high and left. Had the top hats switched out and started shooting bullet holes pretty quickly.

Went outside today to shoot at 20 yards. Had to move the rest up about 1/32 of an inch and the rest a couple clicks over to the left. Once that was done this is what I ended up with. Didn’t have to change the spine nor the point weight or draw weight.

Time to resight the bow in and start working on nock tuning my hunting arrows.

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[sndmn11]

If you can tune that bare shaft to stack on top a tiny scoosh above the fletched, everytiem never below, you likely will be spot of with your broadheads.

 

[mww982]

Shot a broad head with my field point at 20 yards today. This was the result with the Tooth of the arrow vented 125g, 1” broad head. Not going to complain about this. Shot twice to confirm and results were similar both times.

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[HandgunHTR]

Looks like you are all set. Getting a fixed blade broadhead to hit with field points is always good. Try it at 30 and 40 yards too just to confirm.