Broadhead tuning sucks

[madkaw284]

I've been shooting Thunderhead 100s since I started bowhunting in '92. I've never had to move my rest to get my broadheads to shoot with my fieldtips. The only thing I do is spin my arrows in my hand and tighten my broadheads until they spin smooth. Has worked perfectly everytime for me.

That’s what you call luck


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[EchoLimaKilo]

There’s no one right answer but I’ll add that I personally am a pretty big fan of shooting bareshafts. Partially for tuning purposes but also partially so I can watch the consistency (or lack thereof) in my form. It’ll tell you pretty quickly if you’re doing something weird or if you’re torquing your grip slightly. Also typically if you can get those bareshafts to enter the target on the same trajectory as your field points out to 30 or 40 you’ll be a lot closer to the same poi with bh’s and fp’s. I’d start at 15 yards with a bareshaft and a fletched arrow and see how they enter the target.

 

[cody21peterson]

I guess what I have learned in my 6 years of archery is that your setup can be very technical or very simple. It’s going to be what you make of it. I don’t have a lot of time to go through tuning methods but I am hunting elk this year and I want to make sure I can hit where I aim so I’m not wounding animals. Do you guys think a fixed blade with less accuracy would be a better option than a mechanical with greater accuracy on elk? I know the mechanical vs fixed debate can go deep, I’m just talking about an accuracy or effective range standpoint. Is it worth sacrificing accuracy to shoot a fixed blade?


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[WI in the west]

With all the tuning talk I guess it makes me curious as to what kind of bow presses you guys use? And at what price? I know some of them are pretty pricey that work on modern bows

 

[N2TRKYS]

That’s what you call luck


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That's with 3 different bows. I wouldn't consider it luck. I just don't get into all the hype of the "new best thing" and start adding a bunch of crap to my bows and arrows and then wonder why it won't shoot.

Good luck to everybody trying to figure out their issues. Maybe y'all will get "lucky" like me with yours soon.

 

[RosinBag]

I personally think accuracy outweighs all of the other factors, but that’s just me. An arrow placed in the right spot would kill most animals with a field point.

I use a last chance archery press.

 

[madkaw284]

That's with 3 different bows. I wouldn't consider it luck. I just don't get into all the hype of the "new best thing" and start adding a bunch of crap to my bows and arrows and then wonder why it won't shoot.

Good luck to everybody trying to figure out their issues. Maybe y'all will get "lucky" like me with yours soon.

So you’re telling everyone that you don’t do any tuning to your bow at all, all you do is make sure your shafts spin good and if you do that then you’re broadheads always hit with your field points? Either your stretching the truth or you’re very lucky. Bows are instruments, instruments need to be tuned, ie twisting cables to sync cams adjusting positions of other components , so for you to say all you do is make sure you shafts spin good is not tuning a bow. You have to approach it from multiple angles.

 

[N2TRKYS]

So you’re telling everyone that you don’t do any tuning to your bow at all, all you do is make sure your shafts spin good and if you do that then you’re broadheads always hit with your field points? Either your stretching the truth or you’re very lucky. Bows are instruments, instruments need to be tuned, ie twisting cables to sync cams adjusting positions of other components , so for you to say all you do is make sure you shafts spin good is not tuning a bow. You have to approach it from multiple angles.

I don't touch my bow after it has first been setup/tuned with fieldtips. You can call it what you want. I'm just telling you what I do.

 

[bowtech840]

I haven’t shot a fieldpoint in years. Sight my broadheads in and roll. Good to 80 all day long. Never had an issue

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[5MilesBack]

With all the tuning talk I guess it makes me curious as to what kind of bow presses you guys use? And at what price? I know some of them are pretty pricey that work on modern bows

I've had a Sure-Loc X-press with adapters for several years (think I paid $400 for it used), and it's worked fine for every bow I've owned. It would have been darn near impossible to get my bow where it's at right now without a press. I've done many, many, many adjustments to it to get it where it's at right now. I've been fine tuning it since the middle of June, and I shoot almost every day. A shop would have never put up with me for that long. They would have seen bullet holes through paper and called it good.

I still might not be done with it.......I'll see as I shoot it more. I expect the arrows to hit behind the pin every time, and if they don't.......why not? Was it me or the bow. Bare shafts will definitely show you if your grip or form are inconsistent. It's real easy to use one grip and get a right tear, and then change it just a hair and get a left tear. Pick a grip that you can do consistently time and time again through all shooting situations, tune to it, and stick with it.

I want my bow to be set up so that it's as forgiving as possible. So if I make a bad shot, it's still in the ring, just not where I wanted it in the ring.

 

[TravisIN]

I have a an LCA deluxe power press. I would look at fulcrum archery if you want an LCA press as they have the best pricing bar none.


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[Brendan]

I think for the ranges most people shoot, it is absolutely possible to get Fixed Broadheads and FPs to impact the same, within the shooter's ability to tell the difference.

Step out to long range and you'll notice a vertical difference, and shoot in a crosswind and you'll notice a horizontal difference, but that's not what most people are saying when they say theirs hit the same. (How much of a difference depends on a lot of factors)

 

[MattB]

I think for the ranges most people shoot, it is absolutely possible to get Fixed Broadheads and FPs to impact the same, within the shooter's ability to tell the difference.

Step out to long range and you'll notice a vertical difference, and shoot in a crosswind and you'll notice a horizontal difference, but that's not what most people are saying when they say theirs hit the same. (How much of a difference depends on a lot of factors)

I agree. When I BH tune i only shoot out to 60 yards and virtually every BH i have tried groups closely enough with my filed points that I couldn't tell a difference in POI.

 

[RosinBag]

I semi agree you could do it to mid range yardages.

I have in the past got to about 60 yards although they were about a half yard low. Which was pretty good as I Shoot a 5 pin slider. So over 60, I would just dial a yard extra up to 70, two yards up to 80, etc. it was a pretty good way for me to shoot fixed blades at long distances.

 

[5MilesBack]

I always BH tune at 60, and I've broken nocks shooting my FP into them both at 60 and at 20 after I'm done. This picture is a FP and BH from 60 yards and it was the third time I had shot something similar, so figured it wasn't a fluke. As for elevation the BH was about an arrow diameter lower than the FP arrow. That I can live with, but the left/right isn't acceptable. I still haven't finalized my pin settings because I'm not done yet, so the bow is shooting high at some distances. But it will all be on when I'm done.

 

[RosinBag]

I always BH tune at 60, and I've broken nocks shooting my FP into them both at 60 and at 20 after I'm done. This picture is a FP and BH from 60 yards and it was the third time I had shot something similar, so figured it wasn't a fluke. As for elevation the BH was about an arrow diameter lower than the FP arrow. That I can live with, but the left/right isn't acceptable. I still haven't finalized my pin settings because I'm not done yet, so the bow is shooting high at some distances. But it will all be on when I'm done.
View attachment 109237

So at 60, you just shoot one of each and then pull them and repeat?

I personally don’t think two arrows is a group, but that’s me.

 

[5MilesBack]

So at 60, you just shoot one of each and then pull them and repeat?

I personally don’t think two arrows is a group, but that’s me.

That's actually 6 arrows.......3 FP's and 3 BH's. If they all hit the same places each time, that's enough information for me. Why would they change the fourth time? And if they did change I'd still consider the first three to be the more accurate information. I'm certainly not going to shoot more than one BH at a time, I prefer to keep my arrows intact. I'm not looking for a group here........all I'm looking at is the separation between the BH and FP......be it vertical or horizontal or both.

When actually tuning, I might actually make tuning adjustments just off of one BH and one FP's impact locations.....if I knew the shots were good shots. But when I'm done tuning and have set my sights, I would expect all the arrows that I shoot up to hunting season to be inside that green spot.

 

[HuntWyld]

Holy thread explosion. Apparently asking about Broadhead tuning is right up there with politics and religion.

 

[IdahoHntr]

There are a bunch of different philosophies through out the archery world. You can look at the worlds top archers and even they each have different tuning techniques. I've read and watched stuff from Tim Gillingham, Levi Morgan, John Dudley, and others and they all say stuff that contradicts each other. It's not about doing everything, it's about finding what works for you. For some that might be doing everything, others it might take very little effort at all. In the end, shooting through paper works. Bare shaft tuning works. Walk-back tuning works. Broadhead tuning works.

It's all about just understanding what your end goal is and not losing sight of it. The end goal for hunters is to kill an animal with a fletched arrow and a broadhead on the end. Whatever you have to do to get a fletched arrow with a broadhead on the end to fly the best possible, do it. If that means your bare shaft tune is no longer perfect or your not getting exact perfect tears through paper anymore, don't stress. You're not shooting bare shafts or field points at an animal. You're shooting broadheads and while MOST of the time all that stuff will give you the best broadhead flight, sometimes it only gets you close and then you have to tweak things to get your broadheads perfect.

My best advice if you want to shoot fixed blades well, is to shoot fixed blade broadheads as much as possible and shoot them at every range you shoot your field points. As already mentioned, you will have to adjust for longer distances slightly (In my case I have my sight tape set up for broadheads and then adjust slightly at longer distances when I am shooting my field points.), but it will make you a better shooter, as fixed heads are not very forgiving and really good at showing inconsistencies in your form. Shots that would be off an inch due to shooter error with field points will be off a few with a fixed broadhead.

 

[RosinBag]

Apparently my vision is going as I only see two arrows in the target.

I will shoot all my arrows I plan on hunting with to make sure they all hit home. So three at 60 isn’t enough for me to call it good, but I make bad shots at times and I have to take those ones out of the equation. So I may shoot 100 arrows at 60 to determine that my mark is where it is supposed to be.