Broadhead Tuning

[LDJ]

Is it necessary to have your broadhead hit the same spot as your field point?
I watched Tim Gillinghams videos on tuning a bow and arrow. At one point when he talked about broadhead tuning he said when you adjust your broadheads to hit with field points you are slightly taking the bow out of tune. Thats assuming you had it tuned with field point before starting broadhead tuning. His reason for needing to broadhead tune was due to the length of the broadhead vs the lenght of the field point. If thats the only issue then couldnt you use a field point and broad head that are the same length and eliminate the need for broadhead tuning? My field point and broadhead are very close in length but they hit 4" away from each other. Just tying to gain more knowledge.

 

[Cant hit em]

Do you think youll hit an animal with a broadhead that doesnt shoot were you want it to ?

 

[GregB]

No, last year I couldn't get my broad heads to hit with my field points. I adjusted my sight so my broad heads were hitting where I was aiming didn't have any issues. I look at it like this if you can get both heads to hit the same spot great, but the size and surface area are different so I would think that would also cause them to fly a little different.

 

[LDJ]

Of course I wouldn’t hunt without moving my sight to hit where I’m aiming.
The point of tuning is to get your arrow to leave the bow straight. If the weight stays the same and length is very close to the same I don’t understand why you would change your setup because of the broad head. It should be tuned. I can see how the shape of a broadhead could cause it to hit different due to arrow dynamics. But just move your sight. I could be wrong and that’s why I’m asking.

 

[madkaw284]

Is it necessary to have your broadhead hit the same spot as your field point?
I watched Tim Gillinghams videos on tuning a bow and arrow. At one point when he talked about broadhead tuning he said when you adjust your broadheads to hit with field points you are slightly taking the bow out of tune. Thats assuming you had it tuned with field point before starting broadhead tuning. His reason for needing to broadhead tune was due to the length of the broadhead vs the lenght of the field point. If thats the only issue then couldnt you use a field point and broad head that are the same length and eliminate the need for broadhead tuning? My field point and broadhead are very close in length but they hit 4" away from each other. Just tying to gain more knowledge.

No, you don’t need to have them group together but that’s what you definitely should strive for. I haven’t seen the video you mentioned, but I’m sure what he’s referring to is compensation.

You have achieved tuning bliss when your field points and bareshafts have the same point of impact at, let’s say 30 yards. I like to go back to 60.

So now let’s say you screw on a broadhead and it’s impacting slightly left of your field points. Your now going to have to take your bow out of tune to get the broadheads to have the same point of impact. But you want good broadhead flight so it’s a good compromise. Now your broadheads and field points hit together, but now your bareshafts are off. So it’s a compromise to get where you want to be.


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[RosinBag]

LDJ, your thinking is is more practical than not. FP’s and BH’s don’t need the same POI, just make the sight adjustment or better yet, have two sights set up.

I know Tim well and have hunted and shot with him and we have had this conversation many times. It is a 1% chance a fixed blade BH will hit the same as your FP’s through a large range. Easy to do at the short distances, but then they start to migrate away from one another at distance. If you elect to try and get them the same at long range, the tune, the flight and your short ranges are off. It is science, one shape is generally longer and has more drag. At distance as time of flight increases, the BH’s will get lower and lower.

When someone tells you their FP’s and BH’s fly the same out to 80 yards it is generally because they are shooting groups of 10”-12”. That’s not the same in my book. You can also try and get them to shoot out to say 30, then know how much you need to give at distance. Say add a yard more for BH’s at 50, 2 at 60 etc. if you know the difference, you can just add the needed yardage to hit where you need to.

 

[Billy Goat]

I have a slightly different experience. I want my field points to fly with broadheads. Leads to more confidence in my setup. While the two points do have a different shape and create different drag, we are generally talking about accuracy of the first 1/6-1/4 of the arrows flight. My bow propels an arrow around 425 yards. I broadhead tune out to as much as 85 yards. If I was tuning to 150 yards I could see where the difference in the heads would be showing, I have same impact from 0-65 yards with my current setup. I haven't tested the bh flight past that right now. It's not ten inch groups that cause me to assume they are grouping together. I really enjoy tinkering with things so I have done a lot of tuning through a shooting machine to help remove variables. Of course your form can still screw it up after that, but like I said I like experimenting and this allows me to remove variables.

My point in having my broadheads fly with my field points is that when I have shot the bow for an extended period of time and have confidence my longer range pins are on I'm not second guessing anything. I can leave everything set exactly as it was and shoot non broadhead targets. I think shooting live size targets that show representative kill areas are important in practice.

 

[renagde]

Last year I tried to broadhead tune by bow. I really wanted my broadheads to match my field point flight. I got them flying together out until about 30 yards. I decided that was good enough for me as I was just hunting whitetails from a stand and I rarely get a shot past 30. This year, I'm doing a western elk hunt so I really want them flying good out to 60+. I broadhead tuned my bow, and switched from the full Exodus blades to the swept and now have my broadheads flying dead on with my field points. I did a cold shot with my broadhead at 60 yards the other night and hit smack in the center of the bullseye. That gives me extreme confidence in knowing my system is tuned to the "T". In the coming weeks I'll be stretching that distance to 70 and 80 to see how they keep up, I'm expecting some drop at some point but if i can shoot out to 60 then I'm happy.

 

[Topo_trekker]

All the advice here is solid. Different bows are going to react differently, your bow may never group those together. That’s why you can try tuning arrows instead. Tim mentions it briefly at 6:07 in that vid. Part of this is realizing you probably need to delegate arrows for both. If goal is hunting then you need to make your fields points fly like you bh, not otherway around.

Sounds like arrows are on the cusp of being too weak, that’s why your hitting right(left tear) with addition of bh. Make sure your bow and arrow is tuned to broadheads first. Adjust sight, then grab some arrows JUST for field points, adjust their spine if still not hitting where bh arrow is, don’t paper tune field point arrows just try to get same impact point horizontally(L/R).

If your not vertically in the same place, weight will be off if you changed spine, you still need more lift, experiment with 4 fletch or 6 fletch at this point. A few things Ive found that make all this easier is shooting the shortest arrow possible as well as shooting around 260fps, the vanes take control faster. Get them as close as possible. You may never have them hit same spot, at the very least FP’s will hit slightly high. Good luck!


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[renagde]

If you're using a slider style sight, make sure that you have the proper sight tape attached. When I started tuning, I was good until about 40 yards then my arrows started dropping significantly. I adjusted my slider until I was hitting dead on at 60, replaced my sight tape to the one that matched my marks at 20 and 60 and tried with my field points. My field points were still on. So basically there wasn't a big enough difference with just field points to notice but once you added the additional drag of my broadheads it really stood out. Once I went to a different tape, I finished the tuning process and I was good to go.

 

[Idaho Lefty]

G5 Strikers, Wac'Em's, Shuttle T's and VPA 100 gr., (vented) model's, all shoot, WITH ( same POI) as FP's and I WON'T, take my Bow "OUT of Tune" to adjust for any other B-H,.. WHY ??? Any of, those 4,.. "work" well, on Elk for, OUR Family.
We like, 12-15% FOC and medium Heavy Arrows, with the B-H's listed. We Paper Tune, B-S Tune and Nock Index.
PS; Be careful of your B-H "choice" as some B-H' are NOT legal in the Pacific NW states, like Idaho ( Swept Back, Exodus was NOT legal, last I heard, as it's considered,.. "Barbed", here. ). Be sure to call the F & G dept in the State you plan to Hunt ! Slick trick 100 grain, shoot well, too ( My son is using them, this year).

 

[renagde]

G5 Strikers, Wac'Em's, Shuttle T's and VPA 100 gr., (vented) model's, all shoot, WITH ( same POI) FP's and I WON'T, take my Bow "OUT of Tune" to adjust for any other B-H,.. WHY ??? Any of, those 4,.. "work" well, on Elk for, OUR Family.
PS; Be careful of your B-H "choice" as some B-H' are NOT legal in the Pacific NW states, like Idaho ( Swept Back, Exodus was NOT legal, last I heard, as it's considered,.. "Barbed", here. ). Be sure to call the F & G dept in the State you plan to Hunt !

This. I'm in the camp that says you should be able to get any broadhead to shoot like field points IF you're willing to put the time in and experiment with different spines, weights etc. Some broadheads are definitely easier to tune then others, hell, i used to get NAP Thunderheads flying straight out my old Parker.

 

[5MilesBack]

When someone tells you their FP’s and BH’s fly the same out to 80 yards it is generally because they are shooting groups of 10”-12”.

With 10"-12" groups I'm not even sure it would be possible to tune. They'd be chasing their tails all day long.

But it's pretty easy to tune at long range shooting at vertical lines to adjust for L & R, and horizontal lines to adjust for up and down and keep it consistent. But ya, some heads tend to drop more at longer ranges. You can generally twist or untwist the control cable to bring those together, but that might be taking it out of tune.........or it might be putting it in better tune depending on what your goal is.

 

[RosinBag]

I think I made this offer before, but if you are that confident in your set up, I would love to see it.

You come out to sunny California and shoot it for me. Then we will put it on the hooter shooter, if your fixed blade BH’s and FP’s hit the same from 20 - 80 yards, I will pay for your flight to and from. If they don’t, all you have to do in return is start a post that details your trip and how your set up performed.

I know many think their set ups are dialed in, but I respectively disagree the are the same through the range of yardages. Maybe their dispersion or acceptable groups is larger than mine, but I don’t think it’s possible with fixed blade BH’s.

I have shot with Gillingham and would venture to say he shoots better than 99% of us, knows more about this topic than 99% of us and is as good a bow tuner as any of us. If he can’t make it happen, I doubt the average person is going to miraculously find the missing link and make it all come together.

 

[RosinBag]

Here is an easy test for those who have “perfect” set ups. Get your chronograph out; shoot your FP’s and BH’s through the chrono at 1, 20, 50 and 80 yards. Record the speed of each. You will see that your BH’s are slowing down at a faster rate than your FP’s. Enough so to change your POI to where you would notice.

I build my tapes to no more than 1 FPS max dispersion and the above test will show at 80 yards you are going to be more than 3 and closer to 5 FPS slower.

 

[renagde]

Here is an easy test for those who have “perfect” set ups. Get your chronograph out; shoot your FP’s and BH’s through the chrono at 1, 20, 50 and 80 yards. Record the speed of each. You will see that your BH’s are slowing down at a faster rate than your FP’s. Enough so to change your POI to where you would notice.

I build my tapes to no more than 1 FPS max dispersion and the above test will show at 80 yards you are going to be more than 3 and closer to 5 FPS slower.

Like i mentioned, I've only shot my broadheads out to 60 yards. At that distance, there's a huge difference between 60 and 80 yards. I have no doubt that my broadheads will start dipping pretty good past 60. What I know is this: I've tuned my bow, and broadhead tuned my bow, and my field points and broadheads are shooting with no noticeable POI. I'm not shooting X's but I am shooting 3-4" groups at 60 yards and for hunting, that's darn good enough for me.

 

[RosinBag]

That is great shooting. 3-4” groups at 60 yards would good enough to win lots of money as a pro archer.

 

[renagde]

That is great shooting. 3-4” groups at 60 yards would good enough to win lots of money as a pro archer.

That's on a good day without 500 people standing behind me

 

[RosinBag]

These topics are always difficult to for the majority to be completely honest.

For a new person trying to understand FP/BH accuracy issues, honesty will help them more than anything. And I am not calling people liars or dishonest, but most talk about their best groups as their average group, and the new person thinks how is everyone else so good except me.

If you want to know your group size, shoot 50 arrows at the given distance you want to shoot, say 60 yards. Measure the group, that’s it. Not your ten best, but from edge to edge. Then try it with50 fixed blade BH’s and measure again. That’s what grouping is. You could also plot them on paper or shoot a clean target so you can see where you most often miss to help figure out how to be more accurate. 90% of archers miss low to 4 or 8 o’clock. There are ways to improve that so your missed actually catch the spot more often than not. You just have to be honest with your self assessment.

 

[Btaylor]

These topics are always difficult to for the majority to be completely honest.

For a new person trying to understand FP/BH accuracy issues, honesty will help them more than anything. And I am not calling people liars or dishonest, but most talk about their best groups as their average group, and the new person thinks how is everyone else so good except me.

If you want to know your group size, shoot 50 arrows at the given distance you want to shoot, say 60 yards. Measure the group, that’s it. Not your ten best, but from edge to edge. Then try it with50 fixed blade BH’s and measure again. That’s what grouping is. You could also plot them on paper or shoot a clean target so you can see where you most often miss to help figure out how to be more accurate. 90% of archers miss low to 4 or 8 o’clock. There are ways to improve that so your missed actually catch the spot more often than not. You just have to be honest with your self assessment.

I posted exactly that over in the trad forum the other day. 75 shots with new longbow at 20 yards on a clean piece of cardboard with a 6x8" box with a 3" circle. Plan to shoot the cold bow at 25 with that bow.