I have Easton 6.5 match grades and when I was picking up my new bow this weekend, the guy was shooting through paper at the shop. He tried several of his arrows along with mine and mine was not getting as good a tear. He rotated the nock to lineup the word Easton at the top and he got a good tear and he told me that was the spine on the Easton arrows.
The problem might be is when you’re nock tuning if where the arrow would tear the best you’ve got a vane sticking straight at 9 o’clock towards your cables. On my new Hoyt, it doesn’t have the clearance that some of these other bows do and that would probably cause fletching contact. Other than that possible issue I see where you’re going with this.
You are way overthinking this. The stickers that go on the shaft are randomly rolled on. Those shafts will almost always produce an acceptable tear on one of the three positions. I would nock tune 2 shafts until you get acceptable tears. Then put a broadhead on one of them. Broadhead tune those 2 shafts. Once they are hitting together move your sight so that the impact is in the dot. Take the broadhead off that shaft and run it on every shaft you have. If you don’t hit the dot with broadhead then rotate through the vane positions until you do. Once you hit the middle with a broadhead that shaft is done. Take the broadhead off and move it to the next shaft.
I wouldn’t have even started this thread if the tech at the shop Saturday hadn’t brought it up when he was tuning my new bow. I brought in new arrows built myself, 300 spine Easton 6.5 match grade with 4 fletch on a wrap. The issue was I am left-handed and like most archers he was right. But this guy is a veteran and he’s been at it for a while. He did admit to me that he is right handed, but he has technically never had an issue paper tuning a left-handed bow for a customer. That doesn’t mean that switching hands may not have been affecting something. But he was able to get a perfect bullet hole with one of his random shafts and mine it was close. Then he looked at me and said I bet I know why. he claimed the Eastern logo needed to be at the top that was where Easton‘s spine was on the shaft. He asked me when I built those arrows if I spine matched them with the fletching and I replied no I just threw them in my jig and fletched them up. Then he rotated the nock so that the Easton logo was at the top, and it started tearing better. He had me nock align the remaining arrows and a couple of them can’t be without a vane sticking straight inward, which would probably make contact with my cables. But at home all my shafts seem to fly good whether they are oriented this way or not. I guess we will find out when I screw on some fixed blade Broadhead this summer and see how they shoot.
What bow?
Hoyt alpha x. He told me they had tight cable clearances compared to some other bows. In fact one of the arrows of his own he was testing out if it to compare was fletched with blazers and at first he thought he might have been getting contact but then he ruled out that he didn’t think so. I’m pretty sure if you took a blazer fletched arrow and had the cock feather straight in at 9 o clock it would hit. I believe he’s got the center shot at 13/16. I can tell by eyeballing it that it is tighter than my old Martin Onza. So he must be right
Thanks for clarifying this. I knew gold tips and other brands had that mark but didn’t realize Easton had something proprietary to their process. This is interesting
You need to measure your center shot. Will take you 1 min. Think your giving the bow tech too much credit in general. If the cams are shimmed correctly and you have good repeatable form you should be very close to center shot and should not have clearance issues.
Well, here’s the thing I’m not having clearance issues. All of my arrows are shooting great. I was asking about spine aligning when I get ready to fletch up some more shafts down the road. I wasn’t trying to get into an I’m having issues with my new bow thread. It just kind of migrated there when people start talking about nock tuning and I started wondering about where that nock might end up in relation to fletching orientation. I’ll go home and measure cause I’m curious, but the thing’s shooting great.
I have always used the same color fletching on every arrow I've ever owned. My old Bowtech Commander has the cables in full view in my sight guard......they are really close to the arrows. So my tall vanes have to sit with the cock vane turned to somewhere around 11 o'clock for the bottom left vane to clear the cables (LH bow). That still gives me two other nock tuning spots to try and still keep my fletching where it needs to be in relation to the cables. Or with 4-fletch of lower profile vanes, it really doesn't matter, they'll clear. And you have several nock tuning spots to try.
I wouldn't put much stock in what kind of paper tears you were seeing with someone else (wrong-handedly) shooting your bow with his arrows. What matters is what the bow does in your hand with your arrows. Someone else might be able to get you in the ballpark, but final tuning should be done with you shooting.
Thank you. I’ve fletched plenty of arrows through the years but this whole spine alignment is something I just started hearing about in the last year. I’ve chosen to ignore it although I’ve fletched about 4 dozen shafts in the last 12 months. I was just curious. That’s why I posted.
Just keep ignoring it. You have analysis paralysis. You said your bow shoots great, so just shoot it and stop worrying about it.
You can accomplish the same thing with group tuning, and do it while you practice. I'm not saying I never twist a nock. I'm just saying I don't spend 2 afternoons shooting all of my arrows through paper. The arrows that group I leave alone. If something makes me question then I will turn a nock once in awhile to see if that helps.
