dwcphoto wrote: Okay, let me ask a simple sort of question and see if I can twist this up any more…
The object is to get the bare shaft to fly to the same place as the fletch shaft, right? Then you would already have fletched shafts that fly fine and why would you bare shaft?
Just for the record, I started bare shaft tuning a new set-up yesterday, so I’m on board. I’ll bare shaft til they fly right, then fletch a couple and compare??
Thanks for the continued explanations and patience.

That’s an excellent question. Fletching basically serves two purposes: to correct for poor arrow flight, and to overpower the steering tendencies of a broadhead. With field points, you can group rather well with untuned arrows. As a matter of fact, the arrows I used to sucessfully compete with in NFAA Barebow were quite overspined. But put a broadhead on an out-of-tune arrow and you’ll see erratic wind planing.

Sometimes our eyes are not so good at picking up initial nock kick with fletched arrows before they correct, especially porpoising which kicks up and down in line with how we see the arrow’s trajectory. I have a good friend who’s exceptional at being able to tune by watching his fletched arrows. For him, bare shaft tuning simply confirms what he already knows. I wish my eyes were that good. After spending nearly 30 years in competitive shooting, and seeing countless examples of people who thought their corkscrew-flying arrows were tuned, I’m convinced my friend is by far the exception.

So the simple answer is this: because sometimes what we think we see isn’t what’s really happening.