Hey, if they’re flying good it matters not IMHO. If they get straight to the point 😀 that’s what counts. Just my thinkin’ but I have a tendency to simplify things.

😀

I like Ralph’s view, but the German in me won’t allow it! I NEED to know!

Just me!

I found that there was 20 gr. different in a half dozen BH’s once… I added #8 shot to the ferrule till they and the inserts all were the same.

My eyes no longer pick out a “hair” on a deer, but I can see a crease where white meets brown behind the shoulder… so I KNOW that I can NOT see any “bad behavior” in an arrow flight at even 150 fps, let alone anything above.

Had that proven many times where I had to “back up” to 25 yards to see an arrow “kick” in flight that I couldnt see at 10-15 yards while tuning.

So whatever floats your boat… just don’t buy one of those clip on things you hold by a ring, get the # and then look up on a chart… to get a weight—that calculation was off by oh… 100 gr. when I double checked with a precise reloading scale and a known weight to calibrate!

If things are shootin good and you start thinkin about it they won’t be shootin so good. 😀

paleoman wrote: All fly well, so should I be concerned?

I’d say the answer is in the question.

What did people do before grain scales? They observed the results and kept the ones that flew well.

It was probably some overly curious Tennessean of German heritage that invented the grain scales.:D

BAh, humbug!:roll:

Doc Nock wrote:

I like Ralph’s view, but the German in me won’t allow it! I NEED to know!

I’m kinda with Doc on this (I’m also of German lineage). I bought the 3 rivers pocket grain scale when they still sold it, and the digital grain scales are super cheap on Amazon. I’m a wildlife biologist who studies small critters, so I’m always up to my ears in ways to weigh things (is a pun hiding in there?) to the nearest tenth of a gram (15.4 grains).

All that being said, this activity is supposed to be about elegance; if you can get great flight and never buy a scale, you’re doing it right!

paleoman wrote: [quote=Smithhammer][quote=paleoman]All fly well, so should I be concerned?

I’d say the answer is in the question.

What did people do before grain scales? They observed the results and kept the ones that flew well.

SH – you’re right! I’m happy with an apple size group at 20 yards. No German in me, but if I could get down to a ping pong ball if the weight mattered enough, I wouldn’t stop progress, but neither do I want to lose the “good” to an attempt at perfection.

You get to shooting a ping ball size group then throw an arrow or two into the apple circumference then you start thinking what’s wrong with the arrow and “Sometimes it ain’t the equipment but the injun that’s the problem”.

I’m having that problem this morning, has nothing to to do with arrows, the wind sucks but that don’t mean I can’t repeatedly hit the wrong place. My form is lacking and I can’t even make the wrongs consistent.

Putting the bow down for awhile, lick my wounds, listen to Medwyn Goodalls, “Temple Journey” and get over being flustered.

I actually remember reading something about ancient bowyers using real grain scales to group their shafts for building.

And in the name of full disclosure, I own a grain scale as well, mostly because I have a horrible memory of what my different arrows, heads, etc. actually weigh. But for me personally, I’m only interested in the “science” of this whole thing to a limited degree – too much exactitude starts to feel like over-complication of a thing that I’m drawn to as a result of its simplicity.

I’ve tried to keep my Yap outa this one as much as possible beyond a bit of levity…

And while I respect both the individuals and the insights of the varied posters, there are a host of “yes buts” that keep crowding in with each post.

Indeed, trad sticks and strings are simplicity in design, but I know the more thoughtful of the group also realize that nuances abound in our chosen weapon… brace height, placement of silencers, amount of center cut on riser, just to name a few of the more “intricacies” that can impact an otherwise good shooting set up!

I’ve seen proven that the amount of center cut a riser will affect choice of arrow spine more then draw weight…too long to go into here, but seen it repeatedly over the years!

our SIMPLE stick and strings are quite the “machine” and deserve our respect….abd dedication to get the utmost performance there from…

When game was plentiful, nomads could chase a hit animal till the caught up to it, they lived by what they killed, etc, ad naseum, are all factors that defy (IMO) direct comparisons to today (and our obligations to the critters we hunt. I fuss with stuff more because I can NOT stand losing an animal… Oh, it’s happened, but on those few occassions I have obsessed over it and altered set up to maximize thus not recurring…! With the current trespass laws, and the patchwork of property where I hunt(ed), you can be restricted/prevented from pursuit, so EVERYTHING better be dead nuts right on, BEFORE you drop the string!

That weighs heavy on me and preparation seems to be the best PREVENTION…sorta like an Emergency Gear kit well thought out!:roll:

Now…help me off my soapbox afore I fall down and break something…!

Scott, 😀 shoot what works for ya and if ya gotta chase something down just run a little faster than ol’Doc.

Probably pretty simple think to do. 🙄

I think I read something into Doc’s rolling eyes there:lol:

Doc Nock wrote:

Now…help me off my soapbox afore I fall down and break something…!

Well, the soapbax has been pretty quiet as of late Doc, so someone had to get on it!

I know some love pouring over the infinitesimal details and micro-tweaking everything, and that they get a great deal of enjoyment out if it – and to those folks, I say, more power to you! We should all enjoy this sport however we wish, in my opinion. Which is why I qualified my thoughts above by saying “for me personally,” rather than presuming to speak in sweeping generalities.

That said, I think it’s entirely possible to remain fairly simple in approach to all this, without lapsing into irresponsibility in the tackle we use. I would, of course, never advocate the latter.

But all of this reminds me of a presentation Clay did at a BHA rendezvous in Boise a few years back on bow building. It was a great presentation, and Clay shared a lot of info about his personal bow-building process. When it came time for the Q&A, there were lots of questions asking him to explain specific measurements for his bows, the degree of limb taper, etc. etc., to which Clay’s answer was repeatedly something to the effect of “I don’t really know – I just do it until it all feels right.” It’s a good thing I was standing in the back, because I was having a hard time keeping my chuckling to myself.

Lots of different ways to go about all of this – some of us, based on our personality type, crave exactitude, and some of us lean toward a more intuitive approach. Neither is right or wrong, though the “exacticists” will always have lots of data to back up their perspective, and the intuitivists will generally be left with saying something like, “I just know it works.” Me personally? I’m probably somewhere in between.

Quite regularly I can find something written that portrays my thoughts on a topic much better than I can express them.

http://www.myrkothum.com/simple/

When I got the BEAR (the bow, not talking about a pet here), I was thinking about all I had to do to tune it. Reread a couple books, posts here, etc. I was sure my arrows would not work.. wrong spine, fletches, etc. But first I shot the bow. The arrows grouped 6″ to the left, and 2″ low. Consistently!!! I wondered what would happen if I changed nothing. I know this may seem strange, and the Web Mother may delete the post for blasphemy. But the honest truth is that the group has moved over 6″, and up 2″. I have changed nothing on the bow, or the arrows. Do you think that my bows were tuned EXACTLY the same as the BEAR? Do you think that Fred (not the mouse) used popular arrows from the Home Depot, with a red cock feather?

Keep in mind that I shoot bare bow, INTUITIVELY (NOT INSTINCTIVELY instinct is what you knew when your born – didn’t know how to shoot a bow till my big brother taught me). Intuition is what is in the back of your brain that you are only vaguely aware of. Most of the time you are driving you are doing it intuitively. You don’t think about turn signals, clutch, shift, etc in detail, or AIM the vehicle (veHICle in Dixie) that is taken care of by the intuition in the back of your brain. Pretty dam accurate since I haven’t hit any trees that didn’t leap out in front of me.

For the record I bought a gram scale. Directions said I needed something EXACTLY 5 lbs to calibrate it. I looked around for a while, found nothing, and threw it out. I was just told (amid a lot of laughter) that I could have ordered 5 lbs of hamburger from the butcher. DUH

For checking spine, I put 2 wood screws into the porch railing, and hang a pipe wrench from the middle of the arrow. If it pulls the arrow below the bottom of the railing it is a bad arrow. If it doesn’t pull it down to the bottom of the rail, it is a bad arrow. Simple.

As I am writing all of this, someone is sitting beside me saying “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THE TWANG?” Every time I shoot the bow, it sounds like the top string on a base guitar (the really thick one). I’ll do something about it when I am damn good and ready to. 😡

I also checked how the arrows actually worked. I was going to number them, take notes, etc Even thought about a program to keep track, and tabulate the results, do statistical analysis on each arrow… blah blah blah Then decided to make a sharpie dot on the fletching of arrows when I pulled them out of the bulls eye. I was shooting about 20 arrows, a while later some had a dozen dots while some had none. Put broad heads on the 6 with the most dots.

What more do you really need to know??

One quarter German, the rest is Brit.