Reply To: Arrow tuning

[Bounty Hunter]

#9196

When bare shaft tuning you never use paper and you never pay attention to the nock end of the arrow only the impact on the target.

Basic Bare Shaft Tuning:
What we are basically trying to do is get our bare shafts and fletched arrows to hit in the same point. This is accomplished by changing the spine of the arrow shaft. If your arrows are not spined correctly you may never get your arrows to fly correctly.

Lets first look at the technique:
What I like to do is stand about 10 yards from my target and I shoot three fletched arrows into the target and three bare shaft or non-fletched arrows into the target. You should be able to get a decent group from both the fletched and non-fletched arrows. The key is to really focus on form and make sure that you don’t introduce any torque into the bow. You might want to try this several times to make sure that your results are repeatable. Hopefully, after a few times you should be able to see the pattern.

Bare Shafts hitting higher than Fletched Shafts – Your Nock Point is too Low.
Move your Nock Point Higher and retest until both sets of shafts are impacting at the same height.

Bare Shafts hitting lower than Fletched Shafts – Your Nock Point is too High.
Move your Nock Point Lower and retest until both sets of shafts are impacting at the same height.

Bare Shafts hitting right of your Fletched Shafts – Your Arrow Spine is too Weak.
You have a few options to correct this problem;
1. Shorten your arrow shaft (the shorter the shaft the stiffer it will become) by half an inch and retest. Repeat this until both sets of shafts are impacting at the same place.
2. Change to a stiffer spined shaft and restart your testing.
3. Change to a lighter point and restart your testing.

Bare Shafts hitting left of your Fletched Shafts – Your Arrow Spine is too Stiff.
You have a few options to correct this problem;
1. Change to a heavier point and restart your testing.
2. Change to a weaker spined shaft and restart your testing.
3. Your shafts are too short (only if the shafts have been previously cut) and you need to go with full length shafts and restart your testing.

Now if your fletched arrows are kicking nocks right or left you either still have a spine problem or a form problem. The biggest thing to remember is take your time and don’t get in too much of a rush it will only cause you problems and make you very frustrated. Oh and a little weak is much better than a little stiff. Fletching will stiffen the spine of an arrow and also a little weak is much more forgiving than a little stiff. Good Luck and I hope this has helped some.