Home › Forums › Bows and Equipment › Need help with carbon arrow selection › Reply To: Need help with carbon arrow selection
J.Wesbrock wrote: [quote=newbreedarcher]So, it appears I didn’t have my nocking point set just right. This morning I went out to continue my tuning mission. This time it was on my GT trads, I found that they were all tail high-right. I tried adjusting my nocking point down to 1/8″ above center and still they were tail high! What can I do to fix this? I want to adjust my nocking point before I mess with point weight.
A couple tips about tuning. First, ignore how your arrows appear angled in the target. Can a nock high arrow appear nock high in a target butt? Yes, but the target material itself can cause the arrow to kick one way or the other. It can also cause a poorly flying arrow to straighten out as it penetrates the backstop. That’s why when people tune by nock kick they do it via paper tuning, not simply shooting into a back stop. The paper gives you an uninhibited look at how the arrow was angled during flight; looking at nock kick in a backstop does not. Trying to tune by looking at nock kick in a backstop is unreliable at best, which is why no reputable tuning guide recommends it.
When tuning from scratch, I try to start intentionally nigh high. I heard Ken Beck suggest this years ago and it makes excellent sense. By starting nock high you can then slowly work your nock point down until you get level flight (ignore left / right at this point). I highly suggest you use two nock locators—one above and a second below, leaving a gap of just under 1/8” between the bottom of your arrow nock and the lower nock point to avoid pinch.
Once you get level flight, you can then adjust your dynamic spine to eliminate left/right planning. For a right handed shooter, a stiff spine will leave nock right. A weak spine will leave nock left. When bare shaft tuning, this will make your bare shafts impact to the left of fletched arrows for a stiff spine, and to the right for a weak spine. When paper tuning, you will see where the tip of the arrow penetrated the paper and where the fletching tore through it. It will look like a dot (tip) and a set of tears (fletching).
Unless you are grossly overspined (like shooting a 2419 out of a 40# bow) a stiff arrow will come out nock right for a right handed shooter. If you’re extremely stiff, the nock end can bounce off the sight window and kick to the left, giving the appearance of being weak. But if you’re starting with Stu Miller’s software, you won’t be anywhere near that far off from the start.
Another tip about tuning: tune how you shoot. If you shoot canted, tune canted. If you shoot vertically, tune vertically. Just take your cant into account when reading your results. Canting your target (bare shaft tuning) or drawing crosshairs on your paper (paper tuning) to match your cant will help eliminate any confusion from your results.
Just about all the above looks to be very sound advise.
My only difference would be on the last papagraph.
If you tune with a vertical bow you want have to try and match your cant to and “x” on the target or paper. If you get the same cant as the “X” and totally understand what your looking at then all is fine.
However, most reading this are just starting to properly tune and want know if they have the “X” and cant the same. Holding the bow vertical and using a “+” is easier to read and mistake are fewer between.
Troy