Encouraged and discouraged while tuning

[Troy Breeding]

#3727

Since there has been so many questins about bareshaft tuning I thought I’d give alittle encouragement to those that are having questions or problems.

Tournament season is over so it’s time to finish those hunting arrows. My tournament arrows carry a 28% EFOC, for my hunting arrows I want to be atleast 30% and I’m hoping for more.

To get this I knew I was going to need as light a GPI shaft as I could find. My finding lead me to purchase a dozen of the Victory VMaxx HV shafts in 300.

As usual I always check all my shafting for consistancy in spine/deflection, weight and straightness.

For most of this I was very encouraged.

My finding of the weight and straightness were very good. Overall weight was only a 3 grain spane. Straightness was between .004 and .006. Just as advertised.

Spine/deflection however was another story. Of the 12 shafts 10 carried a spine/deflection of .320 while the other two were only .340…. Not quite the 300 deflection they were supposed to be, but still not as bad as some of the other brands I have checked.

Anyway, yesterday I took the two lower spine/deflection shafts as starters. I glued in the 100gr brass inserts, then later glued on 3″ of 2117 aluminium shaft for the footing. One of the biggest problems I’ve been having is picking up the shaft in my lower vision. I balme this on the black carbon shaft. For the past several years I’ve been shooting Beman MFX Classic with the woodgrain finish and havn’t had this problem. I’ve tried several different color aluminium shafts in an effert to solve this. So far the best has been the Autumn Orange shafts. Only problem now is I’ve used up the only shaft I had and finding more is about as hard as finding hens teeth.

After doing a sarch on several other sites I finally saw a set that the fellow had sanded off the camo finish leaving it bright and shiny. This would be great for tournaments, but for hunting I was worried it might reflect light and get me busted. I thought about painting them but wasn’t real keen on that. Then it hit me,,, Sharpie!!!! I’d just be using coloring the ones I hunted with and I wasn’t worried if it would work.

Well, walaa!!! it worked like a dream. I used a yellow Sharpie, it killed the shine and left the footing almost the same color as the fletching I’ll be using.

After allowing afew minutes to dry it was time to start testing. I strung up the ol’ recurve and headed outside.

At 10yds the only thing I had to do was adjust my gap. That extra 65grs up front will make a shaft drop alittle. In short, at 10yds both shafts hit the 3″ piece of paper I have on the target just about center. At 15yds the results were the same, 20yds again both hit the paper.

Now understand, they did have a left tail kick but the point of impact was right there.

At 25yds I couldn’t believe the results. They both hit the paper side by side. Understand, I’m still working with a full length shaft. Normally by now I’d have already had to make atleast one cut.

So far I’m blown away. The best results I’ve ever had.

Tuning has been halted for now. It started back raining, but if it stopps again I’ll be back at it later this afternoon.

The only thing that has me worried at this point is, these were the two lower spine/deflection shafts. I’m not sure what will happen when I try the others. That slight extra in stiffness may require alittle more weight up front. I’m hoping it’s close enough not to be a big bother. Only time will tell.

I’ll post futher finding as they happen.

Troy

[Troy Breeding]

#22807

One of the things I failed to mention is the current UEFOC of the shafts.

As it stands right now, the shafts are 31-3/4″ from the deepest part fo the string groove to the outter edge of the insert. The balance is at 26-3/8″. This makes the UEFOC come to 33.07%.

Now Ed says not to count the insert. If so then the overall length of the shaft would be 31-1/2″. This would make the UEFOC come out to be 33.7%

Not sure which way is correct, but if everything holds to the first run of test shooting I’ve got the UEFOC I was hoping for, plus….

Troy

[Crystalshrimp]

#23098

Troy Breeding wrote:

Now understand, they did have a left tail kick but the point of impact was right there.
Troy

So the impact was good. Are you concerned with the tail kick? Was it horizontally to the left, at an 45 degree angle up or down to the left? Does it matter? And finally will adding fletching fix this kicking. Troy I’m so close to understanding the goal here, I just need to understand what it is I can disreguard, regarding bareshaft tuning a high FOC arrow. It seems my questions are redundant at times but it is sinking in and I learn each time precious adivise is shared here. Thanks again.

[Troy Breeding]

#23149

Yes, the impact spot was right on.

For now I’m not concerned with the tail kick. It was horizonally tail left. If the tail kick was massive then yes, it would be a major concern. This is one of those minor details that say slight weak spine/deflection. One thing that kinda tells me it’s not that big of a deal is the fact that the futher I got from the target the less it seemed to show.

Now remember, after seeing that the impact is good I shoot several more times and start watching the shaft in flight while not being concerned with where the arrow is hitting the target.

One thing to remember, don’t let yourself get all bent out of shape with tail kick. Alot of times shooters get to watching the shaft in flight before they have the impact spot right. The closer you get to spot on to impact the less the tail kick will be.

If everything still holds true tomarrow I will play around with adding and subtracting weight to the point just to see what happens. When I add weight I’ll remove the adpt. from the fieldpoint and drop in afew fishing line weights, shoot and see what happens. When I deside to try a lighter weight I’ll simply switch to a lighter field point. I don’t want to do any altering to the shaft until I see what point weight changes do. If nothing is called for I will then add fletching and shoot.

As to your question on fletching, Yes, I feel right now that fletching will correct everything as is. Still I want fletch until I play around with the point weight. I want to make sure as best I can before doing any fletching.

Correct bareshafting isn’t something you learn over night. It takes time to learn this. Before retiring I was in the Trad archery business for close to 25 years.

Troy

[Troy Breeding]

#23163

CS,

One thing I failed to say is, I want know if I have everything exactly right until I finally feltch and do a heck of abunch of shooting. As with my tournament arrows, I felt everything was right. After acouple days of shooting the test arrows I began to notice a very slight tail left kick with the fletched arrow. I had to drop back to 30-40 yds to catch it, but it was there. I removed the nock, trimed approx. the thickness of the blade from the end of the shaft and corrected everything.

To tell the truth, I wish I would have had someone to contact when I was learning all this. Lord knows how many shafts I screwed up before it began to sink in. Thats why I make it part to answer all questions so lengthy and indepth.

Troy

[Troy Breeding]

#24293

Hopefully tomarrow it want be raining. It’s rained for the past two days and I can’t wait to see if everything stays the same.

Troy

[Troy Breeding]

#26258

I’m going to push this thread and afew more to the top so a friend can read them without having to search thru all the threads.

Troy

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