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in reply to: Tuning wood shafts #11745
Another thing to keep in mind when buying wood shafts or completed arrows is to make sure they are matched in not only spine but weight. Wood shafts, being a natural material, can vary by over 100 grains, even in the same spine group. I learned the hard way many years ago to specifically ask about shafts being weight matched before buying them when I ended up with a dozen shafts that were so far apart in weight they were useless to me. From that point on not only did I make sure they were weight matched before putting down my money, but I made sure they weighed the same as what I was already shooting.
in reply to: Tuning wood shafts #11606One thing to keep in mind with building wood arrows is grain orientation. Wood shafts are spined on the edge of the grain, so make sure you make your arrow so the grain runs perpendicular to the bow (i.e. With your bow straight up and down, the arrow grain runs left and right. If you make them so the grain direction is random, your spine will also be random. Aside from that, the tuning is the same as with any other arrow shaft type.
in reply to: where are the heavier bows at??? #10527Trends come, go, and then come back again. What those bowyers told you is in line with what Tim Cosgrove of Kustom King told me a few years ago. He said there was a time when he could barely sell a 45# bow because folks wanted heavier weight. By the time I talked to him, he had long ago stopped stocking bows of 60# or over because now so few people seemed interested in buying them. Going back even further, bows pulling 40-50 pounds were normal for whitetail hunters. I’m sure at some point down the road, heavy draw weight will be the norm again.
in reply to: New to trad looking for advice #9893spotknot wrote: Also what are the pros and cons of using gloves, tabs, and finger savers.
Kurt,
I’m guessing by “finger savers” you mean those rubber things that slide over the serving. If so, they are popular with bowfishermen but not much beyond that point (youth bows perhaps). With very rare exceptions, finger shooters use tabs or gloves. There’s no right or wrong between the two — the choice comes down to with what you shoot best. I personally prefer a tab, but others shoot better with gloves. If possible, try a few of each and see which feels best to you.
And like Steve said, thank you for your service. It’s much appreciated.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #9622Troy,
I’m assuming you know that the only difference between tuning with an elevated rest / plunger and off the shelf with a strike plate is that you fine tune dynamic spine via plunger tension? I’m also assuming you noticed that the Easton Tuning Guide also mentions tuning dynamic spine by altering shaft length, point weight, and brace height? With respect to FOC and tuning, the process doesn’t change. Physics is physics — a heavier point will still weaken an arrow and a lighter point will still stiffen it. There’s really no need to make it complicated. This is really basic stuff.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #9524Troy,
This is one of those things that after you’ve worked with enough people becomes apparent; the further you take someone from their comfort zone with respect to form, the worse they shoot. To be honest, in better than two decades of helping people tune their bows I can only recall one person who was truly stumped on how to read results with a canted bow. Once I told him to can’t his target to match his bow if that will help, his response was, “Why didn’t I think of that?”. From there, tuning was a snap. It’s really rather simple.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #9428Troy,
If someone is so inconsistent in their shooting form that they cannot maintain a relatively similar can’t from shot to shot, what do you think will happen to his shooting form when he’s taken even further out of his comfort zone by shooting vertically? His draw length, release, and follow through all change. Never mind what happens to his accuracy, and all those things affect tuning.
That’s why it’s best to just tune it how you shoot it.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #9395Troy,
Walking up to a target, drawing your bow against it, and scribing a line isn’t difficult. For a new shooter, it’s a lot more likely that he/she will have form inconsistencies going from canting to vertical than being confused by drawing a line on the wall. And tuning a bow by using form you otherwise wouldn’t isn’t a very wise idea.
Tune it how you shoot it. Problem solved.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #8292newbreedarcher wrote: 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.
in reply to: How Was Your Winter? #8104It’s been extremely mild here as well. There’s already green grass starting to poke through in my yard, and the trees are starting to bud up. Three hours north on our property in Wisconsin the story is much the same. The last weekend in February last year my daughter and I would have needed snow shoes to get through the the creek valley. Now there’s only an inch or two of snow on the ground in those same spots.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #7668newbreedarcher,
First of all, for a relative newbie you pose some excellent questions. The fact that you’re so concerned about proper arrow flight is great. I can’t begin to count how many folks with whom I’ve walked 3D courses that’ve talked about penetration problems and shot arrows that flew like snakes on a caffeine high. I’d be willing to bet that nearly all penetration problems come down to arrow flight (tuning) and shot placement (accuracy). Solve those two problems and the only question left is how far in the dirt you want your arrows to stick after passing through your animal. But I digress.
Yes, straight arrow flight with bare shafts is absolutely possible. I see you’re using Stu Miller’s calculator. It’s a great tool, and one I wish we had many years ago. With that tool you build an arrow with the proper dynamic spine in the weight you desire, and come away with an excellent starting point for tuning. From there, do a Google search for “Easton Tuning Guide” and follow the steps for bare shaft tuning. It’s still the best tutorial I’ve seen to date. It’s simple, straight forward, and doesn’t take you around the block just to get next door.
in reply to: Broadhead Sharpening Stones #64140For knives, I use a Smith Tri Hone. It has coarse, medium, and fine stones on a three sided platform. They should be available via mail order from a bunch of different places. I did a quick Google and found them at Cabelas and Amazon.
in reply to: Arrow Speed #63976Phantom_SixZero wrote: 320gr arrows. and I was told by one of the pro shop staff from hoyt. it’s not hard on the bow’s at all. it was a real shocker. when i first saw that speed. thought it was wrong till I kept shooting. my life long friend has the same set up. he pulling pull around the same
Some limbs are built to take it. From my understanding, part of the R&D behind the Winex limbs was either a 1,000 or 10,000 dry fire test (I forget which). They held up fine. That’s one of the reasons I started shooting them a few years ago. That and they’re excellent reputation among Olympic shooters, who shoot very light gpp arrows thousands of times per week in training.
I shot indoor 3D with a buddy of mine today, and it’s always fun shooting next to a guy who makes my 200 fps arrows look slow. He’s using TradTech Extreme limbs and actually is going to even lighter arrows for 3D. He talked to TradTech about whether or not they’d warranty the limbs down to 5 gpp. They said no problem. A mutual friend of ours shoots at or slightly under 5 gpp for IBO. He’s never had a limb failure.
Again, not all limbs are built to take that kind of stress. So it’s always best to talk to the manufacturer and get their opinion when doing such things. I shoot around 9 gpp with my bow, but to be honest, I’d have no reservations going down to 6gpp for 3D if I felt so inclined. But since I like to shoot the same setup for everything (hunting or competitive target) I’m staying with what I have.
in reply to: Need help with carbon arrow selection #63961If the Gold Tips shoot stiff, the next thing I’d do is see how the weaker spine shafts shoot with the same weight head.
in reply to: arrow weight for elk #63952I shot through both my elk and moose with 500-grain total weight arrows.
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