Trad Gang
Main Boards => The Shooters FORM Board => Topic started by: jonsimoneau on February 20, 2007, 05:04:00 PM
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I think carbon shafts are about the best thing out there. However I also feel they are the most difficult to tune for newcomers. Aluminums are for sure the easiest. Here are a few tips for people just trying out carbons that have helped me.
For one, go to www.bomaker.net (http://www.bomaker.net) and read O.L.'s part about bareshaft tuning. But when you start doing this, make changes VERY SMALL! When you start cutting down carbon shafts, a little bit goes a Long way. Cut a quarter inch at a time. Don't just start cutting them down a half inch or an inch at a time. I like to get my fletched shafts and my bare shafts to group within a few inches of each other at 20 yards, with the bareshafts grouping slightly to the right for a right handed shooter.
Don't skip O.L.s steps either. The first step that he talks about is figuring out where your nock point should be. If your nock point is off, you can get some weird readings on your bareshafts versus your fletched shafts. Get your arrow grouping so that the nocks are always close to each other as far as up and down before you start messing around with cutting the shafts. Start out low, and then move up. not the other way around. Make sure you make small adjustments here. 1/32" can make a major difference. It has been my experience that nock points in the wrong place will normally make your arrows seem stiffer than they are due to bouncing off the shelf or fletching clearance problems.
When you are doing your bareshafting make sure that you are using points that are exactly the same weight as your broadheads.
Finally, when you think you have your arrows tuned, put a broadhead on and see what happens. Your broadhead will reveal any problems.
Last but not least, when you finally have everything in order, write it down. Make sure you know exactly where your brace height is and your nock point when you get everything flying good. This will save you alot of agonizing time if you ever forget.
I've been shooting carbons for a few years, but I still have a hard time tuning them in comparison to aluminum shafts. Once I finally get them right, I love them, but they can be really frustrating to tune.
I will also add this. Grizzly stick shafts are by far the easiest carbon shafts to tune that I have ever tried. I'm sure it has something to do with the tapered design. There is less chance for fletching clearance problems, plus they recover much faster than most other shafts. For those who are getting ready to try their first set of carbon arrows, I highly suggest that you try grizzly sticks first.
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I forgot to add that alot of shooting problems people have stem from shooting shafts that are not tuned properly. I'm always amazed at how much more often I hit what I am aiming at when I finally get my shafts tuned properly. It makes a major difference. It is a lot of work, and in most cases you may not get it done on the first day...at least with carbons, but it is well worth the effort.
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I have a dozen 150CE Heritage,that I bought off a fellow tradgangster.I took 1/2 of them and fletched 3.I then proceeded to tune.I got the bareshafts grouping right in among the fletched shafts @20 yrds.Here is where the problem is the other 1/2 dozen.There are 2 of them longer,(no problem)but 3 are shorter.I need to get 1/2 an inch off of the ones I got flyin to be the same length as the shortest one.I got them flying good with 125gn points,40gn alumi adapter,and the factory alumi insert thats about 12gn.The finished arrow weighs 524gn which is about what I was looking for.SO,should I just go ahead and cut the 1/2" off and start over?I know I will have to add more weight,but I wouldn't think much.What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Mike
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Hey Mike. Yea, you can cut that half inch off, and add more weight, but it may be as much as 40 grains or so because an inch can make a big difference. Try one first. Just keep adding weight to the front end, and see what happens. I'm sure you can get it to work.
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Thanks,I think I'll go ahead and do the 3 shorter ones,and see if I can get them to fly with the current bareshafts.Thanks again.By the way,I'll post up exactally what I end up.
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Cool Mike, let me know how it goes.
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I originally set my bow up with 125gr up front but after makeing my own heads that came out at 250 all I had to do to get my BS's to fly was build out my side plate.I didn,t really wanna cut anymore off the shaft so I opted for tuneing it alittle differntly
Good post
A full set of tuning tips is handy from 75gr up to 250 or more change tips up AND down before cutting
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I went ahead yesterday afternoon and cut the shafts off all even.Which was approx. 1/2".I then added a 75gn glue-on adapter,with the 12gn alumi insert,and a 125gn point.I shot a few groups and found them to be a little weak.I don't have enough of the 42gn alumi glue-on adapters to go back to them,so I'm going to trim a little more off the shafts.I am going o take 1/4" off and see what happens.With the arrows set up this way I got around 565gn total arrowweight,which is good,they still cast well even though they are weak.I'll try and get this done sometime today and post the results back up.
Thanks,
Mike
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when I clicked on your link...nothig about archery came up...did you enter it right???
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I had a problem with the link also.Just go to the top of the homepage and look for O.L. under the sponsers drop down.
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Just a 'w' in there to spell 'bowmaker' - not, 'bomaker'
http://www.bowmaker.net