Help Selecting Woodies

[Sharky1]

Hello, I am fairly new to traditional. I purchased my first long bow a few months ago and am having real trouble selecting the correct spine wood arrows. I have a 64" R/D 40lb@28" longbow. My draw length is 28.5 the bow is cut to center and I have a 1/8 leather side plate. I also have a fastflight string. Lastly I shoot split finger.  Okay, I purchased a set of Cedar 50-55 arrows and tried to bare shaft with no luck. I have since learned that this was a mistake trying to bare shaft as a beginner. I since then purchased a set of GT 500 full length with 125 tips and shot them with great success for a few months, my groups are real good at 15 yards and pretty good at 20.  I eventually tried to bare shaft test these and found that I needed to trim 2 inches off to get the bare shafts to fly straight.  Desperate to try wood arrows again I ordered a test kit of Douglas Firs starting with 45-50 and ending with 55-60. I fletched two of each weight and bareshaft the other two.  All of my bare shafts show nock left (week). I trimmed the 55-60 down to 29" and they still fly nock left, not quite as bad as the others but still really nock left.  According to Stu Millers Calculator the 55-60 at 30" should be perfect for me. I assume either my form is terrible or I need even stiffer shafts.  I understand that maybe I need to improve more before I bareshaft and I am okay with this however I would at least like to have a good starting point before I buy another set of wood arrows. I was told to just fletch them all and see which weight flies best but the all fly straight with fletching so I am confused.  I really want to end up shooting wood arrows but they seem much harder to tune so far.  Any help would be truly appreciated.  Sorry for the long post, I guess what I am looking for is what spine should be good for me according to my specs.

[McDave]

HI Gary,

Welcome to the forum!  This type of question should really be posted to PowWow, as the Shooters Form Forum is limited to questions about shooting form, and not equipment related issues.

That said, I'm really afraid I'm going to confuse you more than help you, because my typical results are so different from yours.  I draw 28", and also shoot a 40# longbow, among other bows.  My longbows are cut past center, whereas yours is cut to center, with a rather thick 1/8" strike plate, which means it's really not cut to center.  Your 1/2" longer draw should indicate a slightly stiffer arrow than mine, while your less than center shot should indicate a slightly weaker arrow than mine.  I'm not sure the two exactly cancel out, but my results should be in your ballpark.

With your setup, I would be shooting a 600 spine arrow (or a 1535) with a 100 grain point, or a 500 spine arrow (or a 3555) with a 150 grain point.  Or with wood arrows, I would be shooting a 45-50 spine arrow with either a 100 or 125 grain point, whichever shot best.  So I would definitely not be getting a weak indication with your setup.  I'm not sure why you are, but there are form errors that can cause false weak indications.  So if you would just like to keep shooting your 3555's with 125 grain points for a while, and maybe try a 145 grain point to see if it works better, or wood arrows in the 45-55# spine range, I'm sure they will work fine until you can fine tune your arrow selection down the road.

[Sharky1]

Thanks McDave,

After posting this I realized that it probably wasn't the best forum for this topic.  I appreciate your feedback though, it solidify's what others have suggested.  I guess I really need to focus on my form for now.

[Terry Green]

Just moved this thread to this forum    

[slowbowjoe]

I doubt you need to go stiffer than the 45-50's @ 29"BOP with 125 grain points. Might even need to try 40-45's, but you should be able to work with the 40-45's: different point weights, adding a bit to side plate, etc.

[Ray Lyon]

As a side note I'm not a bareshaft proponent for wood arrows.  I mount broadheads and field point of same weight when I have what I think is a  clean flight. Step back to thirty yards and treat the results as if the broadhead is a bare shaft.