Acceptable Tear?

[NDTerminator]

With trad tackle, it's obvious that short of using a plunger and elevated rest, a bullet hole is going to be fairly rare.  It's also become clear to me that variables such as release come into play.  So being, what is a generally acceptable tear, and at what distance?

[jhansen]

I once saw some fascinating high-speed photography from Germany.  I can't remember the name of the website but it showed arrows on release and hitting the target.  What really got my attention was that the arrows flexed back and forth so much that they looked like sharks coming at you.  The video showing them hitting the target showed them still flexing just before impact.  This makes me question the whole idea of using a tear to tune an arrow.  Wouldn't the fact that the nock end of the arrow is waving back and forth mean that where you stand in relation to the target will produce different tears?

Having said all that, a slightly weak and slightly nock-high tear is considered okay.  I don't bother with the paper.  I just stand at about 10 paces from the target and shoot.  I look at how the arrows are sitting in the target, nock right/left or high/low.  I don't make any adjustments before I've shot 10 times and averaged what I see.  That allows for mistakes in form and release made by yours truly.  Once you get a shaft hitting pretty much straight out, you can go to bare shaft planing for fine tuning.

John

[NDTerminator]

Thanks...