Epiphany

[Bud B.]

Well, to me anyway.

I went to a double string nock a while back and arrow flight improved greatly. Tonight while shooting I noticed the gap was increasing between the nock points. I tried slipping the lower nock up but it was hunkered down pretty good. As the heat and humidity was quickly taking its toll I decided to lower my finger position on the string when drawing the arrow just to see if the gap would make that much of a difference. Now I had been nocking the arrow and when placing my fingers up under the arrow to draw i was putting slight upward pressure to ensure the arrow nock stayed where it was supposed to. Now with a micro adjustment of less pressure under the arrow nock (actually zero presure) I had the best and consistent arrow flight to date. I only had two arrows with me and the last two shots at 20 yards hit where I was looking on the target and were touching each other. I shot about ten times with the zero pressure.

Trying to ponder why this was I guessed that my previous pressure on the arrow nock had caused my imperfect release to transfer to the arrow more easily with the stiffer contact. Now, with the zero pressure, the arrow was able to "give" And recover and paradox was able to take the arrow on its correct flight path.

Is this something that I have been missing that more experienced shooters already knew? Either way I'm glad I stumbled onto it. I could not believe the difference in the flight of the same arrow with different finger palcement.

[moebow]

Glad you found this.  Too much finger pressure on the nock (doesn't matter, split or three under) will always affect your shot.  Consistent and light to no pressure on the nock just takes one more unnecessary influence out of the shot.

[McDave]

Also remember that at full draw, there won't be as much space between the double nocks as there is when the bow is not drawn.  If you leave the right gap between your nocks, the arrow nock will be snug at full draw, even though you can wiggle the arrow between the nocks when the bow is not drawn.  In fact, if you make the nocks too close together, so the arrow is snug between them when you nock the arrow, the pressure at full draw will gradually move the nocks apart.  This could be why your gap is increasing.  It took me a while to figure this out, but I eventually noticed that the serving was spreading out between the nocks because the arrow was forcing them apart at full draw.

[Bud B.]

I have 4 more arrows hanging to dry that are identical to the two I shot tonight. 60-65lb Surewoods that finish out to about 580gr at 31" bop. Coming from the 50@28 Bear Super Grizzly they aren't the fastest out of the shoot but they sure fly great. I'm using 125gr glue on heads at the moment. I draw to 29".

When you see successes at my rate you tend to get a grin and a light bulb at the same time. This one was wide and bright.