Tuning a bow and Arrow

[smokin joe]

Charlie,
My 2 cents worth is that your arrows are too weak for the bow at your draw length. You might think it is the act of shooting that is giving you the odd results, but I kind of doubt it.

My thinking is that you need a 400 carbon at about 29.5" to 30" with somewhere between 125 to 200 gr. up front.

Switching to the B50 will get you closer with what you have, but you might also need less point weight and/or building out the side plate. Experiment to see what happens.

It sounds like your shooting form is fine.

I hope you are well my friend.
Joe

[Cyclic-Rivers]

DangNabit Joe, Just gave some of them away LOL.

I spent the evening hours after work shoveling2 tons of Rubble. Hope to shoot more this weekend.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will not give up on this Bow its just hits and shoots well when it is good. I see it like a  good employee. It may take some guidance but will be worth your weight in gold after some break in and tinkering.

[onewhohasfun]

I shoot 55/75's out of two bows. One is 53 lbs @29", the other is 56lbs @29". My arrows are full length. The easiest way for me to start tuning is to change the centershot of the bow. If your 35/55's are too weak add a layer of velcro to your side plate and see what happens. Centershot on a stick bow is overrated IMHO.
 Another easy way is to add some electric tape between your nock and feathers for some added rear weight. That should stiffen them up a bit and give you an indication of what's going on.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Ok, for an update.

I swapped the string for a  B50 and bumped out the strike plate a little.

Much better arrow flight. Thank you for the suggestions.

A new issue though, I get a little porpoise, Nock high in flight and the feather rest has taken a  bad beating. The outside feather is ready to fall off.

Is this just a nocking point issue?

I want to thank all of you for your support this far.

[Diamond Paul]

Could be; sometimes you might think you are too high on the nock when in reality you need to go up because the arrow is kicking off the shelf and causing the nock high, not too high of a nock point as it appears.  Some people need a higher nock point than others because of finger pressure; you might be using too much of one finger, perhaps. Sometimes too stiff of an arrow will cause it to kick, but I doubt that's your issue, based on what has been going on before.

[Caughtandhobble]

Where do we start tuning a bow and arrow was your initial question I believe. Lets see if this helps any...

-Start off with the bow at mid range recommended brace height.

-Check on 3 Rivers or Stu's arrow spine calculator for a starting point. Both are the same, and if fed the correct information they will be very close.

-Set nocking point higher than needed and tune for up and down arrow flight first using bare shaft tuning or paper tuning. If using bare shaft tuning, the bare shaft results must be compared to the fletched shaft (Adcock's Tuning). The Adcock tuning can be found at A&H web site under tuning. If your bare shaft hits below the fletched arrows the string nock needs to be lowered, if high raise nock point.

-Always use two string nock points. I like to tie on my string nocks, use a material that is a least the same size as your serving material. The same size or larger nock material will prevent your serving from spreading and causing damage to your string.

-After your up and down is set, it's time to fine tune your dynamic spine. Once again using Adcock's tuning... Right hand shooters, a weak spine will be shown by the bare shaft hitting to the right of the fletched arrow and a stiff spine will hit to the left of the fletched arrow. Shoot several groups to make sure your results are consistent.

-For a slightly stiff spine you can increase your point weight or increase your brace height (among other things).

-For a slightly weak spine you can decrease your point weight or decrease your brace height. For a weak dynamic spine you can also add an extra set of string silencers to your string. You can also add to the side plate (among other things).

-After bare shaft tuned I will weigh the field points and broadheads to make certain they are the same. I have always found that broadheads fly perfect after the bare shaft or paper tuning has been done correctly as long as the weigh the same (no matter how big).

-For wood arrows I do the same thing, except I use broadheads in the place of bare shafts. A wood bare shaft can and will break fairly easily.

Good luck and have fun with it. I have found that a perfectly tuned bow is far more forgiving. I personally hunt and target shoot with the same arrows. Personally I have found that ~10gpp and ~15% FOC works best for me. Good Luck!!!