Arrow hitting side of shelf

[Trond]

Finally! The solution to a big problem for me, presented it self to me yesterday. My arrows have been hitting the edge of the shelf, causing all sorts of erratic arrowflight. I have tried to tune it away for a long time, but with no luck. The only thing that seemed to help a little bit, was lowerering brace quite a bit under recommended height. After a lot of testing with bareshafts and pointweights, I found that my bow just had to have the recommended braceheight to get bareshafts and fletched arrows hitting the same spot. But that resulted in my arrows hitting the shelf-edge again. Really frustrating...
The solution was looking me right in the face the whole time: Wrong finger-pressure! To much of the weight was on my middel- and ringfinger. I just shifted the string-weight over to my middle- and indexfinger, and Hey Presto! Problem solved.
Just had to share this with you.

[slowbowjoe]

Yup, that'll do it sometimes.

You didn't mention it, so.... I'm curious.  What's your bow weight, arrow length, spine, draw length and tip weight?

[Trond]

Sorry about that. The bow is #37@29", arrows are GoldTip 600 30,5", 5" shieldcut fletch, 52gr long insert and 125gr fieldpoint.

[Mark Grice]

Hey Trond. How did you "Shift your finger pressure?" Just through concentration? Are you using a tab or a glove?

I ask because I am getting some arrows banging off of my Samick Journey. Trying to figure it out now.

[Trond]

I am shooting with a tab. You get the feel of it, I guess. I just let off a little pressure from my ring and middle finger, and noticed how much the pressure increased on my index finger. A little try and error, but I am getting there.

[olddogrib]

A heavy ring finger will cause release problems...I've got one.  I'm trying to learn your method, but it seems that when I try to let off the pressure in the ring finger I get tension all through my string hand.  I wish I could shoot two under, but 50# takes its toll. One thing that has helped is I rotate my string hand slightly counter-clockwise (I'm RH) to where the string is more out on the pad of the ring finger. Coaches have hissy fits over that because the back of your hand won't be parallel to the string, but it hasn't kept Ben Rogers from winning world championships! People's hands are really different...my index finger is only as long as the first joint on my middle, the ring finger is only 1/4" shorter than my middle.  I think you just have to find something that works for you.

[Orion]

Yep. Changing the pressure on the drawing fingers/string location changes the vertical torque on the limbs, affecting their tiller and timing.  In this case, raising the nock point would likely have helped as well.

[Trond]

Orion is probably right, because I didn´t have this problem with a lower brace and nock. It was after adjusting brace and nock after the bowyers recommendations the problem started. This meens that a low brace can mask a bad stringhand/release. Man, tradshooting is hard...