Question for fixed crawl shooters

[TaterHill Archer]

I have started shooting with a fixed crawl, but I have noticed something odd and need some help figuring it out.  I have two ILF risers.  I have recurve limbs on one and longbow limbs on the other.  I also have an extra set of longbow limbs.  One riser is 13” and the other is 17”.  When shooting the recurve limbs, my crawl for point on at 20 yards is at 5/8” below the nock.  With the longbow limbs, an no matter which limbs or which riser, the point on at 20 yards is at the nock.  Basically, I’m just shooting 3 under.  What gives.  why no drop on the string?

[McDave]

You didn't say, but I would imagine you have had these limbs and risers for a while before you began experimenting with a fixed crawl?  What was your experience shooting them before?  No bow, longbow or recurve, that I have has a point on of 20 yards just shooting it normally, and I would be quite surprised to find one that did.

[TaterHill Archer]

McDave,
I didn’t shoot either one of these bows before I started fixed crawl.  I had some neck and shoulder issues in 2015-2016 that sidelined me from shooting.  I thought I might not get back to Trad shooting and just shot a compound for about 1.5 years.  I decided I wanted to go back to shooting trad, so I got these out.  My 13” riser is a VPA riser.  I’m not sure what the recurve limbs are.  They are marked Med.  40# at 28” for a 17” riser.  That should equate to around 44# or so on this 13” riser.  I also have a set of XL Centaur longbow limbs (50# @28”)that I shoot on this riser and I have a set of 2XL Centaur longbow limbs (51@29”) that I shoot on my Sky riser. 

I set up the short riser and recurve limbs first and found that my point on at 20 yards was right at 5/8” below the nock.  I put on the longbow limbs and set it up the same way to start and found I was hitting way below the target.  I had to keep walking up the string until I was essentially shooting 3 under at 20.  It’s that way with both sets of longbow limbs no matter the riser. 

Now, I’m shooting AD Trads with 150 or 175 grain heads (seems to fly the same either way).  I have wondered if they are too stiff, but don’t think that would cause a vertical issue.  Also, I have my nock point at just under 1/2” high for the recurve.  On the longbows, I started with them at 1/2” high and tried lowering the nock point until I was down to 1/16” high.  Never made a difference vertically.

[McDave]

Quite a mystery to me, Jeff.  Sounds like you're using the same arrows with both the longbow and recurve limbs.  Possibly you could tweak a little there to get arrows that are better optimized for each set of limbs, but for our purposes here, it removes one variable.

I've found from my own experience with the fixed crawl that 5/8” would be in the normal range to get a 20 yard point on.  I can understand why you would lower the nock point, just as an experiment, to see if that would raise the p.o.i., but I would guess that a nock point less than 1/2” would be suboptimal as far as arrow flight goes.  I would guess that your optimum nock point would be 1/2” or higher.

Really, a point on of 20 yards is ideal for hunting, forget the fixed crawl.  However, I’m thinking, as you probably are, that something isn't right for any bow in that pound range to have a natural point on of 20 yards.  A 20 yard point on could be achieved with super heavy or super long arrows, but then it would be affecting your recurve as well.  It would be nice to have a speed comparison between the longbow and recurve limbs, to find out if something is making the longbow limbs slower than the recurve limbs for some reason.  It appears everything you have is good quality, but I suppose the longbow limbs could possibly have some kind of defect.  Is there any difference in noise between the longbow and recurve limbs?

As you can see, I'm kind of grasping at straws here.

[McDave]

Just noticed you have the same problem with both sets of longbow limbs, which means it's very unlikely that you would have the same defect with both sets of longbow limbs, so we can probably rule that out.

Same string or different strings on the longbow limbs?

[McDave]

I assume you have the same form, head position, anchor, and string hand position on both the longbow and recurve limbs?

[McDave]

I guess if it were me, I would try a bare shaft.  If you don't have a bare shaft, take whichever of your arrows has the worst fletching and trim the feathers back to the quill.  Having the weight of the quill and glue actually gives you a better reading than a completely bare shaft.  Stand 5-10 yards away from your target, and see if you notice any consistent fishtailing or porpoising differences between the recurve and longbow limbs.

[TaterHill Archer]

I assume you have the same form, head position, anchor, and string hand position on both the longbow and recurve limbs?

Yep.  Same everything, as far as I can tell.  I had my wife videotape me to be sure.

[TaterHill Archer]

I guess if it were me, I would try a bare shaft.  If you don't have a bare shaft, take whichever of your arrows has the worst fletching and trim the feathers back to the quill.  Having the weight of the quill and glue actually gives you a better reading than a completely bare shaft.  Stand 5-10 yards away from your target, and see if you notice any consistent fishtailing or porpoising differences between the recurve and longbow limbs.

I have noticed occasional fishtailing.  But I thought it was my form because it wasn’t consistent.  I had my BiL shoot it without telling him anything and he said, “I saw a fishtail”.  I’m going to try some arrows with a different spine and see how that affects things. 

[mahantango]

Don't have an answer to your question, but I have a 20-25 yard point on for every bow I shoot.  No unusual set up, just 5/8" nock height, 29 1/2" arrows and three under. I do have a fairly high anchor but not extreme.