Bare shafts shoot better than fletched help!

[Maxtrad]

Hello all
Here’s one for you
I am shooting a 55@28 66 to longbow
30 inch 2117 bare shafts with 190 upfront have been shooting like laser beams!
So I fletched up one of them with a wrap and 3 5
Inch feathers. Now it consistently hits about about 5 inches to the left once past 18 yards...

I even went up to a 225 tip and same result.

Did the fletching and wrap make the arrow stiff or weak?

I adjust nock point and shot feather in... all same result

Then I go to 25 yards with bare shafts and they go right in??
Help please...lol

[Maxtrad]

Maybe I should go down to 2018?

[the rifleman]

I've had this same experience.  My fletching was bouncing off the shelf--- i know, its not supposed to happen if your arrows are tuned--- but it does.  In my case i had burnt the profile of the feathers a bit to high.  The bottom hen feather in the 4 oclock position for a righty is the culprit--- it can contact the outerside of the shelf and kick the arrow causing left hits. 
You can try raising your nocking point and/ or rotating for cock feather in position-- this will tell you if this is indeed the issue.  If bareshafts are hitting well, its been my experience that fletching contact is the problem.
Ive never tuned a bareshaft and had fletching significantly stiffen the dynamic spine, but i usually bs tune just a bit weak, and we all introduce a different dynamic.
Try the above suggestions, i think you'll have success.

[the rifleman]

Sorry, i see that you have already adjusted nock point and feather position.  These have always worked for me.  I'll be interested in how this is solved.

[Baylee]

If your bare shafts are dead straight the added wrap and feathers will make the arrow stiffer than the bare shaft. Most times I want my bareshaft grouping a little right of my fletched when tunning. A wrap and 3 feathers probably added 20-30 grains. You should be able to make it work with tip weight.

Also a thicker side plate will stiffen the arrow, try removing the side plate shoot bare wood. Depending on the arrow I shoot no side plate on my longbows, a lot of the old school longbow shooters did aswell.

If you don’t have tips heavier than 225 wrap electrical tape around the shaft behind the tip keep adding until your arrows get right weigh the added tape and that’s how much more weight you need. If added tip weight and or no side plate or thinner side plate don’t work it’s something else. A perfect flying bareshaft should not be hard to match with your fletched shafts.

You could also try lowering brace height.

[the rifleman]

Chuck, how high did you go w your nocking point?  I shoot 3 under and start out at 7/8" and usually end up at 13/16".  If too low I'll get fletched shafts hitting to the right ( im a lefty).  You can get away with a lot if you're a bit nock high.  Not so much nock low.

[blacktailbob]

Just shoot and hunt them as they are. Feathers are only to help stabilize flight and it appears you have it already.
Less drag and faster arrows eh.

[Baylee]

Just shoot and hunt them as they are. Feathers are only to help stabilize flight and it appears you have it already.
Less drag and faster arrows eh.

Hopefully the OP has better sense than to do that. Target shooting 5” left might be ok but hunting? With laser straight bareshafts I’m confident one of the solutions posted will get things lined up.

[McDave]

It's reasonable to want your fletched arrows to hit where you're aiming (or where you're looking, if you shoot instinctively).  There are changes to your form you could make to change the POI, but if your bare shafts are already impacting where you want them to, then I think we can ignore form changes, unless it's something you want to explore.

You seem to have considered most of the equipment changes you could make, without success so far.  One that you may not have considered is doing the opposite of what you would normally expect, and try stiffening the dynamic spine of your fletched arrows.  This works sometimes to move the POI of your fletched arrows to the right (for a RH shooter) counterintuitively.  I'm not sure why this works sometimes and not others, but I do know from experience that fletched arrows don't necessarily follow the same rules as bare shafts.

Another possibility would be to use a softer strike plate.  A strike plate is similar to a cushion plunger.  Softening a cushion plunger moves the POI to the right, and the same thing is true of a strike plate.  Changing from a thin leather strike plate to a thicker softer strike plate, like a Martin rug rest, or to a lesser degree the softer side of Velcro, moves the arrow at rest further away from the side of the bow.  However, when the arrow is shot it momentarily compresses the strike plate so the centershot of the arrow is not much different from a thin leather strike plate, and the compression of the strike plate reduces the outward bounce that the arrow would normally take on being shot.

[trad_bowhunter1965]

Spray the back of you arrow with foot powder it will tell you what is going on with your arrow and bow. I like my arrows running a little stiff the clear my riser better. just my 2 cents.

[sqrlgtr]

Try an arrow with the fletching cut off but the quill left on and see if it goes where its supposed to ,if it does same thing then you have a clearance issue of quill hitting some where.

[blacktailbob]

Like I said if it ain't broke why you trying to fix it. Who ever said and arrow HAD TO HAVE feathers. I like the way they look and have tried 3", 4",5" and they all fly good but NEVER had as good flight as the OP with bare shafts. Can't explain that either. Why do wheelie guys have the tiniest of vanes on their sticks?
 Sometimes less IS more.
So try some 2" and see what happens, just for giggles.

[sqrlgtr]

 "Who ever said and arrow HAD TO HAVE feathers."

Anyone who has shot broadheads lol......

[Baylee]

The OP hasn’t respond back so hopefully he found the answer. There’s really very few things in archery that haven’t already been figured out, not much new to this whole thing.

One old school tuning method that works as well today as 50 years ago is using a vertical line to tune arrows. Put a strip of tape or a thin rope something straight down the middle of your bag or block target. Aim at the line or “shooting the line as it was called”. Your tuned arrows should hit the line. Poor release, arrows to stiff or weak dropping the bow arm etc. will show up easily. When you can hit the line repeatedly at various distances your arrows are tuned and your release is good. I have a target specifically for this and shoot it regularly.

There is no reason to shoot an arrow hitting 5” from where your aiming. Which I’d definitely say is broke and needs fixing. What happens with compound bows with arrow rests and a mechanical release is less than useless with a recurve or longbow and what they do is of little help to us. Regardless shooting arrows without feathers is not the answer to this problem.

[GCook]

"Who ever said and arrow HAD TO HAVE feathers."

Anyone who has shot broadheads lol......

I bare shaft tune with my broadheads.  If you're not you're missing a step.

[Wheels2]

I bet that you don't wrap the fletching area of the bare shats wth tape.
I use wraps of tape or even electrical connection shrink tube to compensate for the weight of the fletching.
Otherwise it is like shooting a tip that weighs 15-20 grains more than it does.

[Maxtrad]

Thank you all for your advice... I don’t have it quite figured out yet.. I took the feathers off and boom... right back Into the bullseye... I am leaning towards a fletching issue as a few other arrows are flying pretty close.... but none like the bare shafts... I just scored some xx78. And xx 75 with adjustable nocks and will be experimenting next few days . Thanksgiving m you again and I will post results

[dragonheart]

You can spray the end of the arrow and fletching with dry Foot powder spray to see how the quill is contacting the rest or shelf.  If your bare shafts are shooting good you are making them a touch stiffer with feathers and a wrap.  Then take one of the fletched arrows and cut the feathers off leaving the quill only and it can be your test arrow.   

I like to match the weight of the fletching by building up wraps and weighing to get the "bare shaft" test shaft weighing the same.  If you are also shooting a heavy helical with feathers you may struggle to get good clearance off a shelf and the quill clearance.  I shoot an arrow rest and just get better arrow flight with it.  I also shoot 60x120 4 fletch and have no fletching contact.       

I would suggest to you that you might not need heavy helical on feathers if your set up is tuned well.  A slight offset will clear the shelf much easier.  My latest set up with carbon arrows tuning in.  Notice the Bare shaft has wraps build up to match the weight of my vanes.  I have found that my set ups shoot best with the bare shaft impacting just below the fletched shaft, slight high nock point.