What causes fletchings to cut bow hand on release?

[jrstegner]

I had the same problem for a long time. I even wore a glove on my bow hand. I tried everything. I even got pieces of feather stuck in my hand. I still have a scar from issue. The one thing I did to stop the problem was to concentrate on pulling the bow with my middle finger. Too much pressure with the index finger was the culprit.

[pktm]

Tune your bow, try different arrows. I had this problem when I was shooting carbon arrows out of my Saluki Turk, switched over to 1816's and no more cuts.

[BigJim]

went through the same thing a while back. thought i had perfect nock placement. Finaly in frustration, moved the nock up a little and it went away. I have not changed a thing about the way I do feathers or anything else for that matter and have not cut myself in years and a couple of hundred bows later.

BigJim

[Don Stokes]

You can probably just shoot cock feather in to move the offending fletch away from your hand, assuming your nocking point is correctly located.

[Scott S.]

I was surprised when I tried my new selfbow shooting the arrow directly off my fist.  I thought the feathers would cut my hand, but they did not touch it.  I don't know why they did not, but I believe they were LW feathers (I'm right-handed) and I always use a big drop of fletching cement over top and bottom ends of the feathers when I fletch.

[WOUNDED EAGLE]

PUT A DAB OF GLUE ON THE FRONT OF THE QUILL TO COVER UP THE POINT.YHIS WILL HELP, I HAD THE SAME PROB. A WHILE BACK.

[Horne Shooter]

Same thing happened to me.  Raising the knock seemed to do the trick as I recall.

[BobW]

switched from RW to LW, and problem went away.... YRMV.

[Bill Turner]

If your shooting cock feather out like most, try shooting with the cock feather in. Another option is to place your hand a little lower on the grip area of the riser. Higher hand placement will get your hand close to the arrow shelf and to close to the feathers. Good luck.  

[HATCHCHASER]

When you put your feather on the jig sand the front of the quill down.  Then when you glue it on put a drop of glue at the front of the feather.  This will smooth out the front and glide over your hand.  There is another issue that is causing the problem via, wrong spine, low nock point or grip.  Keep tweaking cause imho the best shooting bows have shelves that ride the arrow that close to the hand.

[Yellow Dog]

I'm right handed and right wing ouch, left wing not a problem.

[hill boy]

raise your knock point,Bob's bows need high knocks.Then keep rotating your feathers a little at a time and you will find a sweet spot in the combination of both.Works for me anyway.good luck

[Don Stokes]

With all due respect to everyone, I don't think that raising your nocking point should be the solution. It may keep the fletching off your hand, but it is not good for your tuning. There should be only one nocking point, the right one!

The reason I say this is that when you raise the nocking point, the effect is to lift the arrow off the shelf at the shot, which introduces another vector to the forces involved and complicates the whole dynamics of the shot. Your arrows have to be absolutely perfectly matched to each other to shoot the same under those conditions. It also messes up your spine requirements. A higher nocking point needs lower spine than a lower one. That's why you set your nocking point first, when you're looking for the right spine.

Been there, done that, found a better solution. Do whatever it takes to move the feather off your hand, but messing with your tuning is not a good idea!

[Overspined]

Agreed Don. If I am using an arrow, and just raise the nock point even a little, my arrows are no longer hitting the speck I am looking at, but they shoot low. I can notice very small changes in nock points after a new string is settling in and I can tell when I need to adjust it. 1/8" makes a huge difference for me