Bare shaft tuning question

[sam barrett]

I was tuning my arrows to my bow today and made an observation that I'd like some input on.  I was standing at ten yards and shooting.  I needed to make the arrow stiffer so I was cutting the shaft in small increments.  The arrow was straightening up, but not as quickly as I had wanted...or at least I was running out of shaft to cut.  I decided to move back to 20 yards and shoot and my bare shaft stuck into the target perfectly.  Is it better to stand as far back as possible when bare shafting?  Will you get a better idea what the arrow is doing that way?  I shot several times at 20 yards and had perfect arrow into the target each time, so I decided that was the correct arrow for me.  Is that normal?  Thanks, Sam

[Bladepeek]

I like to shoot a bare shaft and fletched arrow and see where they impact. If I have the arrows set up properly, I can shoot a group and the bareshaft lands right in the group. 10 yards will give you an idea of how close you are, but 20 yds or more will definitely prove it.

[Friend]

My objective is to bare shaft out to 40 yards.

Olympic archers may bare shaft much...much further.

Nock left, right or up or down is my focus at

[McDave]

I suppose it's possible the shaft could still be flexing from the forces of the shot at 10 yards, and would be flexing minimally, if at all, at 20 yards.  Assuming you are tuning with a truly bare shaft, the results at 20 yards should give you a better indication than the results at 10.

When I bare shaft tune, I like to do it with feathers mounted to the shaft that I have cut back to the quill, so that my tuning takes into account the weight of the quill and glue on the rear of the shaft.  I have to be careful when I do that, because the quill alone will stabilize the arrow after some distance, provided it is close to being tuned for the bow.  In my case, 10 yards might give me a better indication than 20.

[sam barrett]

Thanks for the help guys!

[dragonheart]

Originally posted by McDave:
I suppose it's possible the shaft could still be flexing from the forces of the shot at 10 yards, and would be flexing minimally, if at all, at 20 yards.  Assuming you are tuning with a truly bare shaft, the results at 20 yards should give you a better indication than the results at 10.

When I bare shaft tune, I like to do it with feathers mounted to the shaft that I have cut back to the quill, so that my tuning takes into account the weight of the quill and glue on the rear of the shaft.  I have to be careful when I do that, because the quill alone will stabilize the arrow after some distance, provided it is close to being tuned for the bow.  In my case, 10 yards might give me a better indication than 20.

If you are shooting a longbow or recurve for that matter that is outside centershot, Then it may still be getting out of paradox.  I shoot out to 20-25 yards.  You can get a good view.  I like to get the bare shaft (with quills not a tru bare shaft)impacting just slightly lower than a fletched shaft.  I shot better and group better with a slight high nock set.