Some observations concerning a perfectly tuned arrow or unintended benefits

[elkhunter45]

Gentlemen, I must preface the following comment with saying that I have only been working on this arrow tuning thing for about 7-8 years. I spent the previous 30 years shooting somewhat close and big feathers. What I have noticed is recurves that I thought were kind of loud are now quiet and longbows that I thought had a little too much feedback are now quite pleasurable to shoot. It got me to thinking that maybe some of the often repeated things about certain bow types or specific models could be traced back to their being shot with improperly spined arrows? This is a mere observation on my part with my personal bows and not scientifically proven by any measuring device or such, but I have had one of these bows since 1996 and I can tell the difference. Just a thought......   

[old_goat2]

Don't really know, but could of been the arrow making the noise and the bow noise might be the same but either way it's quieter and the arrow has more energy down range!

[Orion]

In arriving at the correct spine, did the arrow weight also change? A heavier arrow makes for a quieter bow.  Arriving at the proper tune may also have involved changing the nock height, which can bring the bow limbs more in sync, thus reducing noise.  Perhaps the string material also changed over the years.  Some materials/constructions are quieter than others.  Some reduce hand shock more than others. 

No doubt that a properly spined arrow helps the bow behave better.  Lots of related stuff involved in arriving at proper tune.  In short, if you look at any one thing in tuning, you find it connected to everything else.   

[Friend]

Achieving less than a properly designed and tuned arrow serves to detract from every enhancing factor from bow performance to penetration...the accumulative loss can be substantial...

[McDave]

While there are levels of tuning one can do beyond bare shaft testing, bare shaft testing is sufficient for my needs.  I'm satisfied with pretty close to perfect nock right or nock left deviation, say + or - 1*.  I'm satisfied with 3-4* nock high; in fact I prefer it to nock level because slight nock high provides more fletching clearance.  I have to be careful about what I am “satisfied” with, because I don't want to be satisfied with false weak or false nock high, even if within my guidelines as stated above, because false indications resulting from shelf or strike plate bounce contribute to inaccuracies more that an equivalent true weak or nock high would.  So I always experiment around on each side of my bare shaft results until I convince myself that what I am observing is a true reading.

What is interesting is when the normal adjustments to nock height and dynamic spine do not produce the desired results.  This seems to be very bow specific, like dog training, where some react very well to the usual methods while others balk at them.  In those cases, I have to look outside the box, at brace height, quill contact, bowstring type and/or silencer position, relative finger pressure on the string, strike plate and shelf rest material, and brand or diameter of arrow.  One occasionally finds that the static spine or weight of the bare shaft is different from the static spine or weight of the shafts used for fletched arrows, particularly with carbon arrows, due to changes between batches or because you just happened to choose an strange one for your bare shaft.  I have a bow I am working on right now where two twists of the bow string make the difference between a bow that can be tuned to level arrow flight and one that can't be tuned below 10* nock high.

I guess if all else fails, you can always blame the tiller, which can't be adjusted on most trad bows, and therefore makes a useful scapegoat.