need some recurve setup tips

[natale.donald]

Hi,

Would anyone be willing to share, without any pejorative insinuation, how do you like to go about setting up a recurve with a center cut riser?

Specifically, I'm trying to build up the shelf so that the arrows I'm using are closer to center shot.  This would be analogous to a button adjustment on a target bow.  Right now if I pay attention to the arrow point it's at about 4 o'clock at 20 meters to hit the bull.  I anchor at the corner of my mouth with my middle finger, 1 over 2 under.

The arrows are cedar with 160 gr field points on them.  They fly straight and appear quite stable.  They're old, but I'd rather stay with these until I break the rest of them, so I've been using adhesive furniture felt circles to adjust the arrow distance from the side of the riser, with limited success.  

Has anyone any method or rules of thumb for doing this kind of thing?  Should I even care?  Is it just parallax that I'm getting bent out of shape about?  Currently there is no method to my madness.

Thank you,
-D

[Shaun]

Some info on the bow poundage, left/right handed and arrow spine & length would help. If you don't know the arrow spine, just the length measured from the bottom of the nock grove to the back of the point will be useful.

Adding the felts will move the arrow out away from center shot and will make them flex more. That is, if your arrows are hitting to the right (for a right handed shooter) then moving them out from the center will make them fly straighter and change the impact to the left. If they are too stiff (hitting to the left) you will have to add more weight up front or remove felts to move the impact point to the right.

Up and down wobble is adjusted by your nocking point on the string. Try it about 3/4" above square from the shelf (if you place your arrow under the stop) and adjusted it down 1/8" at a time till it flies without up and down.

Keep us posted and keep asking questions. The only dumb questions are the ones not asked.

[Steve Kendrot]

Don, have you tried bare shaft tuning your bow? This process  can be very informative in learning how various adjustments to bow and arrow affect flight. I made adjustments to my riser plate by using masking tape to affix slivers of leather of varying thickness until I got the flight I was looking for. If your arrows are too stiff, building out your riser plate will make it behave weaker. If I read your post correctly, you are having to aim to the right to impact in line with the bullseye? This left impact would indicate a stiff shaft. I would strip the fletching off one or two arrows to confirm. Provided of course that they are all spined similarly. There is an excellent tuning guide on OL Adcock's website. I printed it and bound it to take to the range with me.

[natale.donald]

Thanks, More info:

The bow is supposed to be 40# @28", pulls about 41.3# @28".  I shoot right handed.  My draw is about 28" using the ATA/AMO standard.  I'm pretty generic.  The arrows are either 40#-45# or 45#-50#.  I do shoot them accurately with my 50# longbow, which may be indicative of something.  Unfortunately I don't know what the actual spine measurement is because the manufacturer only gave weight ranges and I took my spine tester apart to make something else.  Looking at arrow charts suggests that the ATA/AMO spine should be around 0.585" for the bow.  I've not had too much luck matching arrows with charts before though.

[JimB]

if you are holding the bow vertically,4 o'clock is about where your point will be.If you shoot your bow canted,tilt it till your eye is directly above the arrow,then your point should be 6:00.Changing center shot will change the dynamic spine of your arrows.

[natale.donald]

Hey Shaun, Steve, JimB,

I've tried some of the tuning tips and started shooting canted at about 10 degrees off vertical and all my perceived problems were gone after about 3 hours work.  

I beat my friend at our indoor club in 2 matches by a respectable margin, and he was shooting a rig with a sight and easton a/c/c shafts.  (I was handicapped best of 4 arrows per end to his 3 arrows.)  

Thanks for the tip!

-D