school me on plungers and strike plates and how they effects tuning

[ozy clint]

ok, i understand centershot but not the effects of a plunger button and different strike plate material.
i've been having problems tuning and no arrow spine seems to fly good. a few years ago i used to use a leather side plate but changed it to velcro. i've changed back to leather and i'm hoping this will help me tune. the velcro might be too soft and squishy, especially since there is four layers of it to build out the plate so the arrow sits a little outside center. (bow is cut 5/16" past center)
this got me thinking about plunger buttons and how they effect arrow flight.
what exactly do they do? i'm not about to start using one but understanding the way they work might help me understand the effects of different strike plate material.

[atatarpm]

Plunger buttons and side plates can stiffen or soften dynamic spine a harder strike plate or stiff plunger button will stiffen the spine and softer will weaken the spine.  There is a thread called "Plungers and Center shot" that you can look up here on pow wow that has a lot of good information on it.

[katman]

plunger allows for easy adjustment of center shot and fine tune spine as atatarpm states. I have read it can make a setup a little more forgiving since the plunger can move and absorb some of the side movement of arrow.

The more away from the riser, or stiffer spring or harder side plate material,  will make arrow act stiffer. The more towards the riser or softer spring or softer side plate material, will make arrow act weaker.

With 3 layers of velcro they may be compressing on the shot and putting the arrow inside center shot and that can make bow tuning difficult. You might try a thick felt furniture pad or a couple layers of leather under velcro.

[damascusdave]

I have one bow that I shoot with a plunger...I have very little motivation to fine tune it since it shoots great just by eyeballing things...I have read quite a bit about how to fine tune them, and I am sure some of my target bow buddies would teach me, but that seems too much like work for me...just pick up an inexpensive rest and plunger and try them

DDave

[katman]

Also nothing wrong with shooting off the shelf with a plunger if your riser is set up to accept a plunger. I feel this makes an excellent hunting setup. I have one set up this way and she shoots very well. Original plan was to shoot this riser with a plunger and flipper rest but she shoots so well off the shelf I never tried it. Another riser I have is set up with plunger and flipper rest and shoots well.