So a few of these questions always come up when talking about bareshafting.
Can a target medium give false neg or false pos? Sure they can. If you read what the arrow is '
saying' after impact and its moved, you're getting potentially wrong readings. I would venture to say 90% of us if not more can easily see when an arrow is off at impact (before it reacts to the target). It creates more of an issue when you get into fine tuning at any form of distance. The closer you get to perfect and the farther away you get, the more your vision comes into play.
I like starting with soft targets with unknown setups (generally going off of someones spreadsheet forms of what spine it 'should' be) if nothing else to keep blowing arrows up to a minimum. You never know the shooter/bow requirements. A burlap sack with shrink wrapped stuffed inside works well for this. a used block style target works well as well though it is harder and will lead to breaks (cracks) if you're way out in spine. The newer the block, the more likely you'll break if your spine/form is way out.
At distance, shooting a block style target to fine tune is a wise idea. Or any other target that is not concrete cinders!
The irony in fine tuning a bare shaft is adding fletching can and sometimes does change tuning. (think dynamic spine here, weight at the tail end increases dynamic spine, as will adding paint) this is where group testing comes in. After all why waste a pile of money on shafts when you may be on the edge of a spine group. Adding fletchings and a bh may be enough to bump you up a group, testing with unpainted shafts and shooting crown dipped/cresting could possibly bump you up two if you were close to begin with. I'd rather find this out with test shafts vs spending 100 bucks on a dozen shafts....TWICE! dip them all plain jane and run with it.
Bareshafting is not an end all cure. it does do a few things. one it gets you close, generally very close! Again adding fletchings bh's and paint (if you are bent on painting after the fact) can and likely will change things, though generally its a slight change (fine tuning), than something gross. The more you rule out here, (paint) the less gross errors if any you'll come across.
It also shows you IMMEDIATLY your faults as a shooter. I laugh when people talk about inconsistencies. Isn't this the very thing we're trying to work out? Bowhunting is a game of consistencies, not inconsistencies. I get similar results as Jim does.... Shooting a bunch of arrows or the same arrow I'll get similar results though at times one will go haywire, its me not the gear USUALLY!!!! Its something I want to know is an issue and work on. The greats (almost all) did this very thing in one form or another. Why should we hold ourselves to a lesser standard?
Next I'll address canting vs straight up and down. I tell people if you cant, shoot canted. You'll need to adjust your + axis accordingly. Even with my simple education, I can figure this out pretty quickly. There's always someone who doesn't get it (or gets hung up on it for some reason). I have them shoot vert, they generally get it rather quickly after that and move back to shooting 'normal' again whatever that may be.
Once you're tuned, as long as NOTHING changes, your arrow is going to fly straight as an arrow ( depending on to what enth degree you take this, some settle for much much less than this and call them or the bow tuned). Laying on your back, belly etc etc. Once things change (pressure, dl etc) dynamic spine requirements will shift. Do you part, the equipment will do its job. Look at Hill for a second. he could reach into a crowd and shoot miss matched arrows into bulls...how? Well it obviously wasn't because his gear was tuned to the enth degree with the miss matched arrows. It was spot on perfect form! Having the benefit of learning starting on the competition target side and using this lesson on game. It was a natural progression for someone who made his living with a bow in hand. Shooting 12dz arrows a day, over half alone was for form. The results are history! though we all may not achieve this level of accuracy, its entirely possible.
The short answer is this. by taking the time to follow some very simple steps, you do two very important things.
1....you tune your bow. It seems simple enough. yet its fluid, If you change anything your dynamic spine MAY (or may not) change! back to the tuning board.
2.... which is more important, you tune yourself! By ruling out human errors keeping them consistent even if they're off you can make the needed corrections to be an accurate bowhunter/archer! The more you work on it, in theory the better you should become. basic understanding/teaching and effort along with natural abilities will be the limiting factors as to how well or poor you do in the end.
Good luck and have fun with it!
Topic: Bare Shaft confusion... (Read 1252 times)
