Bare shaft tuning help. HI-SPEED VIDEO

[bowhunter15]

I did a bunch of bareshaft shooting today mixed in with a few fletched shots. I used 125, 145, 175, 200, and 300 grain field points. Bow is 64# @28, with the bear weather rest somewhere between 5/8 and 3/4" out from center. I'm left handed, and using 100 grain brass inserts. Initially, I started with 300 grain, and all my arrows visually looked like they were kicking nock right in flight and going left on the target, even though they'd be sticking nock left in the target. I think they just rebounded the other direction upon impact.

That would indicate weak spine. I did a bunch of shooting with all of the field point weights and the 145 shot the best. The arrows would nosedive a bit but the nock left/right was minimal on average. With 145 grain tips I'd only be at around 537 grains, or 8.4gpp. That seems a little lighter than what's commonly recommended for hunting. It was a bit louder too than the heavy arrows. I chopped off 1/2 an inch from the arrows. Then the 175 grain tips started shooting better. After that, things started going downhill, as I'd been shooting well over an hour and probably fatiguing. The 145s shot good, then the 300s shot good, I'd shoot both and get good arrows one shot and bad another, so I quit for the day.

If my bow ends up liking 145 grain tips the best, is that okay with only 8.4gpp? Or should I try adding tip and rear weight, or adding external footing past the insert to reduce the bending length to shoot a heavier arrow? Also, even when the bare shafts were flying nice, the fletched ones didn't necessarily hit the same spot. They'd commonly be hitting to the right, even with good arrow flight. Sometimes they'd be pretty close to one another, but not always. Due to the limited quantities in the field tip practice packs, I'm limited to 2 field tips at each weight, which isn't ideal for shooting and comparing groups.

Or, since traditional archery is new to me, should I just slap on 175 grain tips with giant fletching and work on form and grouping before attempting to fine tune more?

[heartlandbowyer]

5/8 and 3/4 out from center? Not sure what you mean there.

What shafts, spine, arrow length, your draw we need more info bud. Is bow cut to center, past center, or before center?


Cory

[bowhunter15]

Gold tip Traditional 400 spine, 29.5", 28" draw. Bow cut roughly 11/16" from center (no shelf, just a bear weather rest stuck onto the side). The brass inserts are a little longer than the normal inserts shipped with the arrows. According to the Stu Miller calculator, 250 grain points should shoot about the best, which would also allow me to hit 10gpp. But they would have flown weak based on my shooting today.

[heartlandbowyer]

I would say it's a false week. Maybe some of the self bow guys will chime in. I would start with a 500 spine full length and work from there.

[Olin Rindal]

I wouldn't worry about the 8.4. Ive never worried about it. Its more important to get your arrow to fly straight. I don't think Ive ever hit the 10gpp.

[Cavscout9753]

Honestly, you said sometimes itd fly good and others not so good, based on that I would shoot for a while with a set up that the calculator said was good, (provided it was a safe weight for the bow), and just work on shooting the bow and finding your groove. If the same arrow is doing 2 different things (carbon or aluminum since woodies can do that sometimes) then its probably related to release or varied draw length. Tunning before your form (and I mean YOUR, not what works for others) is down is a sure fire way to get frustrated, IMO. Just enjoy the bow for a while and tune when you start to see a continued pattern.

[Josh Perdue]

I shoot from a bear weather rest as well and since switching have found I needed to shoot stiffer shafts. Let the bare shafts determine what spine you shoot. I'd say you will probably be a 340 spine shooting 64lbs with a 28" draw. Shoot through some paper as well to confirm.

How far your bow is cut past center means a great deal as well. Shooting 500 spines from my ilf rig at 55lbs is akin to shooting wet noodles. Those same 500 spine arrows may shoot great from a longbow that's not center cut. Once you get solid consistent form bare shaft and paper tuning will tell you what spine you need. Don't get discouraged and just practice.

A 64lb tradbow may be somewhat difficult to learn proper form and consistency as a beginning shooter but who knows you may be the exception. The best advice I can give you is find someone with experience nearby or a local club if one is available and they should be more than willing to help get you set up.

[ChuckC]

Well, a key bit of info here seems to be the part about no shelf, cut about 11/16" from center.

This is not a center cut recurve and needed spines will be very different from that.

How about fletching to a couple of the arrows as a comparison to the unfletched shafts.  

and, your last sentence may be a very powerful one.  Stick to it.  It will work out fine.
ChuckC

[bowhunter15]

Thanks for all the responses. I'll do more shooting this weekend with fletched shafts working on form and grouping. I've been watching videos from Jeff Kavanagh, Jimmy Blackmon, and the old Howard Hill videos on Youtube for form work. Most of the shops around here sell some trad bows but aren't experts in the field. So I'll probably take lots of video too ensuring that I'm not doing something stupid in my shot motion that's throwing excessive torque or forces in the wrong spots. I'll try to take some high speed video near the shelf and ensure that the arrows aren't bouncing of the riser. The bear weather rest is worn down already after a couple hundred shots, but for all I know that might be normal friction of the arrow sliding past.

[bowhunter15]

I think another thing that might help me, at least while tuning, is to gap shoot at the target dot. I was aiming instinctively at 15 yards... at least some of the inconsistency as I shot was likely due to the fact that my first arrow would go one way, then my brain would subconsciously compensate to try and fix it, even though I was looking at the same spot. I could always switch back to instinctive after getting the more objective feedback from gap aiming.

[bowhunter15]

Here's a hi-speed video being played back at 1% normal speed. The first shot is with 300 grain field point. 2nd shot is a 200 grain field point. 3rd shot is a 175 grain field point. 4th shot is a 145 grain field point. Any thoughts? Form issues? One thing that stuck out to me was that it looks like the nock drags along the riser.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-sdID6-feA&feature=youtu.be

[Fastltz]

One thing to try is shooting farther away. Maybe 15 to 20 yards see what that tells you. Also maybe post a video of you release hand. A poor release especially a bad pluck can cause all kinds of trouble.also maybe take the bear rest off and use nothing or a very thin call hair or something. Keep at it tho its all part of the journey

[Bladepeek]

Nice video work. I can't see how they are impacting, but I would suspect with the rest being that far from center, you are going to need quite a bit of flex in the arrow to clear the shelf - especially once you fletch the arrows. It's amazing how much the fletching stiffens up an arrow.

I think if I were you, I'd decide on a point weight - maybe the 175, or 200 and then just keep shooting until the groups get pretty tight at 15 - 20 yards. At that point, I'd start back working on getting them tuned up. A little stiff or weak won't really affect the group size all that much; just where they impact. The bow will be more pleasant to shoot with a heavier arrow.

Something that might help, is to keep a record of where each shot impacts. Mark it on a drawing of the target face when you pull the arrow. It's hard to tell much from only a few shots - especially when you start getting tired. If you record where the each shot hit over a 100 arrow string shot over a week or two, you should see a definite pattern develop. At least that helped me by making it easier to spot bad shots from a group of good ones.

[bowhunter15]

Here is the release hand video. Well, it's one shot from behind with a 200 grain field tip then two separate shots filmed of the bow hand. I was surprised myself to see my hand stay in the same spot and then move back from the back tension. In real time if feels like my hand moves back simultaneously with the release.

In terms of shot feel, the first shot felt the best. The last shot felt the worst of the three.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l54pKfVGdF4&feature=youtu.be

[Bladepeek]

Wow, that's a beautifully clean release. The arrow and your hand both start accelerating at the same time - just that your hand has the entire arm behind it for mass, so acceleration is a lot slower than the arrow.

Wish you were a next door neighbor. With those video skills, I'll bet my improvement would be a lot faster  

[damascusdave]

No need for me to read anything other than your last sentence...trying to tune with less than perfect form can be an exercise in futility...there are days when I very quickly learn I simply do not have the clean consistent releases I need to tell me about dynamic spine...on those days I just shoot for conditioning

DDave

You caught that delayed hand reaction. When looking at slo-mos of Howard Hill, he did that as well sometimes, but in your case he would say to keep your hand in your face.  3/4" out from center is a 2x4, I had to check and you are very close.  Interesting bow, if it were mine, I would narrow it down a little on the arrow side and put a bit of a sight window and shelf on it. I would reduce the handle to about an inch wide. Have you watched the John Schulz Hitting them like Howard Hill utubes? A bow like yours like to be canted a bit. It would be a good candidate for wood arrows. As is with the amount of side shot, in a wood shaft, your spine pick would need to be under that. My pignut which is about 75 pounds at my draw shoots 55-60s that are 27" bop. It is 1/2" out from center on the right side for left hand shooting. I think after it has been loaded for a while it is a little less weight. Any time a bow is more out from center the more that bow will like slower recovering arrows. I like my bows to tiller 1/8" less from string to bow on the lower limb, what would normally be termed as 'the fadeouts'. With a self bow that would be about 6 or 8 inches from the bow's center, which would be about 1&1/2 to 1&1/4" below the arrow shelf.

[bowhunter15]

Yep "Hitting it with Howard Hill" was the first thing I watched start to finish when building the bow. That shot style is very much how I've been drawing so far, except in the last few inches of pull, instead of focusing on "pulling straight back with the rear hand" I've been focusing on rotating the elbow back to really engage the back muscles. I do plan on shooting with a canted bow, but also read that for tuning purposes it's best to keep the bow vertical so that spine issues manifest themselves as left and right, rather than a combination of left, right, up and down with a canted bow.

I figured taking off the Bear weather rest, narrowing the grip, and using a split golf tee arrow shelf would be the easiest way to require less flex out of the arrows. According to the Stu Miller calculator, if I do that, the bow should like 200 grain field tips the best instead of 250, putting me between 9 and 10 grains per pound.

When you say "the bow will like slower recovering arrows" do you mean weaker dynamic spine? Or are you referring literally to the speed at which it recovers. I imagine that when comparing wood, aluminum, and carbon arrows, even though they might all have the same static spine, some might recover faster or slower. Sort of similar to how fishing rods can have different responsiveness with the same "power" based on graphite vs. fiberglass etc.

I didn't pay much attention to the positive or negative tiller. I just tillered for equal limb timing pulling from the string fulcrum where the center of my middle finger would be on the string.

Yes, with bows that are outside very far from center, spine will show either stiff or weak very quickly with faster recovery rates. What I am most familiar with is aluminum arrows, when they started coming out with fatter shafts and thinner walls. The window of acceptable arrow flight was smaller with my bows, while the old 1820s, 1918s, and 1920s showed a broader acceptance for spine with poundage changes, point changes or length changes. Of all of the wood shafts cedar seems faster to me, while some hardwoods seem slower. Perhaps that is why Pope and Young preferred birch over cedar. With bows that are outside of center the arrow first bows in because the string is shoving it straight ahead and the weight of the shaft resists the momentum for a bit, then it snakes around the bow. The stiffer the sectional sections of the arrow the more resistance that arrow will have to the bending required to clear the bow. In extreme cases the arrow will be skidding on the shelf.