Arrow tuning - what about back in the 60's and 70's?

[WhitetailHtr]

So, I started shooting about 1970 and I remember that buying arrows was a lot less scientific.  Namely, buying a dozen Bear arrows in a box that was the correct spine (50-55#, etc.) and length (full inches).  Hunting arrows with broad heads already mounted, glued on.  I can still picture a wall of a shop with boxes lined up, or on shelves.

I know Herter's sold arrows this way as well, as did other archery companies, I'm sure.

So, why was this adequate for guys to kill game back then, and now we are obsessed with tuning arrows to the 1/4" in length, super specific grain weights, and concerned about FOC and a host of other technical aspects?   :confused:

Just curious here.  Seems like sometimes we make this way too difficult.  Any insight?

[Biathlonman]

That's before my time, but I'd imagine that there was also a lot less choices in bow srtles, weights and string materials back then.  When every body was shooting a #45 Bear with B50 string you didn't need many choices.  Now you've still got a guy shooting that Bear and another guy shooting a super fast bow with carbon, weight down to the pound he wants and ultra light skinny string.

[Cavscout9753]

I think there's a lot of reasons. Initially, I think wood arrows are just easier to tune. Back then, wood likely meant cedar, and broadhead choices likely meant 125 grains or so, and the bows you bought were likely limited in variety as well. Now with the many different bows, arrow materials, and broadhead options, a little math needs to come in to play so that people can consistently shoot with accuracy all the different components that they choose to shoot.
Hunting ethics has evolved in the past 40-50 years as well. I read books by Hill, Thompson, Bear and the like, and the general consesus was to at least hit the animal. I think many people are trying for better odds than that now.
Sites like this are for traditional "fanatics", the population here, generally speaking, enjoys most every aspect of traditional archery. In the 70's it wasn't traditional archery, it was archery. The people here and other places like it love to tinker. To push the equipment and theirselves as far towards perfection as they can. With time, money, materials, options, and information comes a lot of opportunity to increase understanding and try new ideas, (likely new to the shooter, not the world of archery).
I shoot a Hill bow, with wood arrows, and a leather back quiver. Simple, right? The road hear took me through compounds, recurves, aluminum, carbon, bow quivers, high FOC, and a host of other "options". I'm grateful for the knowledge, the fun of learning and trying new things, and the mental roladex that will allow me to break out of ruts that are likely to happen. No purchase or test was a waste.
Lastly, I think the mentality of the "70's" is still around. Many folks keep it simple as well, and thats good too. That period and the guys who emulate that period serve as a point of origin for many new and different ways of experiencing archery.
I was listening to Ravi Zacharias explain to someone why there's so many denominations of Christianity, and it seems fitting here as well! :
"Unity of belief does not necessarily mean unity of expression."

[last arrow]

The shop I bought arrows from in the 70's had bare shaft aluminum arrow in every size cut in 1 inch lengths.  the Owner would recommend arrows for you by getting various shafts in the length you needed, put on the weight head you intended to shoot and let you shoot to see which one worked best.  Then you knew you had the right shaft and length when you bought.  He would recommend wood arrows based on the aluminum that shot well.

So you would start with say a 2016, 2018 and 2115 in your desired length and see which shot the best.  Having a professional shop like that made it easy.  Today we don't have the range of selection so we are trying to choose between shafts that the spine is father apart and we have to work harder to match them to the bow.  Plus the shops don't have an expert to help you quickly find the right one.   The experts now think you just turn a screw to fit the shaft to a bow.

[beaunaro]

I really like your thinking and explanation on this, Lucas.

Interesting topic, I hope others chime in.

[last arrow]

I would like to add that we didn't put much consideration into how much our total arrow weight was, let alone how much front of center.  We assumed the chosen shaft would work for hunting and thought the key was good arrow flight and accurate shot placement.

[Bladepeek]

I think also that it is just a case of mountains of info available that wasn't back then. Look how many deer were shot with a lever action 30-30 with open sights. Everyone knows today you need a $3000 rifle with at least a $2000 scope with lighted reticle.

Can you imagine a serious bass fisherman going out without a $30,000 bass boat and AT LEAST 150hp?

I believe, as a nation, we tend to try to buy success. I spent 20 years in Germany and I can guarantee you anyone who decided he wanted to try pistol shooting automatically bought what the local expert recommended as "the best available". Then he started practicing, knowing that any fault was his own and not the equipment.

Kinda sad, but I do believe it's true and, to some extent, a natural enough way of thinking.

I look at it a little differently. I know the worst bow and set of arrows I own could do better with a good shooter behind the string, so I try to bring my shooting up to the equipment. If I can ever do that, I'll worry about getting better equipment.

[McDave]

There are many people on this board who don't bare shaft or paper tune, and seem to do just fine.  My mentor, Rick Welch, does not bare shaft or paper tune, and he seems to do just fine, hunting or competition.  I like to bare shaft tune, but not paper tune.  Different strokes....

I bare shaft tuned my '59 Kodiak and my '60's Kodiak, even though nobody did that back then, and I think they both shoot better for my having done that.

Things have changed since the '70's, and not all for the worse.  If you bought a new car in 1970, you'd be lucky to get 100,000 miles out of it at 10-12 mpg.  All the ones I had from that era leaked oil.  Electronics consisted of an AM radio, and maybe an FM, if you were lucky.  They were fun to drive though.

Even though I love my old Kodiaks, I love my modern recurves and longbows more.

[ChuckC]

I am pretty certain that in days of old, the better shooters had an idea ( thru experience) what their bows needed.  They made arrows, shot arrows and the ones that flew well were used, the others were traded or burned.

Yup, we know more, but what we know is not REALLY needed to shoot well.  We do more, but what we do is not REALLY needed to shoot well.  What we need to do is shoot more.

My opinion
ChuckC

[mgf]

Physics hasn't changed and ignoring physics doesn't make it go away.

A couple of years ago, I was getting chided by a carbon arrow, long hold shooter for not keeping up with the times.  He explained why all of his stuff was better than mine and all of hoops he had to jump through to make it all happen.   I showed him my tapered carbon arrows, then showed him how they shot, and showed how my tapered cedars shot.   He said, "Well I suppose that is good enough."  Then he took a shot, didn't reach an anchor, jerked the release, the arrow flew like crap and he said, "See, that's how you do it."  He claimed he was shooting at the corner of my target to prove a point.  That being, an other inch to the right and he would have punched a hole in my garage?  
  I still prefer to tune the way I always did.  Get the arrow flying straight by 15 yards and then after that all I want to see is feathers and nock going straight to where I aimed.   If an arrow does that, good enough.
   Those tapered carbons were bought for one bow, and were not stiff enough.  However, they flew out of my favorite right hand longbow perfect, so no harm done.   They are heavier and I imagine they could out penetrate a cedar on a bone hit on a moose.

[ChuckC]

we aren't ignoring physics, just not a slave to identifying all the aspects of it.  

I don't have to know much of anything about electron flow, electricity, conductors, resistance etc.  I just know that when I flip that little thingie by the door to the up position, something glows in the room.  

I don't have to know how to tune a car engine, but when I turn that key, it either runs or it don't.  IF it don't , I get it fixed or get a new one.

I CAN get an electrical engineering degree and learn all about that stuff I said above, but I'm not going to.  I will just flip that switch and remember to flip it back off when I leave the room.
ChuckC

[ron w]

Back then it worked......guess what it still does. I still buy arrows at a certain spine range and if anything changes it's point weight.

[mgf]

Maybe I don't really understand the idea of the thread.

I guess if your broadhead tipped arrows are flying well and you hit what you shoot at, you're good to go.

Fletching can straighten out almost anything when shooting field points.

I tune with bare shafts in order to minimize the amount of shooting I need to do with broadheads. Broadheads are expensive and they tear up targets.

I use bare shafts for something else too. I usually have a couple of bare shafts mixed in with my regular practice arrows. I do that to check my shooting. If I'm shooting well, I really don't need fletching at the distances I normally shoot (30 yards and under)...talking about field points here.

Here is one that I don't get exactly.  A recurve carbon arrow shooter asked me about wood arrows.  He had two different sets of six arrows that had different point weights and different weight inserts to get them to fly.  The shafts looked similar.  He bought them at an archery shop and tuned both sets in the same archery shop.   They were all about 31 inches long.  Looking closer they were the same shaft.  He was getting irritated by the long length and was curious about shorter wood arrows.  I checked his bow and watched him shoot with inch marks on his arrow.  I picked a prefetched arrow gave him about 3/4" finger clearance picked the proper weight point and had him shoot it. "WoW PERFECT" his words.  That wood arrow flew did fly perfect. His archery shop carbons did not, that he said took over an hour to figure out both times.   Not saying one is better than the other, but I can almost always hit that wood arrow right the first time if I get a chance to check out the shooter and the bow.

[TOEJAMMER]

I think everyone explained it well but left out one factor.  Much of the anal obsession is due to the impact of the compound.  Many of the traditional converts now are steeped in the obsessions of what they did as compound shooters.  I'm 74 going on 75 and have been shooting stick bows since a young child.  You always made your own arrows, burned your feathers, did a shaftment dip and crested them. On occasion you would have them made.  The key elements were straight tight grain with no run out, correct spine and generally cut to a bit longer than your draw length.  Back then the belief was a 28 inch arrow was the optimum length for stability etc.  Guys with long draw would bend at the elbow and shorten it to accommodate the 28 inch arrow. Lots of changes over those many years but there is one constant.  If it works for you that is all that matters.  The old cliche, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is as true now as it was then.

[Orion]

I expect that most, not all, of the folks who are really obsessive about bare shafting and paper tuning come from the ranks of compound shooters.  Just part of the culture, plus, it works.

Those of us who grew up shooting stick bows have just sort of developed a feel for it over the years. I get excellent arrow flight, and most times, it's just a matter of knowing what spine and point weight, and arrow weight, length and diameter to start with (along with knowledge of how deep the bow shelf is cut), regardless of whether it's wood, aluminum, carbon or fiberglass.  This is just something I've developed over more than 50 years of shooting a stick bow.  I'm sure there are many others who've done the same. In the rare instances where I seem to be off, I do rely on bare shafting.

Back in the day, very few, myself included, paid much attention to arrow or broad head weight or design or FOC. FOC wasn't even in the lexicon. I'm much more picky about those things now.

I didn't always get good arrow flight 40 or 50 years ago.  Good enough to kill stuff, but not as good as I get today.

[stonewall]

When I was a kid in the 70's we would ride a bike down to the hardware store and buy whatever arrow we could get from collecting and selling soda bottles. The arrow was usually broke or lost by the end of the day.

[Bladepeek]

Orion, don't be too sure that we anal types are all compound converts. I've never shot a compound bow in my life, but I come from an engineering background and like to understand what's involved in the process I'm engaged in. It makes sense to me that just the right amount of flex will give the cleanest arrow flight and I enjoy experimenting to try to get that.

Doesn't necessarily improve my shooting a lot, but I do in fact enjoy it just like I enjoy handloading. That doesn't make me a better shot than the guy shooting factory ammo, but I just feel like I have a part in the process.

[last arrow]

I looked around and found my tuning booklet I purchased in the early 70s and looked at it as I have been following the methods contained in it since that time.  It describes the bareshaft (also known as the French) method, paper tuning method as well as several others.  Called "Sense About Bow Tuning", it was authored by Emory J. Louisell in 1971.  

Makes me think I was just as obsesed with good tune back then as I am now.  I followed those methods back then and searched out publications for help.  What has changed is the information is much more available with the internet so more people are aware of tuning methods and use them.