Nock high won't go away.

[tomsm44]

I have a bow that had a Bear weather rest on it when I got it.  I took it off today and installed a Velcro rest and leather side plate.  Arrow flight looked great with everything else like I already had it, but I decided to shoot a bare shaft just for fun.  It was about perfect side to side, but was nock high.  What's got me stumped is that no matter what direction or how much I move it, it still shows nock high.  Lowering it slightly compared to the original position showed a little improvement, but not much.

Setup is a Hoots recurve, 56", 42#@28" (drawing about 27-27 1/2").  Carbon Express Predator II 500s cut to 28" with a 150 gr points.  It bare shafted near perfect before with the weather rest.  So what's going on now?

[katman]

Sounds like the different material changed the tune, why you can not adjust it out I don't know.

Are your broadheads hitting with field points? If so don't worry about it.

[30coupe]

My Kiowa is 45# @ 28" and I draw 27". I'm shooting off a rest because I want the option of using vanes or feathers. It bare shafts right with my fletched arrows and sticks straight out of the target. However, I shoot Easton Powerflight 500 shafts cut to 29" with a 100 grain insert and a 125 grain point. Seems like your arrows would be a bit on the stiff side, but if it bare shafts perfect with the weather rest, I guess I'd just shoot it that way.

I've got some Bear Weather rests coming. I'm using a Bearpaw rest at the moment, but they are harder plastic and I had the flipper snap off shooting in cold weather...not likely to be an issue where you are, lol. I've never had that problem with the Bear rests.

One question. Are you shooting with your bow canted or straight up and down? Sometimes you can get some odd readings with the bow canted, although mine doesn't seem to care with the rest.

I had trouble getting my bow to shoot vanes with the velcro on the shelf. That's why I went back to the raised rest. I can't recall that it had much of an effect on the bare shafts though.

Hope you get it sorted out. I've heard nothing but good about those Hoots bows.

[30coupe]

One other thing. Are you shooting split or 3 under? If you are shooting 3 under, do you have a double nock set or just one above the arrow? Those things could come into play as well when you moved your arrow down 1/2" or so.

[tomsm44]

Thanks guys.  I'm shooting split finger with a double nock set.  I do cant the bow when I shoot, but like you said, the readings were funny, so I shot it several times with it straight to help see what was going on.  I've done the same in the past when tuning, then shoot a bareshaft with it canted once everything is tuned up, just to make sure.  I haven't shot a broadhead with my field points since changing the rest.

My wife got these arrows at a yard sale already cut to 28".  I thought they'd be too stiff on this bow too, but they hit nock left when I go up to 200 gr points.  I don't have 175s to try.  They are listed as a youth arrow, but the CX website lists the actual spine as being in the .490s if I remember right.  

I've heard of too stiff arrows kicking nock left or flying straight due to shelf/riser contact.  If that was happening here, could the stiff spine cause the nock high problem off the shelf while not showing up with the weather rest due to its flexibility?

[30coupe]

Originally posted by tomsm44:

I've heard of too stiff arrows kicking nock left or flying straight due to shelf/riser contact.  If that was happening here, could the stiff spine cause the nock high problem off the shelf while not showing up with the weather rest due to its flexibility?

Could be part of it. You can also try changing your brace height and see if that makes a difference. Generally lower stiffens and higher weakens the dynamic spine.

Depending on how thick your leather is, I would think you have moved the arrow closer to center shot than with the rest, which is about a tenth of an inch thick. If you leather is thinner, that should weaken the dynamic spine.

And they say traditional is simple, LOL! Seriously, though, once you get it dialed in, you are pretty much done fiddling with stuff, unlike the wheelie guys who have to constantly add or change doodads.
 
BTW: I've found Carbon Express arrows generally seem to be stiffer than they are rated, so the .490 doesn't surprise be at all. I've got some Gold Tip Nugent blems that shoot pretty much the same as my Eastons except they are heavier in weight, so they hit a bit lower, especially as distance increases. I tried a couple of different CE shafts but I had to point load the crap out of them, so I stick with GTs or Easton/Beman shafts.

[forestdweller]

I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess that your shelf is pretty long (3" minimum) and wide as well.

Nock high is going to be pretty hard to avoid shooting off of your standard recurve shelf because there's more surface area for your arrow to go over on the horizontal and front to back portion of the shelf.

I know when I was shooting my recurve I could not get rid of nock high no matter what I tried. When I switched to a longbow which has a shelf that is literally half the size as my recurve's and slightly more radiused I literally never get nock high.

Basically it's the nature of the beast with the wide and long shelf's being used on most recurve's.

That being said, what I would do is build it up at the center so that it forms a single point at the center of the shelf so that your shelf behaves more like n arrow rest.

[tomsm44]

I'm going to try some different arrows and see if I can get it worked out that way.  

Forestdweller,
Nope, this one has a shelf that's about 1 1/2 - 2" long, and less than 3/4" wide, plus it's radiused.  The riser is very similar to most modern R/D longbows.  On my older recurves, I always mount my Velcro on top of a piece of leather about 1" long X 1/2" wide and 1/8"-1/4" thick to minimize shelf contact.

[rraming]

I would guess you either missed the correct nock height (passed it by) or your bottom finger is pulling too hard and making it bounce off the shelf - my thoughts anyway

Maybe start at 5/8" and then move down - I am never over that even with wood shafts

[Covey]

If your shooting split, your pointer finger might be putting downward pressure on the back of the shaft making your arrow bounce off the riser on release. Just a possibility...hope ya get it worked out.

[highPlains]

Nock high on a bareshaft is most common and not necessarily telling of how your fletched arrow will fly. You'll probably drive yourself crazy trying to fix it on a bare shaft.

On a fletched shaft, if the above advice doesn't help then it's most likely a tiller issue. An elevated rest (like a weather rest) will often take care of it when all else fails.

[Friend]

Nock position is irrelevant if the fletched shaft and bare shaft share the same mark.

Even better is having the the fletched shaft with field point markng the same as a BH tipped fletched shaft.

Just a personal minimum requiremnt: Fletched shafts w/field points will mark the same as the fletched BH tipped shafts 10 yards beyond my effective hunting range.

If I bare shaft tune to 40 yards, then every one of the various multiple designed BH tipped shafts that I have tested are spot on.

[McDave]

I'm guessing that the Bear Weather Rest put the arrow about 1/2" above the shelf.  It's possible that the bow was tillered for that arrow position, and it may not be possible to tune the bow shooting off the shelf, because that throws the bow out of tiller.  You could try building the shelf up with thick leather or something to get it closer to the height of the Bear rest, and see if that helps.  That happened to me once with a Hoyt Gamemaster: it would tune with the elevated rest, but not off the shelf.

As Friend says, it may not be that big of a deal as long as your arrows group together.  In that case, retune very carefully, starting at 3/4" and moving the nock point down 1/16" at a time until you reach the position with the minimum amount of nock high, and set your nock point there.

[tomsm44]

I'm putting the bare shaft and two fletched shafts in about a 3-4" group.  I'm rarely much better than that anyway, and the fletched shafts look to be flying great, so I'm not going to worry too much about it.  

This little bow really shows up grip problems.  The slightest torque will show a pretty big sideways kick.  It could be that the minimal vertical contact with the weather rest just didn't show how bad my grip was compared to off the shelf.  

I was putting two fletched arrows into about 6" today at 30 yards, which is 10-15 yards past where I have any plans of shooting an animal.  The nock high was just one of those things that bugs me, even when it's not a major issue.

Thanks for all the good input.  I got several ideas of things to watch for that I haven't dealt with yet.

[Mr. fingers]

Try shooting cock feather in. At the three o clock position instead of 9.

[tomsm44]

Originally posted by Mr. fingers:
Try shooting cock feather in. At the three o clock position instead of 9.

I'm shooting two fletch arrows on this bows.  Fletched arrows fly fine.  Just having an issue with bare shaft.  I just like to get it as close to perfect as possible so the feathers don't have to correct as much.

[Shadowhnter]

Ive never been able to be rid of the little bit of nock high I have in pushing 30 years, no matter the bow, bow setup, or arrow. Fletched they make bullet holes in a paper tuner, so I do not worry one bit about it.

[Tajue17]

just for giggles make sure you have even pressure on your string fingers,,, if still nock high try shooting 3 under just to see what happens, some of my bows because I shoot with a low elbow require the nock to be almost 90 from center and they bare shaft perfect that way but I still come up a tad for fletched.

wondering if the top limb on yours is a little stiffer than it should be and its pulling the nock up at release.

[warpedarrow]

Instead of messing with the bow, have you considered raising your target a little bit.  If you target is not up on the same plane as your shoulders you can expect nock high.

[Mint]

I was shooting off the shelf with my fifty niner and my accuracy was good and I thought I had good arrow flight. bare shafted it and it was fine except for nock high like yours. Paper tuned it and got nock high also. Apparently the arrow was hitting the shelf and kicking up high.

I put one of trap's feather rests on the bow and the arrows flew like bullets! Do yourself a favor and try it with a feather rest.