Bare Shaft, POI or angle of shaft?

[Etter]

Obviously a perfectly tuned bare shaft should stick straight into the target AND group with fletched shafts, but I cannot seem to find which method is correct or better than the other. Everyone seems to have a different opinion. Thoughts?

[warpedarrow]

All that a bare shaft shows you is an extreme example of what you can expect from a fletched arrow.  If you must, shoot a few and play with the tune until things start to straighten.  Then try a fletched arrow with the same setup and you may be good enough.  Unless you are buying shafts and building your own arrows, where is the bare shaft supposed to come from?  Are you going to strip the fletching off of a brand new arrow?  That very reason is why I just watch my nocks and adjust point weight or (seldom) nock height on the string.  It doesn't take very long to find an arrow that matches your bow.  I try to keep several different spines on hand from 340 through 600.  Sometimes you run onto a bow that just won't shoot what the spine charts say to shoot.  

I have probably had eight or ten new bows in the last year and almost never mess with bare shaft unless I just want to mess around.  I did shoot a bare shaft last week with a new bow.  It told me the same thing that my fletched arrows were telling me.

[Shadowhnter]

I dont pay attention to how they stick in a target. If they glance in an old arrow hole it will often ruin the true reading and causes all kinds of confusion. I watch the shaft in flight, either by my own eyes, or a trusted by stander. For me, its never failed that if My bare shafts are truly straight flying, all my arrows have the same POI.

[Etter]

Originally posted by warpedarrow:
All that a bare shaft shows you is an extreme example of what you can expect from a fletched arrow.  If you must, shoot a few and play with the tune until things start to straighten.  Then try a fletched arrow with the same setup and you may be good enough.  Unless you are buying shafts and building your own arrows, where is the bare shaft supposed to come from?  Are you going to strip the fletching off of a brand new arrow?  That very reason is why I just watch my nocks and adjust point weight or (seldom) nock height on the string.  It doesn't take very long to find an arrow that matches your bow.  I try to keep several different spines on hand from 340 through 600.  Sometimes you run onto a bow that just won't shoot what the spine charts say to shoot.  

I have probably had eight or ten new bows in the last year and almost never mess with bare shaft unless I just want to mess around.  I did shoot a bare shaft last week with a new bow.  It told me the same thing that my fletched arrows were telling me.

I build my arrows to tune to the bow with always 300 grains up front. I usually just experiment with the arrow length until I get dart flight. Then I shoot broadheads and if they group with field points, Im done. I just wondered if bare shafting may be quicker and cant understand why there are such different schools of thought on the same tuning technique.

[warpedarrow]

Etter,

I assume that you have a range, say from 28-31 inches that you are working with when you say that you adjust arrow length.  That is an option when you are building your own.  I have always purchased pre fletched carbon arrows and the cheap ones are nine dollars a piece so I really can't play with length.  I have five bows that I shoot regularly and I pretty much try to have a set of arrows that will work "good enough" on all five bows.  I do have separate arrows for broadheads that get set aside.  I see no reason to shoot a target point and a broadhead in the same set.  If the target points are flying straight and grouping together and the broadheads are flying true and grouping together, then I feel like I'm good to go.  

There are lots of ways to get to the "balance" needed to make an arrow fly true.  I am set on cutting the arrows to my length and adjusting point weight vs you are set on point weight and adjusting arrow length.  I have to ask, why 300 grains?

[damascusdave]

In the end it comes down to how well you can shoot. My friend Cameron shoots 13 yards in his basement. He uses the end of a wood arrow to shoot at. He judges his tune by how close he comes to shaving wood with a broadhead.

DDave

[30coupe]

The goal with bare shaft tuning is to get your bare shaft hitting in the same group as your fletched shafts. If that happens, you are pretty much tuned. The angle it has in the target is far less important, but it can tell you more about your form than the tune. If your field points, bare shaft, and broadheads are all landing in the same spot, tuning is done.

If you get odd arrow flight or angles, work on your form.

[last arrow]

100% what 30coupe said.  Also, watching the flight can be miss leading once you get close to tuned because you have to have perfect form to get perfect flight.  I use a piece of painters tape placed vertically on the target to make sure they are grouping together by putting the point on the bottom of the tape and shooting fletched and bare shafts.  Doing this at several different distances will help show where small tuning adjustments are needed.

[the rifleman]

Agree with the above.  I do look at angle of shaft in target as a general indication over several shafts shot.  I start in close 10-15 yds.  When I get out to 30 and have a fairly tuned arrow at closer distances 30 really shows me what's left to fine tune as weak or stiff bareshafts really show by drifting to left or right of fletched shafts.  When shooting outside be aware that wind can really give you a false reading if you're looking at angle of shaft in target.  Get bareshafts grouping w fletched at 30 yds and I'll bet your broadheads will group w your field points.  Best of luck.

[YosemiteSam]

Originally posted by 30coupe:
The goal with bare shaft tuning is to get your bare shaft hitting in the same group as your fletched shafts. If that happens, you are pretty much tuned. The angle it has in the target is far less important, but it can tell you more about your form than the tune. If your field points, bare shaft, and broadheads are all landing in the same spot, tuning is done.

If you get odd arrow flight or angles, work on your form.

That explains a lot for me.  Thank you for sharing this!

[Wheels2]

I am a fan of bare shaft tuning.  But as stated above, form must be good.

[The Whittler]

Look up Black Widow's video on bare shaft tuning, great video and simple/easy to do.

[ChuckC]

Can't speak for anybody else, but I have been going for the " bare and feather groups" myself.

With MY shooting ( bad ) at times, fletched shafts fly great to the eye, but impact other than in the target dot.  Was that me, because of my cross eye dominance or a bad release, or is the shaft just not right.  

Bare shaft flies as it flies, with no feathers to change that. Watch a bare shaft that is well over or under perfection fly and you know what I mean.

If they fly together, it is because the spine is right and my form wasn't so bad.
ChuckC

[Darryl R.]

Bareshaft tuning does work, but if your form is not real good - you'll get frustrated.

I've tuned and gotten arrows to fly like spinning drill bits - then the next day, those same arrows will wag a little left and right on me.  The only thing that changed was my tecnique.

For me - I've found that my bow hand grip has a tremendous influence on arrow flight and it can give you false reads of stiff/weak if you're torquing the bow even just a little bit.

To alleviate the problem, I do this:
At the beginning of my shot cycle, I make a relaxed deep hook grip on the string, and I'm holding almost all of the weight of the bow on my string fingers (my bow hand is totally relaxed - just barely holding the bow).  Then as I draw, my bow hand is lightly gripping the bow with just my index finger and thumb like an "ok" sign - but still very relaxed with no squeezing at all. In my mind's eye - the angle of the bow's can't is completely governed by the angle of my string hand.  In other words I have absolutely no steering of the bow in my bow hand - its all controlled by draw arm and the weight of the bow's resistance to the draw runs down the meat of my thumb in what I see in my mind as being thin as a knife blade.  

This eliminates torque.

Then the release must be perfect too.  For me - in my mind's eye, I imagine that I'm slowly relaxing my fingers while I'm heavily focused on my spot.  It actually happens quite fast, but again in my minds eye - I feel like I'm slowly relaxing my fingers.

If the rest of my form is correct, this results in my string hand ending up on my deltoid muscle after the shot.

Again - all other form angles must be correct (alignment, angles, back tension etc).

When the are, the arrow flies like a drill bit through the air.

When form is not correct - that same arrow can appear to be oit of tune.

So the moral of the story is - you gotta have excellent form or you'll think you're never quite  tuned right and you'll keep messing around.

The delimma is - you cannot establish good form by evaluating your shots from untuned arrows.

A tragedy indeed!

[Darryl R.]

Bareshaft tuning does work, but if your form is not real good - you'll get frustrated.

I've tuned and gotten arrows to fly like spinning drill bits - then the next day, those same arrows will wag a little left and right on me.  The only thing that changed was my tecnique.

For me - I've found that my bow hand grip has a tremendous influence on arrow flight and it can give you false reads of stiff/weak if you're torquing the bow even just a little bit.

To alleviate the problem, I do this:
At the beginning of my shot cycle, I make a relaxed deep hook grip on the string, and I'm holding almost all of the weight of the bow on my string fingers (my bow hand is totally relaxed - just barely holding the bow).  Then as I draw, my bow hand is lightly gripping the bow with just my index finger and thumb like an "ok" sign - but still very relaxed with no squeezing at all. In my mind's eye - the angle of the bow's can't is completely governed by the angle of my string hand.  In other words I have absolutely no steering of the bow in my bow hand - its all controlled by draw arm and the weight of the bow's resistance to the draw runs down the meat of my thumb in what I see in my mind as being thin as a knife blade.  

This eliminates torque.

Then the release must be perfect too.  For me - in my mind's eye, I imagine that I'm slowly relaxing my fingers while I'm heavily focused on my spot.  It actually happens quite fast, but again in my minds eye - I feel like I'm slowly relaxing my fingers.

If the rest of my form is correct, this results in my string hand ending up on my deltoid muscle after the shot.

Again - all other form angles must be correct (alignment, angles, back tension etc).

When the are, the arrow flies like a drill bit through the air.

When form is not correct - that same arrow can appear to be oit of tune.

So the moral of the story is - you gotta have excellent form or you'll think you're never quite  tuned right and you'll keep messing around.

The delimma is - you cannot establish good form by evaluating your shots from untuned arrows.

A tragedy indeed!

[damascusdave]

Untuned arrows are actually a great way to evaluate form. I have shot some great groups at 20 yards that were visibly sideways halfway to the target.

DDave

[Sirius Black]

If my bare shafts show weak in flight, they always show weak in the target too, regardless of the target material. Same in reverse for stiff. I hope this means that I have good, repeatable form!