Help with choosing arrow spine

[Joshua Sexton]

Hello everybody,

I'm new, and please forgive me if I parted this is the wrong place. I've recently acquired a hoyt buffalo with formula excel medium limbs 40# @ 28".I'm trying to decide on what spine I'm going choose.

I draw 29" and the bow is essentially 46# @28" with the shorter riser and medium limbs. I shoot a tab and will experiment with different tab configurations. I'll likely shoot a 30" arrow, 125-150 grain tips, maybe more.

My question is, what spine? The charts keep pointing me in either 400 or 500 spine. I'm leaning towards 2016 or 2018. I'm afraid the 2016's will be to weak. Am I close?  

Thanks!

[McDave]

Welcome to Tradgang!  2016's should be fine with the lower point weights, or 2018's with heavier point weights.  Meaning that if you intend to hunt with it, the 2018's would be better.  Personally, I would choose a .500 spine carbon arrow and probably use a 145-150 grain point or broadhead.

BTW, this forum is for shooting form discussions, and equipment discussions should be posted in PowWow.

[Joshua Sexton]

Thank you sir.

I was unsure since carbon charts kept suggesting 400's. I was afraid of them being too stiff and  500's being too weak. You don't think they would be?

Would an admin please move this form to the correct venue?

Thank you again.

[McDave]

For 125-150 graiin tips, the .500 should be fine.  For "maybe more" you might need to use .400's.  You're kind of on the borderline.  If it were me, I would bare shaft test, but if you're not ready for that, for 150 grain points, use .500's, for 200 grain points, use 400's.

The mods may or may not move your post, but they like us to inform people of where posts belong, so future posts will be in the right place.

[Joshua Sexton]

I appreciate the direction. Apologies again for not posting in the correct spot.

The "maybe more" really means 165 grain zwickey broadhead. Being in between spines always gives me fits. Guess I'll just test a few bareshaft and see what does best.

[longbow fanatic 1]

I'm with Dave. I think you should consider the .500 spine. I have a 45 lb recurve and longbow. I draw 29.5", so ,my draw length is close to yours. With my 45# recurve, I bare shaft tuned .400 spine arrows. With a 95 grain outsert on the tip, I had to add a 125 grain field tip (220 grain total tip weight) to get my bare shafts to group with my fletched arrows. Ideally, .500 spine would be the best choice for my setup. That said, these arrows were for an elk hunt and that's why I wanted so much EFOC. Anyway, I hope this helps!

[Joshua Sexton]

Thank you sir. I'll get some 500's and test them. I did pick up some 2018's to test as well. Hopefully they'll pan out. I believe they are .464 spine, so they might not need as much weight up front as your .400 experience. Thoughts?

[longbow fanatic 1]

Joshua,

Yea, give them a try. See if they work out for you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Try different point weights and see how they fly. Also, you can buy individual arrow shafts from Lancaster archery supply. The nice thing about that is if you don't want to spend money on a dozen shafts that may not work for you, you can just buy (2) .500 spine shafts. Shoot them and see if they work out. If not, you can try different size shafts before you buy a full dozen. Just a thought.

[Joshua Sexton]

Great idea longbow! I don't have much in the way of disposable income so that will work well for me.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[longbow fanatic 1]

Sure thing.    

[Joshua Sexton]

Well, got the 2018's. They are 30" long. I'm drawing about 28.5". Here's the rub, my bareshaft is hitting right but my fletched shafts are hitting left about 8-10". Are my arrows really weak? I'm so frustrated lately. I haven't been able to tune a bow and I'm feeling discouraged.

[longbow fanatic 1]

The issue with bare shaft tuning is that you need to have a very clean release consistently to rely on the results. In other words, you need to be able to consistently shoot arrow groupings with fletched arrows before attempting to bare shaft tune. Only you can know how well you shoot and whether you shoot consistent enough groups with fletched arrows. If your bare shafts are right (RH archer), showing weak, and your fletched arrows are impacting 8-10" left, showing stiff, the culprit may be form errors causing the inconsistencies. Normally, I would expect your fletched arrows to impact in the bullseye and the bare shaft arrows to impact stiff or weak. Since that's not the case and fletched shafts are impacting stiff and bare shafts impacting weak, it's most likely form errors. I really wouldn't sweat it right now. Spend some time shooting for several months, working on improving your form. McDave and Arne Moe are great resources here and they can give you advice on drills and tips to help your form development.

[Joshua Sexton]

Ok, perhaps I need to find a coach in my area. I think it would be helpful to have some help in person. Any good recommendations in the Dayton, Ohio area?

[longbow fanatic 1]

Attached are a list of coaches for USA archery. Make sure if you solicit coaching from one of them that you take the time to tell them what kind of archer you are and what your goals are before you decided to meet and pay for coaching, E.G. That you're a traditional bow hunter who gap shoots and are looking for tips on sound archery form relative to your style of shooting, for example. Before I would hire a coach, I would consider posting a thread on the Pow Wow asking if there are other trad archers in your area. If so, get together with them and shoot. Shoot in back yards, at archery ranges or 3-d courses... anywhere you can get around these guys and gals. Pretty soon, you will find some really good archers. Those are the people you ultimately need to seek out advice from, although you can learn helpful things from all archers of varying levels of proficiency. You just want to be careful not to pick up bad habits that sometime take years to correct.  Most good archers will be glad to help you out. I hope that helps. Here is the link for USA archery  

      https://webpoint.usarchery.org/wp/Contacts/ListCourseInstructors.frm?State=OH

[Joshua Sexton]

Gentlemen,

I've shot my arrows a bit more working on form but I'm having an issue. I drew blood today on my bow hand knuckle right where my pointer finger and hand come together. Do you think it's spine related? I've raised the nock point and this even happens with a bareshaft. Too stiff? Too weak?

[longbow fanatic 1]

Yes, it's likely that the arrow spine was the culprit for the arrow striking your hand. When that has happened to me, it was because the arrow was too stiff. Remember that raising your nock height, or lowering it for that matter, will not change left/right impacts (stiffness/weakness). The suggestion I could offer would be to do one or more of the following: 1.Increasing brace height will weaken the shaft stiffness. This is counter intuitive. Raising the brace height adds draw weight to the limbs, adding initial inertia and weakening the shaft. It also shortens the power stroke (this is the counter intuitive part) reducing the time the arrow remains on the string. It seems logical to think that reducing the brace height, and thereby the power stroke, would weaken the arrow. I thought that as the case anyway before I read Anthony Camera's book. 2. Add arrow point tip weight. 3. Move the arrow closer to the riser by reducing thickness of strike plate material. Hope this helps.

[Joshua Sexton]

Well, I finally got a couple GT XT 500'S. Loaded them up with 175 grain tips and I'm still cutting my knuckle wide open. There is some outside shelf wear as well. And since I'm bleeding so much I was able to see where my arrows are contacting my hand. It's about 8" down the shaft from the back all the way to the back of the shaft and between the cock feather out and the feather pointing down, about 7 o'clock if looking down the shaft from the back.

I'm at a complete loss. I've never had this much trouble with a bow. My Bob Lee didn't do this, nor my dad's Assenheimer.

I've tried different grips, release styles, split finger, 3 under. High nock, low nock. I'm lost

[McDave]

I'm somewhat familiar with the Hoyt Buffalo, as I have a friend who has one and have shot his bow.  It seems to have a reasonably sized shelf and adequate separation between the grip and the arrow.  I have Bob Lee recurves myself, which I consider to have the best standard grips there are.  While the Bob Lee's and the Buffalo are different, the basic geometry of the grips and shelf seems similar.  I don't know why you would cut yourself on one and not the other.

If I cut my finger like you describe, it has been because I am shooting a longbow with a very narrow shelf and a grip designed so my hand is very close to the arrow.  Then my forefinger will slip up sometimes and be cut by a quill.  I don't think I've ever been cut by the arrow shaft itself.  I solve this problem by making sure that the leading edges of the quills are well glued down, and if they are not well tapered, I give them a little additional tapering with a sharp knife after they are glued down, and then put an extra dab of glue on the end of the quill.

I don't mind being reminded sometimes if my forefinger is contacting the arrow, because if my forefinger lifts up the arrow, it will cause me to miss high.

Your case seems different though.  I can't imagine ever hitting my forefinger with my Bob Lee recurve or a Buffalo, because the way the grips are designed, my hand just isn't that close to the arrow.  Do you think the arrow is falling off the rest?  What kind of rest material are you using?  I think the best kind of rest material to use with a Buffalo would be something that would allow some kind of gap between the shelf and the strike plate, forming a slight groove to hold the arrow and keep it from falling out.

In any event, whenever you injure yourself, whether you are hitting your face with the string or your forefinger with an arrow, it becomes super sensitive until it heals, which makes it difficult to concentrate on your shot.  So you should probably wear some kind of light glove, like a golf glove or something, on your shooting hand until you figure out what's going on.

[Joshua Sexton]

I'm actually hitting the knuckle and not my finger. I have a picture of me holding the grip where you can see the wear and cuts on my shelf and hand. Not sure how to post it though.

Using some bear hair rest material as well. I might replace it with mole skin and build it up as you described with a groove to contain the arrow a bit. Unless I'm plucking the string that bad that the arrow is coming off the shelf I can't imagine what else to do.

[Joshua Sexton]

Update. I built the shelf up a few mm with moleskin and a toothpick as a very slight retainer on the outer edge of the shelf. That took care of the knuckle cutting issue. Not sure if it is due to the height of the shelf, which isn't a whole lot, or the retainer, but I didn't hit my knuckle. Let's call that progress.

Now, bareshaft testing GT 500's full length and Easton 2018's at 30.25". They are shooting well right, which is a weak arrow. So, I looked at GT spine chart and it says I should be shooting .400 deflection. So, perhaps I was getting a super weak arrow flexing and hitting my hand. Likely compounded with a nock point too high or low. To confirm this I short drawed the bow and zip, right down the pike, the bare shafts flew perfectly straight.

So, I'm going to a friend's tonight to trim some of the weak arrows and try to get them stiff enough. Here's to hoping it works!!!