feather contact=poor flight?

[brackshooter]

I have been having the hardest time getting "perfect" flight out of my Howard Hill.  I have bare shafted and tried every arrow out there, and have settled on a beman 400, 31.5" long with 275 up front.  I have 5.5" bananna feathers on them.  I have noticed that for the first 5 or ten yards there is a little bit of a wobble before the arrow straightens out and flies perfect.  I have always shot bananna feathers, and like them, but if they are affecting my arrow flight, I will gladly go to parabolics.  I know that the feather is contacting the shelf, because my feathers show it.  Question is, is that the reason for my less than perfect flight?  BTW, I draw 30.5" and the bow is 60@28", about 68# at my draw.

thanks

[JRY309]

You could try raising your nock point alittle or try shooting cock feather in to see how they fly.Are the nocks glued in? You could try rotating the nock for best clearence.

[brackshooter]

I have rotated the nock and played with the nock point.  Have not yet tried cock feather in though.

[George D. Stout]

It's not the feathers hitting....I shoot feathers off of my knuckle from a selfbow with perfect flight....you have other issues.  Hills like softer spines as a rule and your Beeman still may be a tad stiff for it. I would try some more weight on the killin' end first.

[buckrunt]

I'm new at shooting a longbow but ran into the same problem even tho the arrows shot great
bareshaft. Had read about shooting them with the
cock feather in, and it made a lot of difference.

[brackshooter]

I have tried 300 and 350 up front, maybe I will try again and vary my brace height as well, although it should be good, its at 6 1/4" now.

[Orion]

6 1/4 is pretty low.  I brace my 66-inch Hills at 6 3/4.  Give it a try.

[dan ferguson]

My longbow is 68#@28, I pull 28" I have 400, 340,s and 300. My bow is fitted with a fastflight string and the 340,s give the best flight out of the 3. I also use banana fletch on these, they bare shaft straight and no feather contact thats showing, The 400,s will do what yours does out of this bow.

[Canyon]

I gotta go with Mr Stout on this one.

I have been fighting this all week with my Hill. Looked like I had a nock problem with the porpoising going on, so up and down I went with the nock. Things only got worse. I decided to play with spine and went up to a 190 head to soften the shaft up. Now it shooting like a lazer... okay a lazer might be an exaggeration, as it is an 800 grain arrow and things fall off pretty quick. The only wobble I see is the target shuddering when this thing hits. Good Luck.
Jim Coffey

[Shawn Leonard]

The problem with Dan's advice is he does not mention the length of the arrow or the point weight he is shooting. I would think the 400s at that long with that much up front may be a tad weak. I would try the 350s at 31.5"s with the 275 up front or 325. Shawn

[dan ferguson]

400,s cut to 29, 340,s cut to 29 with 315 grn up frount the arrows weight is 635 grns, the 300,s also will fly good same weight but cut 1 inch longer. My bow is 1/8 from center on the shelf.

[Overspined]

Here's another thing to look at. If you bare shaft tune an arrow and the left/right motion is eliminated, but you are getting poor arrow flight fletched, try a different feather. I mean, if you are shooting left wing, try right wing feathers. Believe it or not, I was struggling with the very same issue(s) and all flight problems were eliminated when I tried a right wing fletched arrow. Something about the way the feathers were contacting the shelf/riser...if you haven't tried one, might be a good idea.

[carpenter]

I have found that 6 3\\4 in brace on both my hills seemed best- 1 is 68" the other is 69" and I shoot cock feather in.

[traditional beagle]

Might have already been mentioned, but I sometimes have this happen. Sometimes I can cant the bow just a little more and the flight straightens out the way it should be.