About to give up on my Hill...

[RC]

I`m thinking 2315`s or 2219`s and make sure your nocks are not to tight on the string. I love my Hill and all Hills I`ve shot.RC

[Daddy Bear]

brack,

I just happen to have found Kelly Peterson's chart dated back from 1997.

If you are pulling 65-pounds with an arrow BOP of 30", spine will be 75-79#. If these arrows are 31" BOP, spine will be 80-84#.

If you are pulling 70-pounds with an arrow BOP of 30", spine will be 80-84#. If these arrows are 31" BOP, spine will be 85-89#.

Kelly did not believe in bare shafting. Put big 5" or 5 1/2" feathers and shoots for spine. I personally do this with my hunting broadhead of choice. I cut back until I'm grouping straight away down the center and call it good. From that point, field points and blunts have always hit the same mark.

Also, you may want to try cock feather in with a slightly lower nocking point if all else fails.

Hope this helps,
Daddy Bear

[brackshooter]

My grip is very similiar to the close up near the bottom of the page.  I really dont think its a grip issue. I am gonna try some 2219s later this week and see if that clears things up.

[Daddy Bear]

If you are talking about the "Pete" grip, I'm of the opinion that it is absolutely the wrong way to go about shooting a straight handle longbow pulling the amount of weight you have. No disrespect to Pete, but you'd be hard pressed to truly push the handle straight into the target. The only thing keeping the handle straight at full draw would be string tension. Once you loose and that 65-70pounds of string tension was gone, I'd bet that your bow hand would immediately rotate just like working the throttle on a motorcycle. You'd most definitely run into problems then. You can get away with this shooting a pistol grip with pressure in the pivot point, but I don't see it on a 65pound Hill bow where you need to get heel down behind the handle.

Maybe I'm wrong for you, but that is what would happen with me shooting the same bow.

later,
Daddy Bear

[brackshooter]

nope, i am talking about the Dave Thomas grip....

[Jerry Jeffer]

I too think you should try the 2216 or 2219

[Molson]

It sounds to me like you are putting the pressure into the grip up near what would be the throat if it were a locator and your brace height has probably been too low for the most part.  Fishtailing says to me that the arrow is smacking off the riser either by torque or because the brace it too low or both.  My guess is primarily grip torque at the release.

Try pushing into the bow right at the base of your palm and only wrap your bottom two fingers around the grip.  Let your thumb, index, and middle finger barely rest on the grip.  At least try it and see if the flight cleans up.

I agree with the others that your aluminum choices have probably been too weak.  The 2117 is close enough though and the carbons, no way were all your carbons too weak.  Put a flo green nock on one of those 2117's and strip off the feathers and tell us what it looks like in flight.

[DCM]

Tail wagging is classic low spine arrow flight if you aren't hearing arrow slap.  All other indications support the assumption but the unknown for me is a) how much centershot on a Hill and b) string material.  Curious to hear how the 2219s do.  Great shafting, nearly indestructable.  I shoot them 31" bop from 56# @ 30" recurve using 225 grain points, high performance string.

One alternative is to build out the arrow pass temperarily and try the 2117s.  Or more accurately, built out the arrow pass using the 2117s until the wag goes away.  I've never had good luck with carbons but I think the 300s are the stiffest arrows you cited but not much more than the 2117s.  Deflection with carbons is hard to correlate to conventional, not 1:1, as I understand it.  If I weren't so unsure about them, I'd say try the aforementioned with the 300s.  Lightest points obviously with whichever you use.

[Rob Fin]

I agree that with some others that the arrows you've tried so far are all underspined based on your draw weight and draw length. I had a Hill that I found very challenging to tune, but it did turn out that my arrow selections were erring on the weak side. Good luck.

[Nate Steen .]

brackshooter....

Many people misunderstand Hill's suitcase grip.  If  you look at his own grip and his pupils' including Schulz' grip you will see what I'm saying.  When you pick up a suitcase,  you are gripping more tightly with the bottom two fingers than the top fingers.  This is of utmost importance and is the secret key to bend the bottom limb correctly so that upon release, the two limbs will work in unison.  Most people think that the suitcase grip means the thumb is in line with the belly of the grip.  Look at any picture or movie of Hill or his pupils and you will see that his thumb is always to the right of the belly of the grip.  The peak of the grip is in the 'y' of the hand between the thumb and the first finger.  With the hand in this position, you won't torque the handle because you could actually shoot with the fingers open.  Gripping firmly with the bottom fingers is the key.....the top fingers just go along for the ride.

After you have the limbs bending correctly and the bow performing,  look at your arrows.  If you are a right handed shooter, right wing feathers can kick of the arrow shelf and give bad arrow flight. Try shooting with the cock feather in towards the sight window or use left wing feathers. Also, it helps most Hill style longbow shootes to shoot overspine arrows.  I use 10# over.  With your long draw,  you should be well into the 80-90# spine.  Remember that the stiffer the arrow is, the less deflection, so that the arrow deflection between 70 and 90# is much less than between 50 and 70#.  When I shot 80+ # bows,  I saw very little difference between 85# spine and 95# spine because the deflection variance is so small. I would bet that you could shoot 90# spine better than anything else you've tried.  Also, if you keep the tip weight around 125 gr. you won't weaken the spine as much as if you are using 160 gr. heads.

hope this helps.

[tadpole]

Well said Sunset Hill, that should help alot of people out.

[brackshooter]

Thanks alot guys, youve given me lots to think about and work on for the next few days.  I really want to get this figured out, like I said, I really love this bow and want to hunt with it this year.  I actually am pretty accurate with it, eventho my arrows aint flying straight.  Once they do, I think I will be more accurate with this than with anything else.

[Elk whisperer]

See if you can find someone else to shoot your bow with same draw # then you might know if its you or the arrows. Also make sure you do not torgue the string with your drawing hand.

[brackshooter]

An update:  Went and bought some cheap 2219s today, fletched them up with banannas and threw on a 145.  So far so good.  played with the grip a little and looks like it feels a little better with more of the heel of my hand in the grip.  Thumb is more on the inside of the bow than it was, and arrow flight looks to be much improved.  I havent had the chance to shoot longer than about 20 yards yet to see if they are in fact flying perfectly, but they are definatly better than they were before. I will keep you guys updated, thanks so much for all the advice/help.

[GingivitisKahn]

Originally posted by Daddy Bear:
Try this:

  http://www.howardhillshooters.com/hillgrip/hillgrip.html  

Son of a dang it!  I love/hate threads like this one.  I've just recently switched to a longbow from a recurve and I've been working my butt off to grip it in what I *thought* was the suitcase grip advocated by Asbell and Hill (I thought).  

Lol - I've just spent the last couple of hours outside working to try to alter my grip to match the one in your link.  Honestly, I can see how that grip would be more consistent, but so far it also seems both hand-shockier and louder than what I'm used to.  

Thanks alot!  

:-p

[Daddy Bear]

My thoughts on the straight grip is that you cannot shoot it like a recurve. Your heel needs to be down while pushing the bow straight forward to the target. There are several grip techniques such as where you apply more pressure with the bottom fingers to ensure you are heel down. I do not need to do this and can do very well with a light and even pressure across all my fingers as my grip stays heel down and is dead solid upon release. I can even slightly open my fingers where I'm just barely hanging on to the handle (just enough so it doesn't fall to the ground) and I'll shoot well because I'm heel down straight behind the handle.

Once you find the sweet spot, it will come together. Bottom line is the pressure needs to be behind the handle at that sweet spot(heel down) pushing dead straight forward while the string is pulled dead straight back.

I can shoot a recurve pretty good, but to this day, it feels odd to me to take the pressure off the heel so that it rotates up to the web of my hand pushing into the pivot point of the locator. I'd guess that this is what some recurve shooters try to do when shooting a straight handle and this is probably where they run into trouble. I've even seen where recurve shooters curl under their bottom fingers and include them in their grip between the heel and the longbow straight grip which makes an artificial pistol grip so they can shoot with a straight wrist putting the pressure on the web of the hand. Some seem to make it work for target shooting, but I think your best served getting that heel down with a grip closer to that of Hill and his underlings.

Get that grip down, get some 9-11gpp wood arrows of proper spine, set your brace height, and the bow should shoot smooth and quiet.

later,
Daddy Bear

[Night Wing]

Don't forget about a 2315 in aluminum.

[Tom I.]

Last Oct. I attended Bob Wesley's Whispering Pines Shooting School.  Bob was a personal friend of Howard and learned Howards shooting methods. He taught Dick Wightman and myself to grip the bow like this...
  http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i156/win1885-1/grip.jpg
I'm left handed as you can see, but the same principles apply.  If you're right handed, draw a line about 1/8 - 1/4 inch to the left of the large knuckle at the base of the thumb. Align that with the center of the bow.  The reason Bob stresses this grip is that there are eight bones in your wrist that will be correctly aligned with your bow arm when it's used. My wrist in the picture is cocked to the right....a result of trying to get the picture....and doesn't represent the way I shoot.
Tom I.

[Tom I.]

[NancyVTAS]

Hi- Footed cedar can reach 35" with good F.O.C.Valley Traditional Archery Supply can get these shafts.