What is stacking?

[wisconsinteacher]

What is stacking?  I hear it all the time.

[Winterhawk1960]

Stacking is when a bow begins to gain more than the usual 2-3 lbs per inch during the draw. It gets noticably harder to reach your full draw.

Winterhawk1960

[KentuckyTJ]

What Winterhawk said.

[Kris]

When the weight of your bow near or at full draw becomes disproportionately heavier.  Typically you gain approx. 3# per inch of draw, a bow is stacking when this spikes i.e. 4-5# (or more) per inch draw.  Caused chiefly by large differences in string angle at early and later stages of draw.  Especially noticed in short bows or long draw lengths.  "Stack" is undesirable and something a good limb profile attempts to alleviate.  

Kris

[George D. Stout]

Stack is a product of limb design, more than bow length.  Also, it is important to know exactly when a bow stacks for sure, not when you are feeling finger pinch or just a natural build-up of pull weight.

The only way to tell for sure is with a force draw curve.   Put the bow on a scale, and measure inch to inch pound changes.  When the change become increasingly more between draw inches, it is starting to stack.

All stack is not bad.  Some folks like a bow that starts to stack right at their draw.