Tuning Help

[Roaring Reds]

Hi, Recently purchased a Big Jim Thunderchild off a fellow member. It is #50 @ 28. 56 in. Long. My draw is 28 as well. Im going to be hunting red deer and thar, along with smaller game like fallow deer and such. I only get one shot at making my order correct for arrows etc. I was thinking of a heavier tip to help with penetration. Any ideas or suggestions would be great. Oh yea i need to shoot carbon because wood is to expensive to get here. I thought of shooting gold tip carbons which i would have to order from the states. Thanks in advance, John.          PS still waiting on the bow to arrive. Cant wait  

[reddogge]

Gold tip 3555s should shoot well. I'd order some 50 gr brass inserts along with them and 125 and 145 grain tips. Order them full length and cut when tuning.

[McDave]

I agree with reddogge.  GT 3555's should work for you.  If you're going to cut the 3555's yourself, you will need a cutting tool.  Some people use utility tools like Dremels, but I wonder how they get a 90 degree cutoff.  You can get a good right angle with a cutoff tool designed for cutting carbon arrows, but that's extra money I don't know if you're prepared to spend.

You could just ask for the shafts to be cut to 29".  I cut all my GT shafts to 29", even though I have a cutting tool.  In addition to the 50 gr brass inserts recommended by reddogge, you should order some 20 gr brass inserts, and some nock adapters that will allow you to put additional weight on the nock end if need be.  If you need to stiffen the shaft, you add weight to the nock; if you need to weaken the shaft, you add weight to the point.  I have tuned 3555 GT's for all of my bows in your weight range by various combinations of point and nock weight.

With the right combination of weights, you should be able to tune a 29" GT 3555 to work with your bow, and use a 150 grain broadhead.  That means you will be using 145 grain tips to practice with, which is probably work okay because you will probably sharpen off about 5 grains from the broadheads anyway.