RH shooter- arrows doing anticlockwise spiral

[ozy clint]

i've been trying to tune my bob lee recurve with axis 400's for a while now. bow is 57#@28" with 8 strand D97 string. i draw about 26". i thought i had them pretty good until i ordered some simmons tree sharks and shot them. now they fly nock right on route to target. often they appear to do an anticlockwise spiral.
no worries with hitting where i wanted to, they just fly nock right. i raised my brace height from 7 5/8" to 8 1/8" and lowered my nock point to 3/8" and it has improved them heaps.

arrows are axis 400 with 250gr point, 100gr insert, 2 1/2" 2020 footing and four fletch. i also have some with a 300gr point and 50gr insert. (same weight upfront) they are 30 1/4" long BOP to nock.  

have i changed the dynamic spine of the arrow with the higher brace height?

i have spent the best part of 6 months tuning two bows. why is perfect arrow flight so elusive and frustrating to obtain? surely there is an easy way? i was using the adcock method but i could never get good broadhead flight even though i could get BH's and bareshafts to group together. now i just keep trimming a fletched BH till it flys good. even that that seems like a random task.

[Al Kidner]

Yeh mate... Carbons are a different bread of cat right there. I have some Grizzlystiks not doing as they are meant to at present but with time spent at the butts ( I also follow the Adcock method of tuning) ... I am confident things will fall into place.

Just remember to adjust one thing at a time mate...

Best of luck,


ak.

[onewhohasfun]

Another option. Click on the Tuffhead site on the top right of this page. Then click on Education. Arrow tuning in left hand column. Haven't tried it my self but a diff. way to skin the cat.

[ChrisM]

I have a Lee almost to the same specs with almost the identical draw and find the a 400 with 28BOP all I need is a 250 point with the standard insert to get perfect flight.  Thats with woodsmans, zwickeys, and grizzlys.  Your set up just seems a tad weak.  I figure the counter clockwise is due to the fact that your in the southern hemishphere.

[Doc Nock]

Sent you a note, Oz.  And didn't read far enough cause I duplicated some of what has been said...

Have fun!

[old_goat2]

Originally posted by ChrisM:
I have a Lee almost to the same specs with almost the identical draw and find the a 400 with 28BOP all I need is a 250 point with the standard insert to get perfect flight.  Thats with woodsmans, zwickeys, and grizzlys.  Your set up just seems a tad weak.  I figure the counter clockwise is due to the fact that your in the southern hemishphere.

Dang it, you beat me to the Southern Hemisphere gag line:O Don't know what the Adcock method is, but best method I've found is get you arrows flying good with a field tip the same weight as the broadhead and broadhead should fly good. At the local trad shop here, they will have somebody watch over your shoulder to get a good look at your arrow flight and then adjust tip weight or arrow length to get the flight true. Another possibility is an optical illusion caused by using different color feathers. If you have the gear to fletch your own arrows, try fletching one up with all the same color feathers and see if the cork screw flight is real or an illusion. Now that is if it isn't a pronounced spiral. The illusion caused by different colored feathers looks like a small oscillation.
Good Luck!

[Gump21Bravo]

A higher brace will change the spine.

Are they glue on or screw in heads?

[ozy clint]

i have tried trimming them them all the way down to 28" and flight got worse.
changing point weight is not an option as i have bh i want to use. besides i have tried chaning point weight to verify that i need to trim and i can make huge changes in point weight and not see any difference in flight.
all my feathers are the same colour.
i've had heaps of people say my setup is too weak but i can't understand why flight gets worse the shorter my arrow gets. surely you can't get good flight (like i have now since i raised the brace and lowered the nockpoint) with grossly underspined arrows??

so what does a higher brace do, stiffen or weaken?

[McDave]

In your first post, you noted that you shot some bare shafts along with broadheads. Were the bare shafts tipped with field points of the same weight as your broadheads?  Wouldn't the flight characteristics of the bare shafts give you a clear indication as to whether your setup is too weak or not, i.e. nock left and impact right indicates too weak of a shaft?  Granted, there may be more tuning to do for broadheads once you have good flight characteristics with a bare shaft tipped with a field point, but I wonder if you have omitted that step?

[Orion]

Is that Lee cut well past center.  The axis shafts are quite skinny.  If your arrow is pointing right of the string, even bi-secting the string, you're not going to get good arrow flight for a right handed shooter.  Stop trying to stiffen the arrows, and build out the side plate a little.  

[Razorbak]

personaly I feel your way over spined at your draw of 26" and 51# or so ..could get away with a 500 spine and cut to 28"BOP and 200 to 250 head..not gonna lose to much weight between shafts and are your feathers massive helical ..I had feathers hitting my shelf and spinning all funky at one time..now I do a moderate helical...check to see if your bisecting string with arrow then when your are...then add 1/16" and you will be good...use the adcock method then go 1 step more..paper tune and that will really help even more..still can use your choice of broadhead but bare shaft full length with point weight you want and cut as you go..if your using Axis shafts then instead of gluing..just add insert and point and duct tape point and shaft that way you can cut...paper testing will tell you alot..try it out

[ozy clint]

yes the field points are the same weight. the bare shafts fly nock left and the BH's fly nock right but group together???

the bow is cut 3/16" past center and i use the loop side of velcro as the side plate. the point of the arrow is to the left of the string when sitting on the string and viewed from the rear with the string centered down the riser.

i'll try building out my side plate and see.

[jonsimoneau]

Hey Bud. I think maybe you have too many variables going at one time. Try this as it works well for me. Without worrying about arrow flight, put your brace height where the bow is quietest and has the least hand shock. After this I like to deal with left right problems. To do this I find it helpful to take the nock point out of the equation. I do this by raising the nock point to 3/4 of in inch. Now work on left to right problems while keeping in mind they will all impact nock high. Once I've gotten the left right thing figured out I start lowering the nock point 1/16th at a time untill I have taken the nock high out.

[McDave]

I think I agree with Jon. If your bare shafts are flying nock-left, then that means they are weak. It's nice that they're impacting with your fletched arrows, but they're still weak. So work on that by decreasing your point weight, increasing tail weight, increasing spine, or decreasing length until the bare shafts are flying straight, or just slightly weak to account for the stiffening effect of the feathers.  Your bare shafts should be flying straight enough that they should hit where you want out to 20 yards or so.

I also agree with the comment made previously about center-shot: it is certainly true that an arrow will not fly well from a finger release unless it is slightly outside of center. However, it appears you have checked this and your arrow point is outside the center line, so I guess this isn't the problem.  I wouldn't overdo this; if the point of the arrow appears to lie outside the centerline, that should be sufficient.

[yeager]

My Bob Lee Cassic set-up is very similar to yours...55#@28", draw of 26 1/2", brace height of 8", nock point of 9/16, and a D97 8 strand string.  I shoot the Easton Axis FMJ 500's with the standard insert and 150g broadhead.  Using Stu's calculator, the recommended arrow length was 28 1/16".  These arrows fly absolutely perfect.

Yes to you other question, raising the brace height will change the dynamic spine...it should make it weaker.

[xtrema312]

Originally posted by ChrisM:
I have a Lee almost to the same specs with almost the identical draw and find the a 400 with 28BOP all I need is a 250 point with the standard insert to get perfect flight.  Thats with woodsmans, zwickeys, and grizzlys.  Your set up just seems a tad weak.  I figure the counter clockwise is due to the fact that your in the southern hemishphere.

I would say ChrisM is in the right place with his setup.  You may have cut to 28" but you also still have more weight up front. Everyone is different, but he is in the ball park of where I would be tuning.  I take Stu's calculator and start about 15 lb. weak as a base point.  

I think you are way weak with the 30" plus shaft.  You may have trimmed them and things got worse, but you may just not have gotten it figured out is all.  If you have one of those shorter shaft, I would get it back out and work with it some more.  Maybe cut it down more or lighten up on the point weight or insert to see if you can get it worked out.  Then you can see what to do to get the head you want tuned.  You could easily be too weak with all that weight up front and 28” shaft.  I would also build out the riser some.  That will help see if they are weak without more cutting or different points.  Some corrugated cardboard and tape is a fast system for testing.

I have experimented with a lot of extra shaft out front on carbons.  That was an odd thing to try and tune with a lot of point weight.  A lot of extra shaft and more standard FOC was okay, but high FOC caused all kinds of odd stuff.  I think due to some kind of whipping effect of all that weight and the fast recovery of a carbon shaft.  Now I don’t even try to tune anything HFOC unless I can get that shaft down to no more than 1 ½” of overhang.

[snag]

Way weak with that much weight out front. I think if you want to try the 30.25"bop shaft then go down to around 175gr total upfront and see how it flies. With a 26" draw length I like the idea of a 28"-27" bop arrow. You've received some good advice so far. Just do one thing at a time and don't get frustrated.

[RM81]

Originally posted by snag:
 You've received some good advice so far. Just do one thing at a time and don't get frustrated.

I agree.  One change at a time and then test it.

[ozy clint]

i'm not convinced that the arrows are way underspined. flight got worse with 28" arrows with the 400's. this is what i can't understand.

my flight has improved to an acceptable level by increasing the brace height and that is said to weaken the shaft.
razorback says i'm too stiff.
i've punched setups that i know to be good into stu's calculator and it always says i'm way underspined.

thanks for the input guys.
i'll try at short shaft again to satisfy my curiosity

[xtrema312]

If I have all the right info in Stu's calculator correctly, your bows needs 77# spine and your arrows is 34#.  I always end up on the weak side of what the calculator says particularly with 400 spine carbon, but not 40# weak.  Even at 28” if you had the 100 insert and 250 point you would still be 30# under spine per calculator.

Get a 27-28” shaft if you have one and drop down point weight to something like 250 gr total point and insert.  Then see what happens and play with the point and/or inserts as needed to raise or lower the total point weight to tune.  I would usually not tell someone to go real short on arrows right off, but with what you are trying to do for a heavy arrow with EFOC, I think you can do that with a one shaft to start.  

Try a quick shim on the side plate also once you get in the ballpark if your arrow is still weak.  That can be faster than changing inserts if you don’t have a full range of point weights to get where needed and you can’t cut down your arrow any more.  That could help you also if the combination of a thin plate materials, cut well past center bow, and a skinny carbon are making for too much cut past center to give you the forgiveness you need for finger shooting. I have not shot a bow cut that far past center and those diameter carbons to know for sure on that, but I do know of a couple people who have built out to get those shafts to shoot well for them.

There are a lot of variable, but I am going to guess that with that shaft and a 250 gr. head, you will end up with a 27-27.5” shaft, 50 gr. Insert, and maybe a little playing with brace and side plate thickness to get it. Maybe even a standard insert, but I have a feeling you want brass so I figured at least the 50 gr.

Once you get something set up within about 10-15# spine of what the calculator says, then keep track of what each change does to figure out what is going on.  I try to let my nock point be a little high to keep shelf issue out of things until I get my left to right close.  In addition, I have a hard time getting level flight out of a bare shaft with HFOC – EFOC.  I just can’t do it so I plan to have a bare shaft always fly a little nock high and left. (Right handed)