GT Traditionals

[rwbowman]

So here I sit, waiting for USPS to update the status of an order I have in transit.
I pulled the trigger on some GT Trads the other day and have a question.I bought the 3555/500 .006 straightness instead of the .003 straightness model. What differences between the two will there be in relation to shooting? I'll be shooting them from a 47# at my draw 27", 62" Holzrichter custom longbow. Any thoughts or experiences with these arrows in the .006 straightness?

[reddogge]

Only if you are an Olympian will you notice the difference. Don't sweat it.

[ISP 5353]

You will never notice it.  Build them up and shoot them with confidence!

[A.S.]

One trick a local pro shop told me (he was told this by an arrow manufacture rep)is if you are going to cut your shafts to length, first cut an inch off the nock end, then cut the rest off the point end. Most of the un-trueness in a shaft is in the first inch of each end.

[Matty]

You won't notice a thing. I've shot semi bent ones with the same accuracy as the straighter ones.  Enjoy

[Keefer]

Originally posted by A.S.:
One trick a local pro shop told me (he was told this by an arrow manufacture rep)is if you are going to cut your shafts to length, first cut an inch off the nock end, then cut the rest off the point end. Most of the un-trueness in a shaft is in the first inch of each end.

That's good to know and thanks for sharing that imfomation  

[Flying Dutchman]

If you are able to hit every time a dollar coin at 40 yards, you will notice the difference...  

[dhermon85]

.003 isn't much difference

[JRY309]

I have heard the same as  A.S. has heard cut a bit off the nock end first.My GT Trad blems shoot great,you won't notice any difference!It's all in your head,a mental thing.

[rwbowman]

Thanks for the reassurance guys! I got them in today with the rest of my 'new year' order. I bareshafted one and went forth wrapping and fletching them up. Plan to go shoot for a few hours tomorrow, so we'll see how they fly for me. Thought I'd get some new arrows for target and 3D that will shoot a little flatter for me.
Been busy this afternoon and evening chopping the wild turkey for cock feathers and dressing these up.
 

[reddogge]

BTW I've been shooting Big Jim's blems for years and they are great shafts. Never broke one yet, not counting the ones that slammed into the metal support posts on a 3-D target.

[LKH]

I wish I could tell the difference.

[S.C. Hunter]

You will not see a difference. I have a friend who does competition shooting on a national level with a bow we won't speak of here, and he has shot .003 and.006 side by side at 20 yards, and he puts both in a dot the size of a quarter.

[Pheonixarcher]

And just an FYI, that .006 is maximum tolerance. That does not mean that every shaft will be that untrue. I have gotten some perfectly straight shafts within my dozens of these arrows.

[rwbowman]

So, I bareshafted until I got straight hits, put cap wraps on and fletched them up. Now I can't help wondering how much affect the cap wraps are having on my spine! Maybe it's all in my head that I expect them to hit differently than my Beman Classics because of the weight difference and that's where the result I'm getting is coming from.. If I'm not hitting high, I'm hitting low. Same goes for left and right.
Typically on our indoor 25 target 3D shoot, I shoot around 190+ (not good at shooting rings), but last night I had 5 misses and scored a 151. The only sweet almost saving grace was the bonus shoot, a 35+ yd shot at a foam apple on the back of a deer target. I was the only one who hit of 16 shooters.
What's going on with my shooting? Maybe I'm just being inconsistent in my form, because on paper I shot a few 8-10 arrow groups that were, to me, near perfect at 20 yards (4s and 5s on a field target). Other times, I was all over the place.
Frustrating, to say the least.
Shooting a custom 62" longbow, cut shy of center, 47# at my draw of 27". Arrows are GT Trad 3555, cut to 28 1/8" (valley of nock to back of point), 145 grain field points, caps are 6 1/2" with 3- 4" shield cut feathers.

Stu Miller's Spine Calc says i should be at 65.6 and with these arrows I'm at 65.5, without the option of cap wraps.

[tracker12]

Arrow wraps are very light and I would find it hard to believe they are affecting your arrow flight.................Might be overthinking it.  We all have a bad night once in awhile.

[rwbowman]

Thanks Tracker, but they are the reflective kind and are a bit thicker than typical wraps. There's a bit more mass to them and in turn, I wonder if the additional weight in the back end is increasing the dynamic spine. This is normal, from my understanding, for wraps of any kind. Even crown dipping with paint adds some weight.

[rwbowman]

So I trimmed and peeled about an inch of the cap wraps off of the arrows and added a turbulator band 1/4" in front of each of the remaining wraps. Call me crazy, but flight looks to be more stable and POI is looking better too. While I'm not certain how much weight the removal offset (probably not much), the turbulator bands are something I've always used on my Bemans and I believe these help to disrupt airflow and put more spin on things.

[Stix]

Regular GT35/55 fly straight out of my bow but the traditionals fly stiff. I put them on a spine tester and the regular GT's are .500 spine, and the traditionals come in at about .460. So the traditionals are a bit stiffer, probably from the woodgrain film on them. Gotta shoot heavier tip to get em to fly right.

[jerseyboy]

You wont notice a thing