Bare Shaft Tuning

[xtrema312]

I think carbon tolerates a lot of variance in spine.  I have done a lot of bare shaft tuning and found for me it is best to keep them a bit weak.  At 15-20 yards if my fletched arrows hit center of a paper plate and my bare shafts hit out at the edge about 4-5 o'clock that is good.  I think they are too stiff if they actually hit in the same place.  Paper tuning has confirmed that quite a few times.  In addition, they shoot best fletched groups if bare shaft a bit weak. I have set up quite a few arrows for bows with real good bare shafting and found they just don’t shoot as good groups as a bit weaker like bumping the point weight another 25 grains. For me it is a mix of good bare shaft flight, broadheads hitting the same as field points, tight groups, and forgiveness.  I think all those things can be gotten with the right tune.

[DaveT1963]

Bare shaft to get proper arrow spine, paper tune to get proper flight (if my arrows with fletch shoot bullet holes at 5 to 6 feet what more can I ask) and then fine tune with fletched broadheads.  I usually am pretty happy if my fletched field points and fletched broadheads hit same pip plate at 30-40 yards.  Unless you have  a "perfect release/form" every single time bareshafting can drive a man insane.  There is a reason that people have been tying feathers to arrows shafts for 1000s of years

[Bladepeek]

Here's a question just to stimulate some thought among the paper tuners.

If I watch slow motion flight of woodies, especially, there is a fair amount of oscillation going on for a lot more than 6 feet from the bow. If I get the arrow shooting bullet holes at 6 feet, what is it doing at 5 or 10 feet? Doesn't it seem that the point at which there is no tear must be at one of the distances where the arrow is passing through zero flex on its way to flexing the other way? It would also seem to me that a zero-tear distance would exist for a weak or stiff arrow; just a different distance.

Eventually, the fletching will stabilize either a weak or stiff arrow, although it will take longer to stabilize a weak one.

Just food for thought for those of us who aren't busy shooting at the moment  

[SAVIOUR68]

IMO bareshafting allows for finer arrow tune as said above which in my own testing as a old paper tuner who ate the humble pie several times.

[jhg]

I thought the whole point of bareshaft PLANING was to shoot BOTH fletched and bareshafts, idenetical shafts one with fletching the other without to get them to BOTH hit the same place. The bareshafting will tell you about spine and nock height, release issues, etc. The fletched shafts the "corrected" spot of impact.
You use both parts to arrive at a shaft spine and a nock height.

Any other method "bareshafting" is really only half the equation.

Joshua

[SAVIOUR68]

If bareshafting was done properly there will be very little to NO change from a fletched shaft to bareshaft, the fletched shaft can/may have different impact points also due to flecth size and shape controlling the rear of the arrow. The whole purpose is finding the correct spine arrow for your bow.

[SAVIOUR68]

[DaveT1963]

I swear sometimes us trad guys way over complicate things..... as for me I am sticking to Bryan Ferguson's method as it works, it takes only about 30 minutes and my arrows are doing what I want them to - flying straight, hitting where I am looking.

[JamesKerr]

I don't know that you will see much of a speed difference or not Kirk. To me the arrow should still be flying pretty close to the same speed but because of it being weak and over flexing or being stiff and having some wag in the tail the total amount of energy is not following a straight line like it would be with a perfectly flying arrow. Again I don't know if it will show up on a chronograph but when I first started bowhunting I didn't know anything about tuning and I killed a few deer with my 55# longbow but only got about half the arrow penetrating the deer. Since I have learned about tuning I consistently get full penetration and a lot of times the arrow is sticking in the ground on the other side.