Bare Shaft confusion...

[VA Elite]

are you supposed to look at the way the arrow impacts the target? nock left or nock right or POI left or right?

[britt]

Check-out greyarcher1 on you tube. He has a simple way of doing and explaining bare shaft tuning.

[flinthead]

For a right handed shooter the arrow knock left is weak, the knock right is stiff. Roy

[Alexander Traditional]

http://www.acsbows.com/bowtuning.html

[VA Elite]

so can a 3d target work for nock right or left or is it too hard? I hear bag targets are too soft.

[VA Elite]

I just watch a great video on you tube. S3 Archery. it was very clear on what to do. One thing he said was do not cant the bow when bare shafting!! Good to know that

[Bladepeek]

Up close, like the 7 yards I can get in my shop, I look at the angle of impact to see if I'm getting close. After that, I go to a range where I can shoot 20 yards and then I'm really just concerned with point of impact. If I can get bareshaft and fletched hitting together at that distance or beyond, I'm a happy camper.

[sticksnstones]

I like the long version Ken Beck video best, 25 minutes well spent    HERE.  
Thom

[VA Elite]

thanks Sticks! I did manage somehow to get a bare shaft to fly straight and hit perfectly once at 24 yards. Blind luck?

[McDave]

Thanks for the link Sticks!  Ken Beck has a section on bare shaft tuning in Masters of the Bare Bow, and This YouTube video expands on that.  Everyone who is interested in bare shaft tuning should watch this.

[sticksnstones]

Personally I always take 10 shots in a row and put tick marks on the target. If all 10 are weak I cut 1/8". If it's a mix of results I take a break and refocus on form and try again.

The other thing that I've seen confuse some guys is that they shoot into targets that are shot up and the arrow can tweak on impact and give false readings.  I've got two tricks that might help with watching the arrow in flight. First have a buddy stand behind you and film the arrow in slow-motion mode. The other one is if you can't see the nock in flight, swap the nock for one of those Nocturnals. With a black shaft and a black target with poor indoor ligting this is the only way I can always see the nock clearly.

Once I get a bare shaft flying perfectly I put it in my quiver and I shoot it right along with my field points. I shoot 5 yards out to almost 30 on foam, and a well tuned bare shaft will be fine for anything in there.

Hope something above helps!
Thom

[McDave]

Another tip would be to have the arrows you're shooting match the bare shaft as much as possible in weight and spine. We're all aware of weight and spine variations (and straightness variations, while we're at it) in wood arrows, but be aware that there could also be weight and spine variations in carbon arrows.  Probably a good idea to check this rather than just assuming they are all the same weight and spine.

Probably not so much weight and spine variation in aluminum arrows as in carbon, but do check the straightness of your aluminum arrows from time to time.

[VA Elite]

see I don't understand. How can you expect a bare shaft to fly like a fletched shaft. I mean you can get the bare shaft to fly perfect, but when you add the fletching doesn't that change the weight and spine of a shaft? Im just thinking out loud.

[PaulDeadringer29]

That's why some guys bare shaft until the shaft shows a tad weak. Then when they add fletching, the arrow stiffens up to compensate for the tad weak reading.

[VA Elite]

gotcha

[A.S.]

Landon, just to add to the already good info above, I have a bare shaft with the feather bases in place. I just trimmed the quills off each feather. This leaves most of the feather weight in place without having the guidance of the actual feather.

Comparing a shaft rigged this way to a completely bare shaft, the fully bare shaft shoots weaker.

Hope this makes sense!

[VA Elite]

yeh, I saw a guy do that on you tube. I should have done that myself. Allen, I am going to shoot the bare shaft again today without canting the bow, if I get a stiff reading, should i just trim the silencers a bit more? I took very little off. I think I am almost there. I was getting some serious fletch contact on the side plate and shelf, I will try and turn nock to get cock feather up and also cock feather in and see if that helps.

[AZ_Longbow]

I wrap the bare shafts with some electrical tape or clear tape spiraling the stuff down the length where my wrap would be trying not to double the stuff up to much. its heavy enough to compensate for both the wrap and the feathers to help with the spine changes. when you add weight to the back you make the spine heavier after all.

[A.S.]

Landon, yep just keep trimming a little at a time. I tend to get my best results with cock feather up.

Ken Beck does a great job explaining it like others have posted.

[VA Elite]

Ok, here is what I have come up with through much trial and error, lots of error. Kirk  of Bigfoot bows, Allen (A.S.), and Paradocs have been instrumental in the entire process. Big thanks to them. I took the bare shaft shot from 5-24 yards. Every shot was a just slightly weak. from 5-15 it was nock left in the target every time but just slightly. from 16-24 I could see the arrow nock left in flight. It was just ever so noticeable. only a slight bit for just a split second..but it landed straight in the target... Fletched arrows were spot on every time. I may have just tuned my first recurve!!