Bill Olmesdahl

The helico may be a little slower than the ofset, but should stablize the arrow with a bh on it much faster. I use LW helico clamp for both feathers and vanes. I still find that nothing beats a 5.0 feather for forgiving in shooting 3D or hunting. I even played with some of the mag 5.5 inch and they work well. The only way you will know if they will shoot the same is to shoot the arrows side by side and see..

Pinwheel 12

I' ve always tuned my fieldpoints and broadheads individually. Why? Because regardless of the fact that they may have identical weight heads, the length of ferrule, along with the differing drag co-efficient of each designs' configuration, (which in turn makes for a differing paradox coming out of the bow) nine times out of ten will NOT group together when tuned correctly. Admittedly a few will, but more often then not you end up " de-tuning" a perfected setup to reach the identical results as opposed to simply tuning individually and getting the best performacne out of a given setup.

Try this---Take a fieldpoint arrow, and tune it to the best of your capability. Shoot it out of a hooter shooter till it hits the same hole at 20 yds, or get them grouping as tight as possible if you are free-handing. Now, shoot a broadhead-tipped arrow out of the same setup without touching anything. Does it hit the same hole WITHOUT any adjustment at all? No, it doesn' t. If it does, you are extremely lucky because you found one of those " one in a million" setups that do. Try it vice versa, tuning the broadheads first, then trying to put a fieldtipped arow into the same hole without adjustment---Most often times, they won' t either. So, what do you do? Leave the configuration for the application at hand at it' s tightest group setting, OR, try to get them to fly the same, turning a perfectly-tuned setup into a " happy medium" one? I do not shoot fieldtips while I' m hunting, nor do I shoot broadheads while I' m playing 3D, therefore there is no need anyway to try and have them fly the same. It only takes about 5 minutes to go from one perfect setting to the other once you know where they fall into the best grouping range. This " getting them to both fly together" IMHO is a big myth that merely got taken for granted, much the same as bare-shaft tuning. (No-one can tell me that an arrow that has no fletching will fly exactly the same as one that does, either, because they have differing drag co-efficients and FOC. If they do, then neither is correctly tuned.) Just a few more tidbits to chew on and keep you guys thinking. Good shooting, Pinwheel 12

Arthur P

But Chuck Adams says that' s the way to do it! Of course, he also says ' Buy my tuning kit' complete with the Satelite match points.

IMO, he' s the guy responsible for that myth.

I' m also trying to track down the idiot that began the ' perfect bulletholes in paper mean your bow is perfectly tuned' myth.

All kinds of urban legends surrounding this archery business, Pinwheel!

Pinwheel 12

So true, Art. So true. Pinwheel 12

Raymond van Halm

Once I watched a slow-motion video about arrows comming from a bow......
They start spinning some 2 feet after the arrow went over the rest......
This was with off-set vanes.
I was told helical would be better for broadhead tuning, but I can get mine flying deadly strait with off-set vanes to.
I think its in the carbon shaft tho.....
Does anyone still powder their vanes to see IF they scratch the rest?
This is still a well proven method to see if everything passes your bow in good order.....

Straightarrow

Are you guys shooting helicals, able to do it with carbon arrows?

Pinwheel, would you say that the broadheads should hit close to where the field tips do, and if so, how close would you say they should be? It is my belief that if you tune your broadhead separately from your fieldtips and they hit 6" apart at 20 yards, something is wrong. Just wondering what distance would trigger a concern in your mind?

Pinwheel 12

SA-

All depends on the amount of difference in drag from the varying components utilized in the individual setups IMHO. I would think you can get them reasonably close, and as mentioned above some MAY even fly " close enough" to the same, but I have yet to see two didfferently configured arrows go into the same hole out of a machine without at least some subtle tweaking. Most of the time I find a impact differential not only in left/right, but high/low also. The paradox is different whenever you change components, no matter how subtle the difference--if you run 1.8" fletch with an offset for 3D, and run 4" helical vanes for hunting, along with a 100 parabolic point versus a 100 grain fixed blade broadhead, yes, they are going to fly different. Physics 101.

Now, for some people, 4-6" groups at 20 yds may be " close enough" --in fact alot of people/places believe/promote that it is good hunting accuracy if one can hit a paper plate (9" ) at 20yds! I personally do not and frown on this type of lunacy. A paper plate at 20 with a recurve and instinctive, maybe, but to me if I or my customers cannot feel comfortable about hitting a 3" or less dot at 20 yds(I personally practice on Vegas target faces with baby X' s) with the compounds/arrows/sights/releases of today, then realistically IMO we have no business being out there to begin with--we owe it to the game we seek to be as accurate as we possibly can, no matter what we shoot. And even tho alot of us are this way, we STILL occasionally lose game, so the extra effort is needed to be as accurate as possible, no question. Using such a benchmark as the one above as an excuse for laziness is unacceptable IMHO. Just my own thoughts, Pinwheel 12

Straightarrow

I don' t think I worded my question very well. I wasn' t really concerned with accuracy. I was trying to find out if the tuning was considered good, even if broadheads grouped 6" away from the grouping from the same arrow with the same weight field tips. I have always found that if, in addition to fine tuning, I tweak for the ideal draw weight for the arrow spine, I get groups with either broadheads or field tips, that are very close to each other. That is, as long as everything else is the same (same fletching, same length, same arrow weight).

In other words, if my grouping for broadheads was 6" away from my grouping with field tips, I would take that to mean that something was off with my tuning, my draw weight, or my actual arrows. I doubt that I' ve ever tuned a bow that had the broadhead groups more then 2" away from the same arrow with field tips. In fact, I would bet that they' re usually within an inch at 20 yards.

Pinwheel 12

SA-

I also tune the bow to the arrow, not the arrow to the bow. If it takes a turn or two one way or the other to help bring the spine in, then that is what I do, along with other little " tricks of the trade" .

Sorry if I misunderstood your original question---yes, normally most will be within a few inches at 20 yds when appropriately tuned, but this is depending again on the individual configuration--I have seen some broadheads(no names mentioned) that were perfectly tuned that impacted over 8" away from a fieldtipped arrow utilizing the same shaft and vanes and tip weight, all due to the blades of the broadhead, their angle, and the differing drag it thus produced. It all goes back to how much a broadhead or vanes or whatever component will affect the flight of the arrow itself due to it' s configuration. One would think that they would all fly close, yes, but if it paradoxes differently and is grabbing air during the paradox with wider blades, it will simply fly differently. Sometimes even much differently. Good shooting, Pinwheel 12

Straightarrow

I' ve shot limited types of broadheads and haven' t experienced anything that far off (8" ) that I couldn' t correct with spine adjustments and tuning. Thanks for the input.