bigcountry25

I too have never bare shaft tuned. But I plan to give it a try the one ? I have is how do you know which way to move the rest? Do you do it by watching the arrow in flight or by the angle it sticks in the target. The only tuning I do is paper then if I am shooting pretty good groups I leave it alone. Thats not saying the tune is perfect but close enough IMO. Also I don't see how a bare shaft should impact the same as a fletched one because the FOC, arrow weight and spine should have an effect on a non fletched shaft then when you fletch them it all should change again? I am I on track with my thinking?

bakerwonderhound

Does someone have a website that gives specifics on bare shaft tuning. ie distances and what outcome you are tuning for? I am somewhat knew to paper and bare shaft tuning. I tried paper last year, what a nightmare. At a recent sportsman's show, the muzzy rep told me to bare shaft at ten feet until my shaft impacted the target strsight, then things should be all set. Is this correct?

ewolf

I'm going to most likely be balck listed for say this but... Don't move your arrow rest to fix the bare shaft. It is wrong to do this. A bow is tuned when it shoots a bare shaft perfect, when the bow is centershot. Paper and bareshaft tuning tell you the spine in relation with the arrow rest. A bow will bareshaft tune by moving the rest however you will have adverse side affects. I can prove this. Take some arrows that are out of spine for your set up. Move the arrow rest to shot the bareshaft perfect then shot an arrow at 5,10..30 yards and look at how the point of impact changes left to right. Your arrows will not be in a perfect line. Those of you that move the arrow rest really need to look into how you are tuning. This is all my opinion, but moving the rest is a bandaid fix.

BGfisher

I agree with ewolf on this. I never move my rest. I play with different spined arrows, point weight, but mostly bow weight to get my shafts going straight. I start at about 6' and move back little by little adjusting as necessary along the way.

And here's some poop to digest. It's not impossible but very hard many times to geta single cam bow to bare shaft properly because of several factors. One is that many have a certain amount of cam-lean. Two, they all have the string angles across the bow from bottom to top, with the string off center at the bottom. All this causes some sideways oscillation of the string.

If you do try it here is another tip. Your arrows hitting left or right is mostly just the opposite indication as for finger shooters. I've found that stiff arrows most often will plane to the right and limber arrows to the left.

There is another glitch to this method while using carbon arrows. Most often carbon arrows do not have concentric spine (if this is the right term). In other words they are stiffer on one side than the other. I found this out by reading about it then trying it. I used a bare shaft and shot it at 20 yards. It planed about 4" to the right. I nocked that arrow again, this time 180 degrees opposite of the first time and it planed left about the same amount. Now what to do? Just shows what junk we tend to shoot no matter how much we spend or how hard we try.

And to accomplish bare shafting at longer distances, like anything over 30 yards you better have some awfully consistent form to get consistent results. That can be a benefit. It forces you to shoot form. And get consistent at it.

Now I do have to admit that it is fairly easy for me as that's how we did things 30 years ago so I learned it back then. The other is that I am shooting a bow that is dual cam, and everything has been laser aligned at rest and at full draw and the cams and string are dead center on the bow.

Blodg

ewolf, we can agree to disagree and that is OK. I have no problem moving the rest slightly to get the bare shafts to impact with the fletched. You say the bow is not tuned if the rest is moved from centershot. I say that if my bare shafts are impacting the same and tearing near bullet holes in paper, and hitting what I am aiming at then the bow is considered tuned. I did cut 1 full inch off my ACC 3D arrows for my new Allegaince because they were too weak. I also dropped from 87 grain points down to 70 grains and still to weak. Can't cut anymore off the arrow so I moved the rest instead of spending $130 on new arrows. Oh, and by-the-way, the bow that by your defination is not tuned just shot 300/53X today in only my 2nd 5 spot round with my new Allegaince.

Elkcrazy8

I agree with Blodg, I tuned bareshaft at 20 yards and called it good last year. That same bow whether untuned or not took a state title and finished #6 in the NW IBO triple crown last year. I went on to take an elk, a turkey, an antelope and a mule deer last year with the same bow. You can spend as much time as you want to tuning a bow. I choose to spend more time working on form. Terry Ragsdale set a world record and shot a 4 inch tear with his bow after setting it. As long as you do the same thing every time you will be right there every time. I agree also that shooting out to 30 40 and beyond while bare shafting is counterproductive. 20 yards is my max and I exclude any flyers that may happen with the bare shaft to allow for form flaws while doing this. After I am done, I can usually get the arrows to group about 1/2 inch at 20 yards. If you do your homework before hand you should not have to deal with spine issues when you get into shooting and set-up. There are some great programs out there to help you with this. Pinwheel software can be downloaded for 20.00 and can assist you with all your arrow selection questions. You can figure speed of your setup, different arrow choices,and so on. It will calculate foc ,grain weights and the works. The one thing that I have noticed in many years of archery is that alot of archers have different ways of tuning that they swear by. None of them are right or wrong. You need to choose what you beleive in and gives you confidence in your equipment. If you beleive in your equipment, you have a far better chance at making the shot when it comes down to crunch time. Try both methods and decide for yourself. All of these guys seem to have a good knowledge of archery and have taken the time to figure what works for them. Good luck and let us know what you come up with. I for one am interested.

BOWFANATIC

For the beginning process of bare shaft tuning I'd agree with you. If your arrows are impacting several inches to right or left then fix the problem with arrow spine (I also adjust bow poundage like mentioned above).
For the end process (if neccesary) then I'll move the rest to get exact impact (I'm talking micro adjustments here) between fletched and unfletched.
I'm a little curious how you know you have "perfect center shot" by eyeballing or measuring for that matter?[&:] Thats what those little micro adjustments are intended for on the rests. When all is said and done with my setups and both fletched and unfletched shafts are impacting the same (especially after moving the rest) then I feel I have accomplished a more true center shot than I had to begin with.

Blodg

Exactly, because everyone has different form and different pressure points on their grip and may result in different arrow flight even given the optimum arrow spine.

ewolf

Tune the way you guys want to tune, that is your deal. Just please don't be telling people that bareshafting tells them centershot. Or at least it doesn't tell them centershot when it is way off.

I have yet to have a bow that is not center shot when the string is in the middle of the grip and the arrow is behind the string, even with fingers (This is with longer ATA length bows, this doesn't work with shorter bows).

Here is how I check my center shot. I shot an arrow at 5,10...30 yards (discard all bad arrows and shoot over). The arrows can do 5 things. Fall in a perfect straight vertical line (perfect centershot). Make a C shape which means the arrow rest is too far out. Make a Backwards C which means the arrow rest that is too far in. Or make line from high right to low left or vs versus. These lines mean the spine is out on the bow.

Bow and Blodg try this "step back" method, it would be intersting to all of us to see how it turns out. you have to be "picky" with this method.

I have another little thing to try (You don;t have to try it just think about it). Take 2 pounds off your bow, then tune your way. You will move your arrow rest to fix this problem right? So does taking weight off your bow change your centershot?

Blodg

You mean with the same pin right? I have never tried that method ewolf and am curious how it would turn out. I will try it, thanks for the tip.