Bare shaft tuning my bowtech

[180splitg3]

Hey guys. I'm doing some bare shaft tuning and I'm getting a good point of impact between the bare and fletched shaft at 20 yards but my bare shaft is hitting with the tail high. I paper tuned and it looked great so I am moving to bare shaft. I'm thinking I need to move the rest up but is there a point where the rest is too high and I should have lowered the nocking point? Thank you for the help!

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I personally don't pay much attention to the angle of the arrow in the target. Inconsistencies in the target caused by differences in how many times various areas of the target have been shot can lead to a false impression of how the arrow was actually flying. If your bare shaft and fletched shaft are hitting the same spot, I'd call it good and move on to broadhead tuning.

But to answer your question, the generally accepted starting point is to have your nocking point and rest positioned such that the arrow runs level through the Berger hole. If that positioning results in vertical paper tears or vertical differences in bare vs. fletched POI, first check cam timing and adjust cable twists until both cams are in sync. If vertical tears/POI differences persist, then start adjusting nocking point and/or rest height. Every bow is a little different, and the rules of thumb for tuning are just starting points. Some bows tune best with cams perfectly synced, others do better with one cam slightly ahead of the other. Some bows tune best with a level arrow, others do better with an arrow slightly nock high or low.

 

[Brendan]

Move to 30 yards and see what happens. Angle of the bare shaft can be misleading sometimes, you're looking for consistent point of impact differences.

Moving to broadheads works too, but I'd do one of the two before making changes.

 

[7-Pointers]

Yep, I learned not to trust the angle of the arrow in the bale/bag as well, misleading far too often...I do exactly what Might Mouse does. Only difference is that I think you need to shoot at least 40 yards with bare shaft to really see what the arrow alignment is if you are not shooting through paper, any shorter than that and the arrow doesn't have time to catch the wind and really move in the direction its pointed. In other words (for my bow anyway), the arrow goes pretty much straight for the first 30 yards, even when it's left my bow at a different angle than it's line of travel...somewhere around 30 yards out the shaft itself provides enough wind resistance that the arrow start to move in the direction is pointed, you won't misinterpret the nock high, left, etc when you see that happen!

 

[Reburn]

I know I'm still kinda new at this but why not just call that good and jump straight to broadheads at 40?
I have just shot through paper to fix any obvious bad tears and then went straight to broadhead for final clean up. Why mess with bare shafts at all? Am I missing something.

 

[180splitg3]

I don't think I'm too far off or anything and could move to broadheads. It just seems like the bare shaft arrow should be going into the target at the same angle as the fletched arrow if everything is tuned. I shot bare shaft and then fletched shaft about a dozen times just to make sure it wasn't a form issue. Every single time the bare shaft was nock high. I'm shooting into a piece of foam from an old target so I am pretty certain the target is not affecting the end result arrow angle. Maybe I'm just too picky but I really want it to be shooting as straight as possible...

 

[Reburn]

Sure I can understand wanting to get the straightest nock travel possible. I strive for that as well. My brain tell me even though you wrapped electrical tape around the shaft that weight doesnt = drag. Am I wrong here? Try shooting 40 bareshaft I guess I would be intrested to know if your still hitting the same point. I know I'm not completely crazy as this was my field point and fixed broadhead sunday at 70. Not my finest shots for POA vs POI but I was still pleased. I really want to know am I missing something by going paper to broadheads and skipping bareshaft?

 

[Samdemarais]

I don't think I'm too far off or anything and could move to broadheads. It just seems like the bare shaft arrow should be going into the target at the same angle as the fletched arrow if everything is tuned. I shot bare shaft and then fletched shaft about a dozen times just to make sure it wasn't a form issue. Every single time the bare shaft was nock high. I'm shooting into a piece of foam from an old target so I am pretty certain the target is not affecting the end result arrow angle. Maybe I'm just too picky but I really want it to be shooting as straight as possible...

Just move the rest up and see if it fixes it. If you start running into clearance issues then move the rest back down and drop your nocking point. You can really get into the weeds with bare shaft but really at the end of the day you just want your broadhead to hit behind your pin.

 

[Zac]

If you come out of the Berger hole you'll want to move your loop up. Bare shaft through paper with lipstick on the point of you need another reference.

 

[180splitg3]

Thanks for the replies so far. I was just looking things over and it looks like I should move my rest up to get close to level with my d loop. Right now the point looks pretty low. That may straighten out my nock high bare shaft. However, if I do this most of the arrow is sitting above the berger hole. How big of an issue is this?

 

[Zac]

Thanks for the replies so far. I was just looking things over and it looks like I should move my rest up to get close to level with my d loop. Right now the point looks pretty low. That may straighten out my nock high bare shaft. However, if I do this most of the arrow is sitting above the berger hole. How big of an issue is this?

The further you move the arrow away from your grip the more you are increasing the lever arm for lateral movement. So you will miss further to the left and right the higher you go.

 

[406unltd]

That arrow isn’t far off. Bump that rest 1/32 up and shoot again. It will likely clean tail high up. With that said BH is gonna be damn close after that adjustment and I’d start shooting them and be done. Getting too carried away with bareshaft is silly to me because that’s not what I’m hunting with. It gets us real close after paper and minimizes beating our BH targets up too bad which is expensive. But in the end I need my BH to hit not that bareshaft. Then again I’m nobody special. Good luck this year!

 

[Brendan]

I know I'm still kinda new at this but why not just call that good and jump straight to broadheads at 40?
I have just shot through paper to fix any obvious bad tears and then went straight to broadhead for final clean up. Why mess with bare shafts at all? Am I missing something.

You don't need them, but they'll show a tuning issue faster and more obviously. Where a broadhead issue might not show up until longer ranges, you'll see it at 20-30 yards with a bare shafts. Bare shafts are also a great way to show if your form is breaking down. If one day you're dead on with good bare shaft flight, and then the next day you're all over the target or have a consistently different point of impact - tells you that you changed something.

I also never use paper anymore. Too much of a pain in the ass when I can grab a fletched arrow and a bare shaft and get the same (better) result.

 

[cuttiebrownbow]

First thing I would do for that is make sure I am at nock level with the arrow running through the middle of the berger (or covering the top half - depends on bow) and that my bow is timed correctly. I assume (i know I shouldn't assume) you are running a 1/8th to a 1/4 inch nock high so bumping the rest up to make it level should clear that up for you.

You could try bumping rest a little bit. If that doesn't work then you can advance the bottom cam by a twist or two.

Depends on bow. I just bs tuned a bow that showed nock low so rechecked everything was leveled correctly and my arrow was perfectly through middle of berger hole. I dropped my rest by a 1/16th, that helped a little bit, so I advanced my top cam by adding two twists and that cleaned it up completely.

Now I ran it through paper the next day just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I was good and now I stay away from paper and just keep a bs in my arrows to remind me if I am getting sloppy in form.

 

[Zac]

First thing I would do for that is make sure I am at nock level with the arrow running through the middle of the berger (or covering the top half - depends on bow) and that my bow is timed correctly. I assume (i know I shouldn't assume) you are running a 1/8th to a 1/4 inch nock high so bumping the rest up to make it level should clear that up for you.

You could try bumping rest a little bit. If that doesn't work then you can advance the bottom cam by a twist or two.

Depends on bow. I just bs tuned a bow that showed nock low so rechecked everything was leveled correctly and my arrow was perfectly through middle of berger hole. I dropped my rest by a 1/16th, that helped a little bit, so I advanced my top cam by adding two twists and that cleaned it up completely.

Now I ran it through paper the next day just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I was good and now I stay away from paper and just keep a bs in my arrows to remind me if I am getting sloppy in form.

Is advancing the cam adding twists or subtracting? I always get confused by this.

 

[NYSKIER]

What kind of bowtech are you shooting? I've got a lot of experience with my Realm. Like guys above have said I would maybe switch to broad heads and shoot from a good distance. Recently I didn't see a difference until I was shooting at 70 plus. As far as the cam advancing I've found and I've seen it confirmed a bunch of places that a bowtech shoots best with the top ever so slightly hitting first or them hitting exactly on time. If you have more questions feel free to PM me and I'll give you my number to talk it through

 

[Brendan]

Is advancing the cam adding twists or subtracting? I always get confused by this.

My notes on this that I keep in the cheat sheet on my computer and phone are below. Generally I am working with twisting cables, not un-twisting as I almost always have to bump the draw weight up to spec. The descriptions of slowing down vs. speeding up might not be 100% (they're relative to each other) but this has always worked for me.

General - Shorten the take-up cable attached to the cam you need to slow down.

Buss cable - in a hybrid like a Hoyt, a twist in the buss cable advances the top cam (makes it hit sooner), it lengthens draw length, decreases ATA and increases letoff/valley (assuming timing was even before the twist).

Control cable - a twist in the control cable slows down the top cam, shortens draw length. It’s effect on ATA, valley and letoff are dependent on the others.

String - a twist in the string shortens draw length, valley and decreases letoff. It plays a role in ATA and draw weight but it is secondary to the buss.

All - a twist out produces the opposite effect.

 

[wapitibob]

What bowtech are you shouting? The new ones like the btm of the shaft 1/3 down from the top of the rest hole.
More importantly you set the loop position for holding/aiming then set the rest position accordingly.

 

[180splitg3]

I'm shooting a Reign 6. 62#, 30" draw with 500 grains of total arrow weight - Easton Axis 300 spine arrows. I bumped up the rest and bare shafts are on plane with the other arrows front to back. Broadheads and field points are hitting on the same horizontal plane. Bare shafts seem to be hitting a little lower than broadheads and field points. I'm going to continue to tweak things in small increments. Seems like the fixed heads vary with point of impact quite a bit from arrow to arrow - this could be my form too. I'm tuning with VPA three blade 100 grain solid heads...

 

[NYSKIER]

Have you tried nock tuning? Did you check timing?