Does anyone one not tune?

Always tune or shoot the thing!

  • Shoot the thing!

    Votes: 9 14.1%
  • Tune!

    Votes: 55 85.9%

  • Total voters
    64

Rob5589

WKR
Joined
Sep 6, 2014
Messages
6,243
Location
N CA
Unfortunately most shops don’t have any techs with enough knowledge to tune or educate anyone. It’s likely the driving reason most of us bought presses and learned to tune on our own. I was tired of being told that moving the rest until you get a bullet hole was the holy grail I 100% agree that it seems wounding rates are getting excessive it seems. Out of curiosity who is “RF”?
Or the time to spend tuning. Time is money and it's unlikely a guy is willing to pay a tech 100 bucks or so to get the bow shooting well. Some tune up quick and easy, some can be a pita especially if shimming cams.
 
Joined
Jan 19, 2020
Messages
413
Ok. I bought a used RX4 off the classifieds. Love it compared to my 20 year old bow I used a long time ago. I am getting back into it and have been shooting a few times per week since I got the setup. I am by no means good and can’t quite hit a 3” center consistently at 30 yards but I am getting closer the more I practice. I think a new release is in my future too.

Riddle me this. This is the first time I have tried to tune. I didn’t even know I was supposed to back in the day. Paper looked good. Then I went to broad head tuning and was about 6” low and about 1-2” left compared to field point. So I slowly raised my rest up and to the left. Now I am pretty close at 20 yards. I haven’t gone farther distances yet. I have a couple questions I just can’t quite wrap my head around.

1. WHY does this work? I understand how it pushes the nock on the broad head arrow to make it exit the bow differently. But why doesn’t this screw up the flight of the fieldpoint arrow?
2. Why tune on paper etc first with a fieldpoint? Isn’t my fieldpoint paper tune all in shenanigans now that I changed things to get in sync with the broad head?
3. Did I do this all wrong and out of order?

Thanks! I am learning a lot here
 
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
8,907
Location
Shenandoah Valley
Ok. I bought a used RX4 off the classifieds. Love it compared to my 20 year old bow I used a long time ago. I am getting back into it and have been shooting a few times per week since I got the setup. I am by no means good and can’t quite hit a 3” center consistently at 30 yards but I am getting closer the more I practice. I think a new release is in my future too.

Riddle me this. This is the first time I have tried to tune. I didn’t even know I was supposed to back in the day. Paper looked good. Then I went to broad head tuning and was about 6” low and about 1-2” left compared to field point. So I slowly raised my rest up and to the left. Now I am pretty close at 20 yards. I haven’t gone farther distances yet. I have a couple questions I just can’t quite wrap my head around.

1. WHY does this work? I understand how it pushes the nock on the broad head arrow to make it exit the bow differently. But why doesn’t this screw up the flight of the fieldpoint arrow?
2. Why tune on paper etc first with a fieldpoint? Isn’t my fieldpoint paper tune all in shenanigans now that I changed things to get in sync with the broad head?
3. Did I do this all wrong and out of order?

Thanks! I am learning a lot here


A paper tune has a wide margin in my opinion. So just because it's perfect in paper, doesn't mean it's actually perfect flight. I really don't mess with paper except as a target and for notes.

Broadheads put vanes on the front of the arrow to some degree. So before with a fieldpoint the tip could launch at a little bit of an off angle, but the drag on the back would correct it. But something on the front that kinda like a wing and it actually pushes it further off from the planing before the drag of the vanes catches up.


That's how I look at it.

You can start with paper to get a baseline. Being you haven't been shooting much you can use paper to make sure you are getting a consistent release. Shoot a dozen arrows and make sure they are all doing the same thing. That's something you can do just in your garage to work on form. You can also use it to nock tune all your arrows. I do it with bareshafts at distance instead, but that takes good form. I'll be the first to admit that some days I just don't have it.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2019
Messages
2,255
Location
Missouri
1. WHY does this work? I understand how it pushes the nock on the broad head arrow to make it exit the bow differently. But why doesn’t this screw up the flight of the fieldpoint arrow?
2. Why tune on paper etc first with a fieldpoint? Isn’t my fieldpoint paper tune all in shenanigans now that I changed things to get in sync with the broad head?
3. Did I do this all wrong and out of order?
1. Moving your rest does affect the flight of the FP arrow, but the effect on point of impact isn't as pronounced with a FP as with a broadhead because a FP doesn't have the surface area to "fight" the fletching and steer the arrow off course if the arrow leaves the bow with the point out-of-line with the nock.
2. Paper tuning is okay for establishing a starting point and getting things close, but it's not uncommon to have to make adjustments while broadhead tuning even if you were getting bullet holes through paper. In theory all tuning methods should result in the bow being configured exactly the same, but it often doesn't work out that way. Distance from the paper and flexing of the arrow before it fully recovers can affect paper tears and contribute to differences between paper tuning and other methods.
3. Go in whatever order you want as long as you end with broadhead tuning. I personally start with paper to get close, use bareshafts to refine, then finalize with broadheads. I could skip paper and bareshafts altogether and tune exclusively with broadheads and end up with the same result; the main reason I don't is just to save wear on my targets.
 
Last edited:

N2TRKYS

WKR
Joined
Apr 17, 2016
Messages
3,956
Location
Alabama
Ok. I bought a used RX4 off the classifieds. Love it compared to my 20 year old bow I used a long time ago. I am getting back into it and have been shooting a few times per week since I got the setup. I am by no means good and can’t quite hit a 3” center consistently at 30 yards but I am getting closer the more I practice. I think a new release is in my future too.

Riddle me this. This is the first time I have tried to tune. I didn’t even know I was supposed to back in the day. Paper looked good. Then I went to broad head tuning and was about 6” low and about 1-2” left compared to field point. So I slowly raised my rest up and to the left. Now I am pretty close at 20 yards. I haven’t gone farther distances yet. I have a couple questions I just can’t quite wrap my head around.

1. WHY does this work? I understand how it pushes the nock on the broad head arrow to make it exit the bow differently. But why doesn’t this screw up the flight of the fieldpoint arrow?
2. Why tune on paper etc first with a fieldpoint? Isn’t my fieldpoint paper tune all in shenanigans now that I changed things to get in sync with the broad head?
3. Did I do this all wrong and out of order?

Thanks! I am learning a lot here

Yep. You’ll start to realize alot of these steps are a waste of time. 👍
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2019
Messages
478
I don’t think paper is a waste. I bareshaft paper tune at about 20 feet. This does a couple things for me. 1st - it is immediate feedback on form. 2nd - during the process i make sure all my arrows are tearing the same. (Nock tune)

I then sight in my bow with fletched arrows and then get right to broadhead tuning. I typically have very little, to no adjustments to make for my broadheads.

Comparatively, when I group tuned bareshafts I had to shoot at 20- 30-40 yards for the same level of precision. That’s a lot more shots and walking than what I can do in my basement in an evening or two.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
3,721
Location
Utah
Paper tune is just the beginning. It get's the rest close, with a streamline arrow set up, but once your broad head of choice is on then you will want to tune again at a few distances from shorter to further ensuring the broad head does indeed fly close to the same POI as the field tip.
 

Plowboy85

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jan 6, 2021
Messages
264
Ok. I bought a used RX4 off the classifieds. Love it compared to my 20 year old bow I used a long time ago. I am getting back into it and have been shooting a few times per week since I got the setup. I am by no means good and can’t quite hit a 3” center consistently at 30 yards but I am getting closer the more I practice. I think a new release is in my future too.

Riddle me this. This is the first time I have tried to tune. I didn’t even know I was supposed to back in the day. Paper looked good. Then I went to broad head tuning and was about 6” low and about 1-2” left compared to field point. So I slowly raised my rest up and to the left. Now I am pretty close at 20 yards. I haven’t gone farther distances yet. I have a couple questions I just can’t quite wrap my head around.

1. WHY does this work? I understand how it pushes the nock on the broad head arrow to make it exit the bow differently. But why doesn’t this screw up the flight of the fieldpoint arrow?
2. Why tune on paper etc first with a fieldpoint? Isn’t my fieldpoint paper tune all in shenanigans now that I changed things to get in sync with the broad head?
3. Did I do this all wrong and out of order?

Thanks! I am learning a lot here
I’m not a real big fan of paper tuning with fletched arrows. There has been times I’ve done it helping a friend or when I was just tinkering because as others have mentioned bareshaft demands a very solid and repeatable form. When I do paper tune with fletched I typically do it just a few feet past the arrow fully released, my reason for this is I want to see what the arrow is doing immediately out of the bow and before the fletchings have a chance to correct the plane. One suggestion I fell most of us know but often don’t think about are flaws in us compared to the bow. If an error is consistent then I will tune the bow to the arrow/flight, if it is inconsistent and different than previous days I will typically stop because it is me and I will not make changes that day. In summary if it’s consistent it needs to be tuned, if not it is a form flaw that needs to be addressed.

Might Mouse pretty much hit the nail on the head for my protocol as well, although sometimes I will throw walk back in there like Dudley does. I never attempt to measure center shot, I seen no functional purpose in it. I do however nock an arrow then get behind the bow in my vice and set the string to split the arrow while being centered in the riser (all vertically). I come from a pipe fabrication background and a visual aid is more reliable than measuring the delta across a 2” riser.
 

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