Those of you guys that shoot instinctive can you please explain your tuning process and some tips if you have any. thanks alot thought it would help me and be intresting to hear from others.
The method a person uses to tune has no relationship to the method he uses to aim! Paper tuning is paper tuning, and bare shafting is bare shafting, no matter if you shoot instinctive, split vision, gap, or whatever.
I paper tune because I am comfortable with that method, and can get satisfactory results doing it that way.
Bisch
how far away do you set your paper bisch?
also how can paper tuning still be accurate when the arrows is in paradox?
I start at 6', and adjust till I get a bullet hole. I always make nock point adjustments first till I get nock height set right (there will be no up or down tear in the paper when nock height is perfect), then work on spine using shaft length and front end weight. I then reconfirm at about 15'. I then shoot field points and broadheads and make sure they go to the same place.
I can't answer the second question??? I just know it works for me.
Bisch
thanks for sharing bisch
Say Bisch I assume you are shooting fletched arrows.
Now I may get shamed off of TG but I have a question about paper tuning.
I understand that by paper tuning you can get the fletched shaft flying straight and the closer the paper is to the bow the better.
My question is even though your arrow is flying straight does that mean It is spined corrrctly to hit the target in the intended spot or do you have to then adjust your hold.
If you have to adjust your hold on target does that not take away from your natural instinct.
Believe me I'm not arguing the fact but trying to understand the process.
Well Bisch I think you answered my question assuming you are using fletched shafts and have a aiming point.
Agree with Bisch. A straight arrow is a straight arrow. Tuning is one thing. Shooting for accuracy is another.
You could instinctively shoot a poorly-tuned arrow just fine. It won't fly straight and it will do some funny things with a broadhead. But you could probably hit a target just fine because your brain would adapt to whatever kentucky windage is needed.
Well Sam accuracy is what tuning is all about. Sure you can adjust your sight picture with any arrow but your accuracy may suffer.
I bare shaft out to 25 and 30 yards looking for a straight flying shaft hitting my natural instinctive hold.
I have no problems getting a field point and broad head hitting in the same spot.
If you have a properly tuned bow/arrow you should not have to adjust your natural instinctive hold on target.
Just my thoughts
What Bisch said. It doesn't matter what aiming system you use. Bare shafting is bare shafting
so look for straight flight with a bareshaft?what if its slightly nock right or nock left
I agree with you guys with one clevet
If you are new to instinctive shooting and your form is not good you have to decide on if it is the bow/arrow tune or you that is causing any tuning problems.
A bad release can play hell on a bare shaft. Which leads me to believe that paper shaft tuning with fletched shafts and a aiming point might be the best route for some.
As Bisch said he then starts adjusting spine.
Really i think I'm beating the same dead horse but using a different stick.
QuoteOriginally posted by nhbuck1:
so look for straight flight with a bareshaft?what if its slightly nock right or nock left
Baeshaft goal is to get fletched and bare shaft hitting same place out to your effective range. And you can only tune as good as your form is. You can fine tune to get rid of slight nock angle but it takes very good repeatable form to shoot bare shafts well consistently, that's why we use feathers.
QuoteOriginally posted by DJ Hardy:
I agree with you guys with one clevet
If you are new to instinctive shooting and your form is not good you have to decide on if it is the bow/arrow tune or you that is causing any tuning problems.
A bad release can play hell on a bare shaft. Which leads me to believe that paper shaft tuning with fletched shafts and a aiming point might be the best route for some.
As Bisch said he then starts adjusting spine.
Really i think I'm beating the same dead horse but using a different stick.
A bad release will make paper tuning a nightmare too. Some level of good form is a prerequisite to any form of tuning, or you will just beat yourself up trying to get consistent results.
Bisch
so dont worry about arrow going nock left or right for bareshaft? just make them hit together?
Do not shoot a BH bare shaft.
Field points and BD fletched shafts should have the same poi.
I have never had to adjust bow or arrow for the two to hit the same point of aim if I had a proper bare shaft out to my effective range.
Having said that their are some BH's that will not group with a field point. Those heads will not group with themselves either.
You don't do it consciously...you just let the subconscious take over and after you shoot enough it just happens....
Sorry...couldn't help myself. Besides, it's April 1 in a few hours...
the youtube channel the longbow theory says he only bareshaft tunes at 5 yards that way he can see if the arrow is going straight right out of the bow. is this correct?
My tip would be not to worry too much about getting perfect bareshaft arrow flight.
I bareshaft tune only within 15 paces. My reasoning for this is that if I can get straight arrow flight within 15 paces then even if when bareshafting my bareshaft veers off to the left or right at anything greater than 15 paces showing stiff or weak it does not make a difference since the fletching will correct the arrow within the first 15 paces of it's arrow flight and my 4" feathers will have corrected the arrow by then.
With 4" or greater feathers I can shoot severely over spined or underspined arrows and they will all group the same because the fletching put's the arrow on the correct path very quickly.
It does not really matter how much feather you have. If you are right handed shooting a overly stiff shaft it will strike left on aiming point and viceversa for a two week shaft.
They may be flying straight but not straight to the poi.
Now if your only shooting 20yards and have bareshafted to 15 you most likely will never see any difference shooting instinctive. Back up to 25-30 yes and things start changing.
So going along with this, I shoot instinctively with a canted bow. Everything I have read says to bareshaft tune with my bow vertical. What confuses me is that if I shoot vertical with a shaft, it will fly stiff, but when I cant the bow the way I normally do, it flies dead straight. Should I still go with the vertical tuning or tune it to my shooting style?
QuoteOriginally posted by DJ Hardy:
It does not really matter how much feather you have. If you are right handed shooting a overly stiff shaft it will strike left on aiming point and viceversa for a two week shaft.
They may be flying straight but not straight to the poi.
Now if your only shooting 20yards and have bareshafted to 15 you most likely will never see any difference shooting instinctive. Back up to 25-30 yes and things start changing.
Do you have any evidence showing that the POI will change? I have shot overlystiff arrows, weak arrows, and completely tuned arrows and with 4" feather in a tight helical they all hit the same mark at any distance.
I'm not trying to be rude I'm just curious as to if you have any videos that have been posted that show POI changing with arrows that are not tuned properly even when adequately fletched.
I can post some videos showing that POI does not change if you wish. Jeff Kav. post a video of him shooting differently spined arrows out of his bow and they all grouped together and he's an instinctive snap shooter.
QuoteOriginally posted by Trenton G.:
So going along with this, I shoot instinctively with a canted bow. Everything I have read says to bareshaft tune with my bow vertical. What confuses me is that if I shoot vertical with a shaft, it will fly stiff, but when I cant the bow the way I normally do, it flies dead straight. Should I still go with the vertical tuning or tune it to my shooting style?
Tune the bow the way you shoot it. The reason why your arrows fly more straight when you cant the bow is because you are changing the angle at which paradox occurs (your arrow will bend more upwards when you cant it).
As an extreme example if you shot the bow completely horizontal the paradox would be up and down instead of left to right so an overly stiff arrow would impact high instead of to the left.
I think Ken Beck from Black Widow has posted a few videos. I found one, I think I just googled it.
He was showing another archer shooting various spines of arrows and said they will tail off left, right, or go straight and that is one way of selecting shaft spine.
Yes, I have evidence that the POI will change, but when you're dealing with fletched arrows, the POI may change in unexpected ways. When shooting a bare shaft (RH) a too stiff shaft will predictably impact to the left of the desired POI, while a too weak shaft will impact to the right (absent deflection off the strike plate). If the same physics held for a fletched shaft, one would expect that increasing stiffness would move the POI further to the left, and vice versa. However, my own experience, Rick Welch's experience, Fred Asbell's experience, and the experience of a local bowyer, indicates that the opposite is often the case: increasing the spine of a fletched arrow will often move the POI to the right.
I first heard of this while shooting in a tournament with the local bowyer many years ago. I was consistently hitting left, and told him I was thinking of trying some weaker arrows. He suggested that I try stiffer arrows first. At first, I thought I had mis-heard him, or that he was not thinking clearly about what was happening. But on further questioning, it became clear that he was saying exactly what he meant: decreasing my point weight moved the POI several inches to the right. I observed Rick Welch do the same thing for a student in a class several years later, with the same result. Fred Asbell says essentially the same thing on p. 78 of his book, Instinctive Shooting. For years I thought that was a typo in his book, but he wrote what he intended to write.
The reason a bare shaft impacts to the right if it is underspined is because it leaves the bow in a nock left position, such that the shaft is pointed to the right of the intended POI. Since the crabwise orientation is not corrected by fletches, the shaft continues to move to the right in flight.
The reason a fletched underspined shaft often impacts to the left of the intended POI is because flexing causes the shaft itself to move sideways to the left on being shot. The flexing also causes the shaft to point to the right of the POI, the same as a bare shaft would. Without fletches to correct the orientation of the shaft, a bare shaft continues in the direction it is pointed and impacts to the right of the POI. If fletches correct the orientation of the shaft too quickly, however, the arrow is still several inches to the left of the desired flight path and will impact to the left of the desired POI. Stiffening the arrow causes it to be deflected less to the left on being shot, and thus can move the POI to the right.
As you can see, the actual POI of the arrow is the result of several interacting factors: the amount of sideways deflection of the shaft, the angle the shaft is pointing, and how quickly the fletches correct the flight path of the arrow. So while shooting a stiffer shaft won't always move the POI of a fletched arrow to the right, it will sometimes, and is a useful thing to know.
so if i shoot the bow canted the bareshaft should not go nock right or nock left out of the bow? i always shoot canted so if i tune how i shoot i should tune canted and adjust if the shaft kicks nock left or right and adjust that way? everyone says tune the bow vertical
There are a lot of different ways to tune that work, so you can kind of take your pick. If you decide to tune with the bow canted, you have to interpret the results based on the degrees you cant. For example, if you cant 15 degrees, and the bare shaft is inclined toward 4:00, that is roughly the equivalent of the bare shaft pointing at 3:00 if you hold the bow vertical. However you hold the bow, if the bare shaft points right back at you, with very little tilt, then it is tuned!
You can tune with a cant to the bow. But the interpretation of impact off center will be different. Cant with bow top tip at 2 oclock position and a weak shaft with the proper nock height will be low and right.
I have observed some shoot and put pressure on the grip differently when they cant vs verticle, that will also effect your tune.
QuoteOriginally posted by McDave:
Yes, I have evidence that the POI will change, but when you're dealing with fletched arrows, the POI may change in unexpected ways. When shooting a bare shaft (RH) a too stiff shaft will predictably impact to the left of the desired POI, while a too weak shaft will impact to the right (absent deflection off the strike plate). If the same physics held for a fletched shaft, one would expect that increasing stiffness would move the POI further to the left, and vice versa. However, my own experience, Rick Welch's experience, Fred Asbell's experience, and the experience of a local bowyer, indicates that the opposite is often the case: increasing the spine of a fletched arrow will often move the POI to the right.
I first heard of this while shooting in a tournament with the local bowyer many years ago. I was consistently hitting left, and told him I was thinking of trying some weaker arrows. He suggested that I try stiffer arrows first. At first, I thought I had mis-heard him, or that he was not thinking clearly about what was happening. But on further questioning, it became clear that he was saying exactly what he meant: decreasing my point weight moved the POI several inches to the right. I observed Rick Welch do the same thing for a student in a class several years later, with the same result. Fred Asbell says essentially the same thing on p. 78 of his book, Instinctive Shooting. For years I thought that was a typo in his book, but he wrote what he intended to write.
The reason a bare shaft impacts to the right if it is underspined is because it leaves the bow in a nock left position, such that the shaft is pointed to the right of the intended POI. Since the crabwise orientation is not corrected by fletches, the shaft continues to move to the right in flight.
The reason a fletched underspined shaft often impacts to the left of the intended POI is because flexing causes the shaft itself to move sideways to the left on being shot. The flexing also causes the shaft to point to the right of the POI, the same as a bare shaft would. Without fletches to correct the orientation of the shaft, a bare shaft continues in the direction it is pointed and impacts to the right of the POI. If fletches correct the orientation of the shaft too quickly, however, the arrow is still several inches to the left of the desired flight path and will impact to the left of the desired POI. Stiffening the arrow causes it to be deflected less to the left on being shot, and thus can move the POI to the right.
As you can see, the actual POI of the arrow is the result of several interacting factors: the amount of sideways deflection of the shaft, the angle the shaft is pointing, and how quickly the fletches correct the flight path of the arrow. So while shooting a stiffer shaft won't always move the POI of a fletched arrow to the right, it will sometimes, and is a useful thing to know.
All of those guys you mentioned out shoot me by a long shot but for the heck of it today I shot 1 additional arrow that is very stiff and at 22 paces the overly stiff arrow with a 125 grain point grouped with the other arrow and they were both touching.
Within 15 paces it was the same thing as well. I could detect no difference in arrow flight or grouping with the overly stiff arrow.
For reference I'm shooting a 43# longbow that is not cut to center and is tuned to shoot .670 spine carbon arrows with a 145 grain point at 29.5". The overly stiff arrows were .500 spine with a 125 grain point at 29.5".
Howard Hill was known to take his spectators arrows at exhibitions and place them all within the bullseye of a target (I'm not sure of the size of the bulleye).
I think arrow tuning boils down to fletching size. I know for a fact that if I used 2" feathers on the overly stiff arrows they would impact far left within 25 or so paces.
The closer to perfect you are bareshaft tuned the less fletching you need. But the less fletching you use the less forgiving your set up will be.
Here's a video of Jeff Kav. grouping different spined arrows together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEw3HG9CUZU
The only idea that I have is that maybe the archers you mentioned use the minimal amount of fletching they can get away with such as 2" or 3" feathers?
In my post, I was talking about 3-4" difference in POI at 20-30 yards, so I'm not sure there would be much difference in POI at 5-7 yards. Jeff's video was taken of 20 yard shots, and was impressive. Not sure how to explain his tight grouping of significantly differently spined arrows, since I've seen the opposite. In my post, all arrows were fletched with either 4" or 5" feathers.
QuoteOriginally posted by McDave:
In my post, I was talking about 3-4" difference in POI at 20-30 yards, so I'm not sure there would be much difference in POI at 5-7 yards. Jeff's video was taken of 20 yard shots, and was impressive. Not sure how to explain his tight grouping of significantly differently spined arrows, since I've seen the opposite. In my post, all arrows were fletched with either 4" or 5" feathers.
I would bet money that Jeff K's form is better than 99% of folks who shoot a stickbow! A well tuned arrow shot with perfect form will perform just as it is intended to. A not so well tuned arrow shot with perfect form will not be off too bad.
A well tuned arrow with some form inconsistencies from shot to shot will only be off a little bit, while a not so well tuned arrow with form inconsistencies from shot to shot will be all over the place.
Bisch
I agree Bisch. I noticed that the stiff arrow was a lot less forgiving. If I short drawed it or my release was really off it would impact left (stiff).
On my recurve that is cut a little past center, I only notice spine variations when shooting out past 30 yards. With my selfbows (especially if shooting off the knuckle), I'll notice variations at less than half that distance.
McDave - I wonder if the left POI from a weak arrow has to with FOC. If there isn't much FOC, perhaps the fletching is pulling the point back in line with itself instead of following behind the point. Just a guess.
QuoteOriginally posted by McDave:
Yes, I have evidence that the POI will change, but when you're dealing with fletched arrows, the POI may change in unexpected ways. When shooting a bare shaft (RH) a too stiff shaft will predictably impact to the left of the desired POI, while a too weak shaft will impact to the right (absent deflection off the strike plate). If the same physics held for a fletched shaft, one would expect that increasing stiffness would move the POI further to the left, and vice versa. However, my own experience, Rick Welch's experience, Fred Asbell's experience, and the experience of a local bowyer, indicates that the opposite is often the case: increasing the spine of a fletched arrow will often move the POI to the right.
This right here is GOLDEN!!!
A fletched and bareshaft arrow shoots the exact opposite. IT look me a long time to figure this out, but once I did, tuning got a lot easier. I used to bareshaft, paper tune, etc, but now I just have a bunch of different length arrows to try out and adjust spine and length accordingly. I will tell you that a 1" length difference in shaft makes a huge difference in flight.
The best money a man could spend in buy 1/2 dozen of all the spines you think you may need, in my postion would be 500, 400, and 350 and cut them all in 1/2" incriments keeping in mind your draw length and the shortest allowed arrow for broadhead clearance.
For example, a 32" arrow, I would have a full length, 31.5, 31, 30.5, 30 and that's as short as I can go due to draw. Shoot all them and weed out the "bad ones" and this will give me a very very good starting point.
QuoteOriginally posted by YosemiteSam:
On my recurve that is cut a little past center, I only notice spine variations when shooting out past 30 yards. With my selfbows (especially if shooting off the knuckle), I'll notice variations at less than half that distance.
McDave - I wonder if the left POI from a weak arrow has to with FOC. If there isn't much FOC, perhaps the fletching is pulling the point back in line with itself instead of following behind the point. Just a guess.
Imo, I don't think it has anything to do with FOC, but everything to do with what is steering the arrow. By adding the feathers, you are moving the steerage to the back to the arrow. I.e., if your arrows are real weak, which way would your feathers(nock end) kick out? For a RH shooter, they would kick to the left, just like with a bare shaft, but With a fletched shaft, the feathers guide the arrow and will make the POI to the left(which is opposite of what a bareshaft will do). With a bare shaft, the whole shaft is what guides the arrow(the wind hitting the arrow and the angle making it steer whichever way the arrow is angling).