Ok, quick summation...4 years of shooting... 2 years of target panic. Finally getting over it and able to tune my equipment.
Thought I had the right brace height. Bare shaft tuned my arrows and was hitting good from 30 yards.
Then it hit me, if my nock height was off this bad, what is my brace height doing? My bow was quiet to begin with but just went and shot in the dark just for sound and feeling of the bow and 1 in higher in brace height later its dead quiet with no hand shock and grouping scary close.
How much is this going to effect my arrow tuning? 25 grain front weight? I'm definitely willing to build out my shelf.
Just wondering what kind of damage i just did haha
I dunno about the tuning, you will just have to play around with them. As for the bow, if its got glass in it I doubt you did any damage.
I think I'd just build out my side plate a touch. It shouldn't take much. That being said, how much did it move your impact point?
You know, I honestly believe that a quarter-inch or so (or more) of brace height makes no difference to actual deadliness of a bow and arrow. Given ball-park matching of arrow to bow, these weapons just work despite us. But, tweaking does produce confidence.
Sounds as if you are starting to be able to enjoy shooting more thse days. - That's wonderful!
Allow your set-up to dictate it's needs based on your own. Then focus on taking pleasure in your craft.
Best of luck!
What are your bareshafts telling you?
The only effect that raising your brace height should have would be that it would somewhat weaken your effective arrow spine (people who have arrows slightly too stiff can raise their brace height to compensate). If you find that it did slightly put your set-up out of tune on the weak side, looper is correct, just build out your side plate a little bit at a time until it brings the effective spine of your arrow back in tune.
Brace heights by the bowyer who built the bow are only "recommendations". They're not carved in granite.
The recommended brace height for a 66" take down Blacktail recurve is 7 3/4"-8". Since a Blacktail's shelf is cut 3/16" past center, it will shoot a variety of differently spined arrows from the bow poundages I shoot with my 30" draw length and 32" BOP (back of point) arrows. This allows me to shoot a very light spined 2212 aluminum arrow all the way up to a heavy spined 2117 by experimenting with point weight and adjusting the brace height.
With that said, I've shot both of my Blacktails with brace heights ranging from 7 1/4"-8 3/16". No problems from accuracy or noise from arrow release.
OK, thanks guys. I am definitely starting to enjoy it like i did when i first started.
I was just curious to how much effect brace height has on your arrow spine. I'm not sure as to how much effect it has had, I will find out this evening I guess.
I fletched up all my bareshafts since i had them tuned :dunno:
I will have to buy some more brass inserts
You might want to keep 2 or 3 bareshafts even after you have them tuned. I shoot them most days just to check my form. Also helps when I want to try something different for a few days to see how it will work for me.
Now sure is a bad time to be messing with your bow and arrows if you plan to hunt this year. Does your set up shoot well for you. If so, don't worry about whether it is set up properly or not!
I'm just now getting to where i can shoot consistently and my stuff was all out of tune. Arrows, nock, brace... the whole shabang. I know its getting close to season but it needs to be done.
I just need to be able to hit from 15 yards. Which is fine right now..
Now is a great time to discover little errors like that. You have some time to tweak the arrows and do some practice.