I'm trying to do some bare shaft tuning, using information from the OL Adock tuning document and Anthony Camera's book: Shooting the Stickbow.  My fletched arrows and un-fletched shafts are generally grouping together at 15 yards, but when I shoot the bareshafts the nock end kind of kicks up in the air, about midway to the target, and then comes back down and straightens out before hitting the target.  Is this vertical kick normal when shooting a bare shaft, or should it fly perfectly straight like the fletched arrows? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, David

David,

Generally, I've found that verticle swings in the nock end indicate a nocking point issue.  Your nocking point might be a tad high, try moving it down even as little as a 1/16" at a time and see what happens.  The other possibility is your release is causing it, in that case moving the nocking point probably won't help much.

EDIT:  Another thought, If you only have one nocking point your nock could be slipping down the string on release and bouncing off the shelf.  If that's the case, put on another nocking point below your nock.

In Ken Becks tuning video, he states that some shooters can't seem to get rid of knock high. I was one of those.I shoot three fingers under. I was drawing with to much tension on the last two fingers of the draw hand. Have someone watch you draw, and see if you are getting a bow in the shaft when at full draw. This might  be the problem.This will drive you nuts if you get to hung up on this. Feathers will cure the problem.

You can get perfect flight from bare shafts out to 30 yards and more but that 's defeating the point a bit. I puposely back of a little to allow for fletching, so my objective is to have them behave a little weak. I am a rightie and a perfect bare shaft for me is landing slightly right and a smidge low.   Personally I don't think 15 yards is sufficient distance, the shaft has too much forward momentum for anything to show up; 15 yards is a good starting point but you need 20 to 30 yds to see what's really going on.

If they are grouping together at 15 yards then you're pretty well tuned and will find most any broadhead will fly good. However, if you can get your bareshafts and fletched arrows to all fly perfect and group together out to 20-25 yards then you are perfect. That is like having a custom hand load for a rifle that matches perfect. You might try lowering the nock point 1/32" down at a time until the bare shafts straighten out.

Thanks for the input!  Yesterday, I moved back to 20+ yards and I played around with nock location a little bit.  I was still getting the vertical tail kick, so I'll do a more thorough job of testing today... plan to start at 5/8 and go down from there in 1/16" increments.