I was re-reading some traditonal archery books the other day, and two of them basically have the parameters 'backwards' with respect to arrow spine and shooting left/right.

For a right-handed archer, they're stating that arrows too weak in spine shoot left, arrows too stiff in spine shoot right....180º opposite of the current convention.

So what's going on? Obviously it cannot be both ways.

I know some people who judge their arrow flight with the arrow 'in flight'.  If the bareshaft tail flips left on the shot, it will plane and hit the target to the right. So the 'in flight' left is the same indicator as the 'in target' right. I am not sure if that's what you were reading but it can get confusing. Some people will even judge by which way the tail end is pointing out of the target.  This only works if you have a very uniform target.  I am no expert but this is the differences I have noticed.

If you shoot a bare shaft into a target and the nock is right - it's too stiff

If bare shaft groups right of a fletched shaft - it's too weak.

Damned hard for Cheeseheads to keep that straight.

I don't know if this was one of your two books, but this is a quote from Instinctive Shooting, by Fred Asbell (p. 78, in a question and answer section): "My new recurve shoots to the left all the time.  What's wrong with it?" Fred then goes on to make some suggestions about what could cause the arows to impact to the left, including, "Shooting left can also be caused by arrows which are under-spined."

This comment stayed in my mind, because it is the opposite of my own experience.  I find that if I have a bow/arrow combination that shoots to the left, it might be an indication that the arrow is  over-spined, and that I can move the point of impact to the right by shooting a lower spined arrow.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting Fred's comment, which is why I gave the page reference, in case anyone else wants to comment.

Editorial/writing errors occur quite frequently in books or any other medium.  The stiff/weak, left/right stuff is pretty easy to mistakenly transpose.  I suspect that's what happened in at least some of these cases.

McDave, yes, it's from G. Fred...and also from Jim Chinn's 'Winds of Change'. I've seen this confusion on Google/Wikipedia too.

Orion, I hear ya about "Editorial/writing errors occur quite frequently in books" LOL!

I always wondered about this myself. It says the same thing in one of the Bowyers Bible books. My own experience isthe same though. A weak spined arrow for me shoots to the left and stiff shoots right for me. A lot of guys disagree but I have found this to be true for me for the last 20 years.

Interesting.................I am a rightie; weak spine goes right; stiff goes left. Maybe we need a Poll?  

I shoot arrows spined from 40# to 55# out of my 45# self bows and don't notice any difference at all.

Reparrow man

I think The quote Mc dave gave is for shooting fletched arrows and not for shooting bareshafts with fletched arrows or just bareshafts. The quote didnt mention anything about bareshafts or tuning, it just said"shooting left" and not bareshaft shooting to the left of fletched arrows. maybe what the authors were saying is the arrows are shooting left of where you are aiming and that might be caused by a weak spined arrow.Bareshafts hitting to the left of fletched arrows shows a stiff arrow based on experience and almost any other book that discusses bareshaft tuning be it olympic style shooting or traditional archery.

Actually, it's just been my own personal experience that when I shoot a lower-spined arrow, my point of impact moves to the right, shooting a fletched arrow, right-handed.  That's why the passage from Asbell's book always stuck in my mind, and I knew immediately where to look for it when I read Old York's opening post.  I always thought it was an error, but given that other people's experience agrees with Asbell's comment, maybe it wasn't an error.

I don't know why increasing spine would cause some people to shoot to the right and others to the left, but I am very curious, and perhaps one of our "guru's" has an explanation.

I ran across a similar thing having to do with bow tiller.  Mostly, when you ask a bowyer how he tillers his bows for 3 under, he will say that he puts less of a positive tiller on the bows he makes for 3 under.  For example, if he puts a 3/8" positive tiller on a bow for split fingers, he will put a 1/8" positive tiller on a bow for 3 under.  Black Widow does the opposite.  They put a greater positive tiller on their bows for 3 under than they do for split fingers.  Why, I don't know, but it works for them, as much as doing the opposite works for others.

I'm like McDave.  Weak spine impacts right, stiff impacts left.  Doesn't matter if it's fletched or bareshaft.  I'm right handed.

Well... I am glad we cleared all that up !!    :rolleyes:

This is an interesting topic. Physics doesn't change.  Bares shaft to fletched tuning is covered by the laws of physics.  Bare shaft to fletched tuning will have a right handed shooter showing weak with bare shaft arrows to the right and stiff with them to the left of the fletch arrows impact point.  Opposite is true for a leftie.  

I would be really curious to see a poll as well. Since there seems to be some difference of opinion on what indicates what. As McDave said.  A guru or two weighing in might help.