"Straight Shooting"

[Kegan]

I'm still lost on this one Someone care to explain it so a caveman can understand?

The way I see it, an overspined arrow will naturally shoot left.  He has learned to compensate for this by aiming farther right.  Justin

Bingo, and canting the bow so that the arrow lies in the nice little "V" of your hand and the bow, so you don't aim to the left so much. more, upward than to the right. It  makes it alot easier to make "primitive" arrows. I believe someone told  me to "shoot the heaviest spined arrows you can out of a longbow, and to cant the bow to help keep it straight". Hence "straight shooting". Turns any sapplig that is as big as your pinky into a potential arrow, and lets me use wide handled bows without having to get a perfectly spined arrows (as you can probably tell, I am way about doing things easy... even if they are obsurdly complicated). These arrows are also alot heavier, which I like alot . I had so much trouble getting my sourwood arrows spined to the bows, and most of the time they never shot well even then.

[Wulamoc]

I foound that a little cant helps me can!

[Justin Snyder]

I think most everybody cants the bow at least a little.  Canting the bow helps with sight picture and with keeping the arrow on the bow/riser.  I would really recommend you get the correct spine arrows.  You still have to have them all evenly spined or they will not hit the same spot.  Heavier spined arrows will still go farther left than others that are overspined but not as heavily spined. This style will also make it more difficult to switch bows.  Because you are doing all the adjusting, a slightly wider or narrower riser than you are used to, will really throw your accuracy off.

[Kegan]

Justin- That's what I thought, but it doesn't seem so. Most have a deflection on my homemade spine tester from anywhere between 18 degrees and 11 (from 80-100+#). All shoot well, even out to 40 yards or so- with broadheads. I don't have any explanation to why this works, but it does (anyone who uses this method could probably tell you). All I can come up with is that the heavier (and overspined) arrow still falls (canted it seem to paradox up and down?) makes it fall similiar to the lighter, slightly lighter spined arrows.. But this method isn't somehting I have come up with- on the contrary- this seems to be an old method. It works. As for swithcing bows, as I am pointing the tip of the arrow/my knuckle at what I want to hit, it seem that the bow doesn't matter... as long as it is made to shoot off your hand. I tried it on my brother's recurve and it didn't work at all. I tried it on his narrow handled bow and it worked fine. Anyone else who shoots this way, please jump in and help me try and explain it.

I know this breaks the rules of archery again, but the rules are meant to be... bent !

[Justin Snyder]

The big hole in your theory is that the deflection is perpendicular to the string on the horizontal plane.   The bow would have to be canted to completely sideways before the arrow would deflect up not sideways.  Justin

[mullet]

   Kegan,I'm with Justin on this.You are just adjusting your aim point to make up for the stiffness.Get your brother to stand behind you and watch how your arrows fly on release.My guess is they will kick out way left before they recover.Or shoot one without fletching.Tuned arrows only need fletching to recover very quickly.If they hit the target with the nock to the left they are still over spined. Canting the bow only helps the left,right aim point.

[Kegan]

I know it doesn't sound right, but it works. I'll see if I can get a video of shooting. The arrows shoot straight, fast, and quite accurately. Perhaps Jamie or Robinwho could explain how they do it?

[stiknstring]

My friends boy has done something similar but more extreme setting the bow completely horizontal and letting the arrows drop on in.  I think this follows the same concept just more extreme.  If he wants to hit lower he just rolls his wrist down.  It really is JUST adjusting your point of aim to compensate for arrow stiffness I believe

[Kegan]

My friends boy has done something similar but more extreme setting the bow completely horizontal and letting the arrows drop on in.  I think this follows the same concept just more extreme.  If he wants to hit lower he just rolls his wrist down.  It really is JUST adjusting your point of aim to compensate for arrow stiffness I believe

Pretty  much, just twisting yourself around the bow and arrow, and making the arrows a little different. Pointing your knuckle instead of the center of the bow.

[Hillbilly]

I usually shoot with the bow canted pretty much horizontally-probably the same concept. Seems a lot more tolerant of different spines.

[sonny]

"Pointing your knuckle instead of the center of the bow."
No one that I know of aims using the center of the bow!!
I'm a gap shooter (though I wish I could shoot more instinctively) and the point of my arrow points [nearly] in the direction of what I intend to hit, though I don't necessarily concentrate on the arrow point.....
it seems that you've just discovered this for yourself Kegan and that there is no breakthrough..or at least none that I can see!


 

[Marc St Louis]

Actually it looks more like he is torquing the bow

[Kegan]

it seems that you've just discovered this for yourself Kegan and that there is no breakthrough..or at least none that I can see!

Exactly! I figured that this was how some others shot, and how (I think) some Natives/Aboriginis shot. Just trying to see what others thought of it . Nothing new here, except for me- but I have never seen it in print so I thought I'd bring it up here. I was told by an old longbowman to shoot in a method not unlike this when I first started with a bow, but just recently picked it up again. This is more somethig I've rediscovered for myself about the bow/arrow match-up than anything else- ehnce why I put it in the bow's forum.

As for point the knuckle, most of the people I know who shoot modern recurves and longbows say to match the spine perfectly and to point the center of the bow. For this reason I'm a crap shot with a recurve .

[stiknstring]

So this brings up a phrase that my brother and law and I share whenever we miss......

IS IT THE INDIAN OR THE ARROW

If you have the properly matched arrows in the first place you do not have to resort to "tricks" to shoot better ya know

Again like was said in an earlier post....

Any stick makum bow but the arrow is a heap bunch of work

[Kegan]

So this brings up a phrase that my brother and law and I share whenever we miss......

IS IT THE INDIAN OR THE ARROW

If you have the properly matched arrows in the first place you do not have to resort to "tricks" to shoot better ya know

Again like was said in an earlier post....

Any stick makum bow but the arrow is a heap bunch of work

Never said it was a trick- just a different way of matching arrows to a bow and still coming out accurately. It's easy, simple, and alot less work if done primitive-primitive, to use John McPherson's phrase. IF all your arrows are rather stiff, than they are matched... just not by modern standards, where one can match the spine of each stick to match the bow perfectly so that the shaft bends perfectly around the bow. Too comp;icated for me anyway