Bare shaft tuning: Your thoughts, please

[WhistlingBadger]

Evening, everybody.

Now that my main archery season is over, I decided to try my hand at bare-shaft tuning.  I am still in pursuit of consistent accuracy, and I want things tuned up a little better.  Here's what happened.

I am shooting a 60#, 72" ntn flatbow.  29", self-nocked arrows.  I'm a bit embarrassed to say I can't remember the spine of the shafts; I believe it was 55-60 pounds.  125 grain heads.  Three-fletched with helically mounted, 5" by 5/8" turkey feathers.  I shoot left-handed, so everything will probably be backward from what most of you would see.

After hunting season, I was down to four arrows, so I stripped the feathers off of two, hung a paper target on my ten yard bale, and did some shooting.  I haven't shot since I killed my deer almost two weeks ago (did I mention I killed a deer?  With my bow?! ), so my shooting wasn't stellar.

The fletched arrows were flying well enough, sticking out perpendicular to the bales, though the holes in the paper were a bit oval-shaped, as if the arrows didn't go quite straight in.

Then I shot my two bare shafts.  Whoa--what a revelation.  The first one hit at about a 40 degree angle at 10 yards, with the head to the right.  The second bare arrow hit at exactly the same angle, so hard that the torque broke the shaft!  I pulled the first shaft and shot it again.  It hit at the same angle as the other two times, and also snapped!

Obviously, there is some seriously funky stuff going on with my tuning.  It seems as if the arrows aren't paradoxing around the handle.  I'm guessing I need a lighter-spined shaft and/or a heavier head.  I have some 45-50# shafts lying around, and I ordered some 145 grain field points.  Am I on the right track?

Any thoughts, expertise, wisdom, and other smart stuff would be greatly appreciated.

Thomas

[PEARL DRUMS]

If you are a lefty and the arrow tail is right, it is stiff. Mount some 160s and try again, bet it comes around. Nock high is a high nock point and vice versa for nock low. If you have some full length shafts laying around you could leave them that way and glue a 125 on. That to would bring the tail around. Once you get that bow and arrow super tuned you will be amazed and how good of a shot you really are. A mismatched set up will never shoot as good as you truly can.

[WhistlingBadger]

The tail was pointing left, the head right.  Does that mean I'm spined too light?

[PEARL DRUMS]

Too light. Yup. If you can snip an inch off the arrows, try that.

[WhistlingBadger]

OK, thanks.  I believe I have some stiffer arrows lying around somewhere...I'll strip the feathers from a couple and see what that does.
T

[Pappy]

I bare shaft tune all my arrows and from my experience  tail left is weak and tail right is stiff  for a right handed shooter, so for a lefty it would be just the opposite . Tail right weak and tail left stiff. Also if it is hitting knock high , raise knock and knock low lower the knock. One thing is this needs to be done at close range,to start, say 5 yards and you need to be in straight line with the target. Also most will hit a little tail high when bare tuning, just slightly so I try to get the knock setting close and fine tune that after I put the feathers on it. One other thing with wood is if you are ordering shafts, the AMO is at 28 inches so if you have shafts that are 50/55's and  cut them to 27 they will be stiffer by about 5 lbs but if you cut them at 29 inches they will be 5lbs stiffer. Each inch shorter or longer will weaken or stiffen the shaft by about 5lbs. AMO is shaft at 28 inches with a 125 grain tip. Heavier or lighter tip weight will change the spline also but not as much as length so I would use tip weight to really fine tune. I tune all mine with 160 grain because that is what I shoot . Also just FYI don't try to bare shaft with a broad head, just won't work. Sorry Pearl, not trying to be a know it all but this has been my experience. 
 Pappy

[PEARL DRUMS]

I'm getting very good results for doing it backwards, and so are you. That seems odd. I found this on the TSA website. Makes it simple.

[WhistlingBadger]

I think Pappy's right.  Pearly, I think your chart is backwards (or maybe it's made for a lefty???).  If you look at that chart backwards (because I'm a lefty), I believe it's saying I'm underspined, but everywhere else I look seems to say I'm overspined.   That actually makes a lot more sense to me, since I'm shooting off the hand on a bow with a 1 1/8" wide handle.  Shooting with the arrow a little over 1/2" off center would seem to call for a lower spine.

Look up Clay Hayes "Tuning 101" video on youtube.  His stuff is really helpful. 

I ordered a test kit from Wapiti.  They give you two shafts of each spine weight:  35/40#, 40/45#, 45/50#, and 50/55#.  My plan is to self-nock one of each weight,put a 145 gr. field point on it, and shoot it a few times bare-shaft at five-10 yards.  Then I'll take the weight that seems to be flying the best, fletch both of them, and fine tune the length according to Hayes' instructions.

Once I get that far, I'll know what spine to order, and I can fine-tune each set as I build them.  It's a plan.
Thanks for the help, gents!
Thomas

[PEARL DRUMS]

Well, start your testing and see what you come up with.   

[WhistlingBadger]

Yep, I'll keep you posted.  Should be interesting.
T

[bradsmith2010]

I have found,,.if extremely over spined,,or under spined.,,it might not fit the chart

[Lefty38-55]

This chart too, for a selfbow (on right), says you are over-spined. This chart is for a Dacron string, add 5-pounds to arrow spine if using a FastFlight string.

You say it is a 29”, but have you confirmed your bow weight at whatever your draw length is?

[Lefty38-55]

Here’s the chart, as I could not get both pictures in the same post for some reason.

[WhistlingBadger]

Whew, got home from work today and heard water spraying in the crawlspace.  Went down and found it was coming out of the control switch/pressure gauge that leads to my pressure tank.  I popped off the cap to try to see what was happening, saw a bunch of bare wires, and felt the tiniest little zap in my fingers...as I'm kneeling in a big puddle of water.  I'm no contractor, but even I know that ain't good.

Well, a few hours and a whole lot of help from my buddy Gerald (who is a contractor) later, the hole is patched up with JB weld and silicone.  It should cure overnight, and in the morning I get to see whether it worked.  Should hold together until the plumber can show up and fix it for real.  Mrs. Badger and the Badgerling are camping out at Grandma and Grandpa's--something about needing toilets and showers.  Gerald and I sat around for a couple hours after our redneck engineering job, eating ribs and swapping hunting stories.  Could be worse.

So, now back to this.  Lefty, that arrow angle chart makes sense to me.  My bow is pretty wide at the handle so that might call for lighter that the chart says.  Either way, the test kit (coming Friday!) covers the likely spines, so I think I'll be good.

For what it's worth, I'm shooting a dacron string.  My draw length is 27.5".  I don't have a way to confirm the draw weight of my bow.  Curt said it should settle into 60# @ 28".