I can't believe I am advising Kegan! But well, here's my experience. I've tried bare-shaft tuning in all sorts of ways, every week or so this year and I have paper tuned too but now I believe I have found the best method. You want to find the point zero, that is of course the range where the arrow goes at the spot you aim, as in gap-shooting setup. Two yards is way too close, still in paradox and no time for any small form problems or setup errors to be corrected (or magnified) by the shaft flying. This also gives you plenty of time to watch the arrow and over a few shots with one shaft you will get an idea of average behaviour allowing for the odd pull or drop or eye tiredness etc.
Bare-shafting is NOT the same as a fletched arrow to shoot, aim, look at or fly, but it does work. I am sure you know the nock left or nock right rules already but it is not the most important thing at first. I keep shooting the same bare shaft until I get an true idea of its performance, taking off a 1/4 inch or less at a time until the flight is smooth through the air, no wobble or vibration. Only then do I fine tune for stiff/weak and that will generally be just a small cut or two more at this point. I have smooth flying arrows that are well out in measured spine but only took a little chopping to get to fly nock straight and eye true. I don't know why this is, I reckon however that spine can only be ONE of the necessary measures of a shaft, perhaps grain flow or twist may make a difference in how it responds to shooting stresses.
I find very little difference in using either a longbow (ELB) or a deeper cut recurve (Chekmate Longhorn) in this way, just a different range and more forgiveness in the Longhorn. The arrows I put to one side are many, ones that want to go shorter or much longer than draw length, it is pointless getting a good arrow that needs a change in form! So I put to one side many arrows - as why get a tuned arrow if it necessitates a different length? You eye and body automatically get to expect a draw 'til the head touches your finger or some such. So I mark each shaft at the 29" point (my draw) with a fine groove and that is where I draw to, it allows a bit more length in some so as to not waste so many shafts.
I cannot understand why people bare-tune one arrow shaft of a set at a particular weight and spine, then cut them all the same - this is wood, not alloy! They are not bullets! Even if you are tuning from weight and spine matched sets, then fine-tuning with bare-shafting for flight, then only one or two in a dozen is going to be the same at the correct length and you need length for form.
Thus I only get two or three really good arrows from a dozen, but they are the only ones I use. We are either target shooting and want good accuracy and consistency, or hunting and want REALLY good accuracy and consistency. Either way, we want only one or two arrows at a time unless in competition when we would go the extra mile to get a perfect set of a dozen.
I guess I am saying that bare tuning and matching are looking for the needle in the haystack if you want the same spine, weight, and flight in a bunch of shafts CUT TO THE SAME LENGTH. In the end I chose to carry on with it because it gives me a few shafts I can be sure of and that correct my form, instead of chasing incomprehensibles all day. These good arrows actually fly well, with little correction, in bows of 15# difference and different construction. So if they are off target, it is me, and the setup, not the arrow. I hope that long ramble made sense!
