could my shelf be messing with my accuracy?

[blades7558]

i made a weird shelf on this bow and i think its messing with my accuracy.... i was wondering what your opinions were on this. the string runs pretty much through the center of the grip... im also using arrows spined for a 10 lb heavier bow... im not sure what im doing wrong here and i figured id ask before i start cutting wood.
heres some pics

[Pat B]

What are the charactoristics of your arrow flight? Straight in, tail left or right, tail up or down, inconsistant flight?

[blades7558]

when it leaves the bow it usually fish tails right then left then straightens out. ive got 4 inch feathers with a decent amount of surface area on them. the arrows shoot perfect outta my 65 lb factory longbow.

[Bevan R.]

Spray the arrow shelf area with foot powder. Shot a couple and see where the powder is being ncked off. That will tell you if you are having'clearance' issues with the bow. Could be arrow spine issue or a brace height issue also.

[artcher1]

Blades, when you cut a shelf in that deep you're basically shifting the limb strain from the center of the handle to the off side of the shelf causing some upper limb torque IMO. Now instead of center limb strain running dead down the center of your bow it is now shifted over to the off side of the arrow pass. Try gripping your handle more to the inside of your thumb to compensate for this.

Probably to stiff of an arrow also with to small a fletch. Perhaps opening up your window will help also. ART

[George Tsoukalas]

I'm not a fan of cut in shelves. This one seems to have too small a clearance for the fletching. I'm not advocating that you make it  larger though. Jawge

[George Tsoukalas]

The handle seems pretty thin for a center cut bow. How thick is the handle at the pass? The only option as I see it is to add a glued on in the handle and make the cut in larger on the top for the feathers to pass. But don't take my word for it. Jawge

[straightarrow]

If your nock is kicking right your shaft is too stiff. Try a bare shaft and if its still kicking right then add more weight to the tip to weaken the spine or start with a different arrow.

[Kent D.]

If it were me, I would say it is more of an arrow spin issue instead of a bow issue.   Go with a lighter spin or heavier point and see if it makes a difference.  When you say it is fish tailing, i would assume the arrow is to stiff and not bending around the riser.  This would  cause it to bend back to early and wacking the riser when the arrow passes by, causing it to fish tail in flight.

If you have too light of a spins, it could be bending too much and not recovering quick enought to get around the riser.  If this is the case you need a bit stiffer spin or less head weight.  This

With all that said, it could be form problems (not saying your form is bad, just another suggestion).  Reason I am inclined to say what I have mentioned is because I have made bows with center cut shelves pretty much to the midline and once I got the right spin arrow, they shot like dart.

[Mark Anderson]

I build almost all my bows with a shelf. as long as you have enough thickness from back to belly you can get away with some fairly wide shelves (up too center).
I think as long as you have no bend in the handle with this one you might consider making the arrow pass taller. It looks like you've got some room to work with from the top of your arrow pass to the beginning of your fade. Mind, this is ONLY if there is no bend at all in the handle. If you nock your arrow slightly higher than the shelf then when you release the arrow actually comes of the shelf a bit and if the pass is too cramped it will actually be pointing left of where it was when you released.
I may be completely off on this but it is just from my experience that I say it.
Mark

[blades7558]

heres the pics of the foot powder idea, thanks bevan it clearly shows that with my cock feather down the fletching is pushing hard against the riser and cock feather out it isn't. i shot a lighter spined arrow and that seemed to help a bit, i have enough wood to make the riser taller which i might do today. my form is practiced with a 65 lb long bow and i did notice a difference when i went to this lighter guy. i got to narrow it down a bit and figure out what im doing wrong with my form.  the top pic is cock feather down... now that i see the pics there isn't much difference but it looked like the CFO had less powder removed