I say they can try, but I don't see it happening. I believe many put waaay too much stock in the tuning issue and not enough in how to shoot well. Besides when you are tuning you are tuning the bow and arrow to the archer. It is a very individual thing, there is no way you design that into a bow.

Pick any bow and put it in a shooting machine. Pick any quality arrows that are consistant from arrow to arrow. They will all shoot to pretty much the same spot. What does this tell me? It has more to do with the guy plucking the string than equipment he is using.

Here is some text that I posted some time ago in another post about tuning. It's long and boring but it explains my veiws on tuning. As Frank knows I am not afriad of a long post. This doesn't fit the complete context of this post, but I feel it relates. This was actually an argument I was having with someone about someone tuning their bow. I have edited slightly to make it less scathing (and make me look like less of an ass[]). I'm not even sure it was on this site, but it probably was.

Well here goes, happy reading.

"
I will state that when I speak of tuning Iam talking about target shooting and mostly at fixed distances, not different yardages. However I have never really experienced the problem with different impact points as I move back in yardage. At least not any that I couldn’t fix by touching up my sight adjustment. I like to set my windage from the furthest distance I can shoot well. After doing this I am normally right on when I move up to 20 yards. No rest adjustments required to get my windage correct. From what I have seen this problem is usually caused by form problems like canting the bow or grip problems. You are really just adjusting the rest to fit your shooting style.

I am in no way saying that tuning is not important and you shouldn’t bother with it. Getting your arrow to leave the bow in the straightest line never hurts, and is a great advantage using fixed blade heads. But like I said, shooting field points with adequate fletching at normal distances just isn’t that complicated. All the tuning in the world isn’t going to fix 6 to 8 inch groups at 20 yards. And leading someone to believe otherwise is just filling their head with miss information. This poor guy will be dinking with his bow until he gives up. When in reality he probably just needs to learn to shoot better and get his bow to fit him properly. Then he can worry about tuning it to be more forgiving and accurate.

Here are some quotes about tuning and its place in archery. In some cases these quote are condensed versions of the actual text in order to make my obscenely long post a bit shorter. I have tried to keep the original context of the message as close to the point as it can be. I know I hate it when I am quoted out of context.

From the book Idiot Proof archery from Bernie Pellerite:

“Most archers think bow tuning is the most important part of accuracy. Nothing could be farther from the truth! In theory bow tuning plays absolutely no role in accuracy. This is easily proven if you have access to a good shooting machine. A shooting machine is capable of putting every arrow in the same hole.”

“I know some of you must be thinking I am anti tuning. Not at all! I believe that bow tuning is an essential part of good archery. We are human beings not machines, and only humans need to tune a bow. Tuning simply tries to counteract the influence that a flaw in our execution has on the arrow’s impact. The only reason for bow tuning is to improve our bad shots; our good shots all go where we aim any way. And, as for our really bad shots… tuning won’t help much at all.”

“The key here is to understand that in theory, tuning is not related to accuracy. Tuning is related only to bow performance and forgiveness… accuracy is related to consistent execution of form. Therefore, the more consistent we are in our form, the more accurate we will be.”



These are some quotes from Bob Ragsdale’s questions and answers page:

“Don't be obsessed with "tuning" because that is NOT where accuracy comes from. If you can shoot "perfect" paper test holes at 8 and 25 feet then you are already WAY ahead of the average archer who is probably more accurate than you, but has never run a test of any kind and is nowhere near as good on spine as you.”

“A bow has to have an extremely incorrect arrow spine and/or be dramatically miss-aligned within the bow to 'not group' relatively well. So we'll take the attitude here that you are NOT doing one or all of these 3 things; A. Not allowing the bow to recover identically each time; B. Not pointing the bow in the right direction each time; C. Not using identical ammunition each time.

A. A bow only does one thing for a living; it goes back to the rest position from full draw. It has no brain, can make no decisions and is not “out to get you”. This means that IF it is put in the same situation each time at full draw it has NO CHOICE except to return to the normal rest position in an identical fashion each time (i.e. if you hold the handle or the string differently or release the string differently in any fashion it cannot be expected to make an identical return trip or for the sight references or arrow alignment within the bow to remain correct).

B. At the instant the arrow nock leaves the string the shot is OVER; in the sense that the arrow is now completely on it's own and you either POINTED IT IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (windage & elevation) OR YOU DID NOT. So you will either HIT or you will MISS because if it (i.e. if your windage and distance sight settings were not exact, or, if you torqued the grip, or, released the string at a different rate or angles, or, did not have the sight held perfectly steady on the exact target, or, if the rear sight was not properly aligned (did not take a correct sight picture) with the front sight. Aggravated even further if there was a different-manner hold or release of the string and/or a handle torque effect to cause the bow to rotate differently during recovery to an unknown sighting point wen the arrow is still on the string.

C. No 'good shot' rifleman would ever expect to shoot tight groups with several different bullet types and bullet weights by mixed manufacturers. Archers tend to think arrows are magic and always shoot perfectly, (maybe it's a fletching thing) but that's far from the truth. If one does not NUMBER THE ARROWS and 'call' the shots where they should have hit and record them and then make other notes while setting up they will waste a lot of time and effort assuming each arrow shoots identically. Point is that you shouldn't panic and make an assumption and then change based on one shot, but 'everyone' does it.”

There are many more statements like this on his site, but I figured that was the one that summed it up the best.


This is what Matt Cleland has to say about tuning in his paper he wrote about shooting the compound bow for FITA. Most know of Bernie and the Ragsdales, Matt is a local archer (Swanton Ohio) that runs an archery shop in his family’s gun store. He holds several world, national and regional archery records in indoor and out door target events. (outdoor long distance shooting up to 90 meters) With recurve and compound with both fingers and release aids. He was also on the U.S. archery team from 1998 to 2001. He gives private lessons and teaches at a local college. He is also an avid hunter.

In his 180 paragraph, 13 page paper he dedicates one paragraph to tuning. The rest is about equipment, form, aiming and the mental game. This is the paragraph about tuning:

“Equipment summary-Tune the bow for the best flight that is possible without putting too much time into it. This tuning should take less than one hour. Once decent arrow flight is achieved take the bow out to 90 or 70 meters and shoot for groups. If the bow shoots vertical groups move the nockset up and down in small amounts until nice round groups are achieved. If the bow shoots horizontal groups move the arrow rest left and right until nice round groups are achieved. Use this procedure to tune the bow then forget about it. Once this is done, focus on the mental game and practice routine. If an archer spends a lot of time worrying about the equipment and tinkering with it, his or her scores will not be what they are capable of. Worrying about equipment will not allow an archer to shoot confident shots. Remember: the one who shoots the most practice arrows usually wins.”

Ok, now about the professional archers that have won things or set records with out of tune bows. These incidents are also from the Idiot Proof Archery book mentioned above.
Bernie talks about several tuning myths and what it can and can't do for you. He states a few instances of people shooting very well with out of tune bows and bows that are not forgiving or set up properly.

One of them being Tom Crowe who is a professional target and 3-d archer. He set the vegas record for the only perfect 300 ever shot in the Bowhunter Freestyle division. And he did it with a high let off hunting bow with 5 inches of overdraw, a fletchhunter wrist style release, over spined short arrows and what everyone thought was too long of a draw and bad form. Plus his arrows were fishtailing 6 to 8 inches on the way to the target. Yet all of his arrows landed in a hole the size of nickel.

Another was Terry ragsdale in 1978. A quote from Bernie “Terry and his wife Michelle, are arguably the best target archers to ever shot a compound bow.” And the above mentioned Bob ragsdale is Terry’s father and I would assume his coach, not mention a pretty decent archer himself. He also spent many years working for PSE designing and testing bows.

Terry shot the only perfect 1200 ever recorded in Vegas and it has never been duplicated since (except by himself). By the end of the tournament he discovered that the bow string had five broken strands directly under the nock. When Terry got home he had heard rumors of a “new” Process called paper tuning (1978 remember). He shot the same arrows used in the tournament through the paper. He flunked the new test with a high left 5 inch rip in the paper. This probably would have prevented him leaving the house if he had done it before the tournament. He duplicated that feat at Cobo Hall in Detroit a month later. He did all this with a PSE Citation that had such cam lean it looked like the string would jump off the track. He also adds that most all of the indoor Vegas target records (perfect 900) were set with old style non center shot riser bows. Including the two 1200s shot by Terry ragsdale.

He also talks about a woman that won a state championship with her two wheel bow so far off it had two separate valleys. One at 28 inches and another at 31 inches! Since she couldn’t draw it that far she never knew about it. Yet she won a state championship with it? I guess she must have had good enough form to draw it to the same spot every time.


I don’t consider myself to be that great of an archer, but I feel I am better than the average hunter. Only because I practice more. I don’t compete nor do I have any desire to. I tried it once a few years ago and didn’t care for it. I don’t even keep score when I golf. I just do it because I enjoy it (I suck at golf by the way but it’s still fun with the right people). I don’t have any trouble holding a one or two inch group at 20 and 30 yards consistently, regardless of how my bow is tuned or the type of arrows I use. However I have seen really good archers shoot much better than I can using a long bow with no center shot, or rest for that matter. Not to mention using fingers and no sights. It’s because they are GOOD, period! Not because their bow is tuned better than mine, there is nothing to tune except spine and nocking point.

So this is where I come to the conclusions and opinions I have on tuning. I do believe tuning and micro tuning have their places. I just feel that most archers don’t shoot well enough to achieve it or benefit from it. It’s mostly in their heads. Having a well tuned bow and perfectly spined arrows can mean the difference between shooting X’s and breaking the line. It will not however make an archer that shoots 8 inch groups suddenly start breaking nocks arrow after arrow. Neither will switching to a drop a way rest or other fancy equipment.

The number one most important thing is that your bow fits you and is comfortable to shoot. Then concentrate on form and proper shooting technique. After that is mastered you can worry about tuning and tweaking things to eek out more accuracy. I have taken guys that couldn’t shoot 8 inch groups at 20 yards and had them shooting 3 inch groups at 30 without even changing their set up. Mostly they had poor or no anchor points and very bad grip. Then when I proved they could shoot better than they were I could get them to let me change their set up. Most were shooting too long of a draw length, improperly set peep sights, the wrong arrows and poorly tuned bows. They didn’t always shoot better than 3 inches right away, but they all agreed the bow “felt” better at full draw, in turn making them more confident. "

Paul