Shooting into bag targets I have never ruined an arrow yet bare shaft tuning. And I shoot thin walled aluminums which we all know are useless and junk and just can't stay straight for more than 5 shots. Now if you tried to bare shaft into a hard foam target or something simalar and your tune was way off to begin with then I supose you could probably bend or break some arrows.

Bare shaft tuning is a bit tricky with a release, it's hard to get a good sense of what is going on. Then it is sort of the same way with paper tuning. The only way to really tell if your spine is off is if you just can't get it to tune, or have to make some seriously out of whack adjustments to get it there. Broad head tuning will do pretty the same thing in my opinion if you know what you are doing. I bet if more people would try adjusting the poundage instead of the rest they would have better results.

What bare shaft tuning will do is let you know the arrows are coming out as straight as they can be. If I can group fletched and unfletched arrows together at 30 and 40 yards I am pretty sure my rest is set where I want it. I also pay no attention to how the arrow flies or what it looks like in the target. I simply try to get the two arrows to impact in the same spot. An unfletched arrow will not fly the same as a fletched one will. They are different configurations, to expect them to react the same way just doesn't make sense. Also when I bare shaft tune I don't actually shoot a bare shaft. I take a fletched arrow and trim the fletchings away down to the base of the fletchings. I shoot feathers and most of the weight is in the base and glue. So by doing this I remove the steering from the back of the arrow, but retain the weight, FOC and dynamic spine.

I personally feel way too much emphasis is placed on tuning. A bow can be shot very well if it is out of tune. I bare shaft tune out to about 30 yards and call it quits usually. Any problems with accuracy after that are probably me, not the bow. Some of the best scores ever shot for target archery were shot before paper tuning was even popular.

I don't group tune either. In order to group tune you need to be able to shoot VERY consistantly over a period of time. If you don't have consistant anchors and release you will go insane making adjustments to no avail. You need to be very patient and put in lots of time. That pretty much applies to any tuning though. If you were new to archery I would suggest you shoot for at least a year before you even worried about fine tuning a bow. 9 1/2 times out of ten if you miss your mark I would say it is something YOU did, not a mechanical problem.

Those are my opinions at any rate.

Paul