Nomercy448

What do YOU do to prepare new arrows?

A buddy and I were both in the market for new bows this season, he picked up a Diamond Outlaw, and I picked up a Bowtech Destroyer 350. We both decided to get new arrows to match our new bows, and the difference in our "new arrow procedures" became pretty obvious, so we're curious what other guys do to their new arrows?

For both of us, we identified arrows with the proper spine and weight for our bows, then from those we picked out a few shafts with weight and straightness tolerances that suited our pocketbooks as well as our purpose (primarily hunting arrows with a little 3D shooting in their future).

His procedure: Measure the proper length for his bow, buy pre-fletched arrows and have the shop cut them to length and glue the inserts into the shafts. He turns the nocks so the ****vane is pointing down when drawn, screws in broadheads, and he's ready to go. It's very simple, and his arrows were "hunt ready" 20min after we left the store.

My Procedure: Measure proper length for my bow, buy bare shafts and have the shop cut them to length. I took the shafts home and numbered them with a marker. I then weighed all of the bare shafts to weight match them. Then I stuck a weight matched pair of nocks in both ends, and floated them in the bathtub to find the heavy side (heavy side assumed to be the spine), then marked the shafts. I clocked the nocks to orient the spine at 12 o'clock, in line with my string. I weight matched the inserts, then I glued them in and shot bare shaft groups at 40yrds, turning the nocks slightly one way then the other from the "heavy side" mark 1/8th of a turn to test the groups. Once I found the dynamic spine, I weight matched my vanes in groups of 3, then I fletched the arrows with the ****vane on the spine, oriented straight up, and weighed the arrows again. I then removed the inserts, screwed in my broadheads, and glued the inserts back in the arrows with the inserts clocked so the broadheads (2 blade) are laying flat when drawn. My arrows took about 3days to be hunt ready, including 2 trips to the range, and 3 times at the workbench getting glued.

At the end of the day, his arrows group very well for hunting. The nocks and ****vane are clocked together, but the spine may or may not be (depending on the manufacturers process for fletching arrows), and his broadheads all clock at different angles. He buys 6 arrows, and he ends up with 6 arrows he can hunt with. Of course, his fletching is whatever color that the factory decided it should be.

My arrows, on the other hand, all have the spines, ****vanes, nocks, and broadheads clocked together. I buy a dozen arrows and sometimes don't end up with 6 that are properly weight matched (the rest become practice arrows). I get to pick the exact color combinations I want for my nocks and fletching.

Matching helps if I buy twice as many inserts and vanes as I expect to need. Occasionally, I'll buy 3-4 boxes of inserts and vanes, weigh all of them, then cull out the "off-spec" ones, repackage the culls and return them to the store.

Both will kill a deer, so in his opinion, I'm wasting a lot of time, in my opinion, he's foolish for flinging sticks without matching them. (ok, so we're not THAT harsh on eachother, but that's the general idea, I'm too obsessive, and he's too lax).

So again, we're just curious what other guys do to prepare their new arrows?