natimage

I'm very new to the bow hunting world so could someone define some terms for me please, I hear them thrown around but don't really know what they mean...
What does it mean when a bow is "forgiving"
Arrow spine?
Spine consistency?
Arrow tolerance?
Broadhead alignment?

that may do it for now, but i might add more later as I start getting into more!

KodiakArcher

Forgiving bows are ones that don't absorb form flaws of the archer meaning that they'll forgive your mistakes more than one that is "touchy".

Spine is measured in hundredths of inches of shaft deflection with a one pound weight hanging in the center of a 28" span of arrow shaft. It's a measure of how much or how easily a shaft bends.

Spine consistancy is a measure of how much variation there is amongst a given dozen shafts of the same manufacture.

What I think you mean by arrow tolerance is how broad a range of spine tolerance a given shaft lets you shoot across (as in a given 28" shaft being able to be shot over a 30# weight range rather than a 15# range) but I'm not sure on that one since I haven't heard it used popularly.

Broadhead alignment is how true the center line of the broadhead is to the center line of the arrow. If the broadhead is slightly off it will tend to make the arrow act as if it were bent in the direction the head is off (won't fly true). If they are true to one another you should be able to spin the combination on end with no discernable wobble in it.

natimage

Is a forgiving bow bad? I'd imagine for novice bow hunter the more forgiving the better...but does a touchy bow equal better accuracy?

KodiakArcher

You want a forgiving bow. Touchy bows aren't any less accurate although they are generally less precise but they'll drive tacks all day out of a shooting machine. Problem is, most people don't have shooting machine form, especially not beginnners.