CAJUNBOWHNTR

bare shaft tuning is really about finding the right arrow spine.something that is more critical for a finger shooter due to paradox or bending of the arrow when shooting fingers.especially with a non centershot trad bow off the shelf.With a release aid and a compound you have more leeway in arrow spine.One of the best ways to do it is to shoot groups bare shaft and fletched and dial the groups together.The same way you would group tuning with broadheads.You should strive for a slightly weak arrow because adding fletching will stiffen the arrow a tad.


CB

BTM

I asked an experienced tuner and bowshop owner what he thought about bareshaft tuning for guys who shoot with a release. His reply: "I love it because I get to replace a lot of broken shafts."

Nonetheless, I still like to tinker with all kinds of tuning techniques, including bareshafting.

ijimmy

Id expect this question on the traditional board , thats where bareshaft belongs . I found this out the hard expensive way , by useing it myself many years ago in the futal attempt for the "perfect tune" , what I found was going against what easton sugests , and trying to tune a compound bow while shooting a release was , some bows [ mostly those whith little cabelrod toqure] can be bareshaft tuned , while with other compound bows its imposable and it does ruin arrows with the energy a compound puts into the arrow and a sideways stop into the target .
Im a bowhunter , my method of tuneing has been narrowed down to broadhead tuneing , Im not shooting at an animal without fletching , or with fieldtips , or thur paper , so those methods of tuning are useless to me .

For a target bow , I would probably paper tune at various distances , trying for a high right tare up close evening out to a bullet hole at arround 10 yards or so , that is the way feild tiped arrows fly best out of most of the bows I have shot them from , depending on cabelrod toqure , hand toqure , and vertical nock travel , which vary from bow to bow ,the best tune may or maynot be with your fieldtips and broadhead equiped arros hitting the same spot .

Bows of late have been getting better with nock travel , darton and alpines new offering seem to be outstanding . The reason I mention that is a bow with bad nock travel will play havoc with you caseing any kind of tune . Thats why the splitcabel/4 cabel bows are so easy to tune

JOE PA

I have bare shaft tuned my release-shot compounds in the past. Some were quite difficult and, yes, hard on arrows, if they are not hitting straight into the target. I do think there is something to it, and when I have been able to get bare shafts flying well, I have always gotten fletched arrows with broadheads to fly well, and have the same POI as same weight field points, at least out to 40 yards. I don't know how necessary it is, but it can work very well. It can also tear up arrows in the process, if you are off some. Getting good bare shaft flight requires a torque free grip and being careful not to torque the string with your release as well. I read an interesting thread on AT by George Dixon. He was explaining how he bare shaft tuned each arrow to hit the X at 20 yards, then he went about fletching them. Should have a pretty accurate setup if you can do that. How relevant is it for the average guy? Tough call

Paul L Mohr

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

Elkcrazy8

I place everything on the line with bareshaft tuning. However I will place great emphasis on bow tuning, BEFORE I even try to set the rest, I will shoot in a string, even the high quality ones will need to settle.

After the string is shot in I will obtain the proper specs for my bow. I shoot hoyt now but used to run my mathews through the gauntlet also before setting up. The information that I use is on the tune charts. All hybrid cams can be set up in the same manner in which I do it.

If a bow has a static yoke and not a floating yoke, I will find out what the cam lean should be. Some of my older mathews needed to lean. Mathews support would help me with this,

After the bow is set to spec, with mine it would be no cam lean, the roll over timing set as well as cam syncronization. I am now ready to start,

At this point I will then set my arrowto bisect the burger hole directly with a perfect 90 degree angleto the string.

I will set the center shot to fall at 3/4's of an inch from the riser and find that I will end up with 1/32 nd of an inch from that mark.

I work the numbers for my arrow through on target software so that it matches my bow to a tee. I can mess with my FOC length and such without having to ever build an arrow..

Bareshafting should never result in the arrow hitting at an extreme angle. If you cant get it out with the rest and the arrows are spined correctly, there may be a problem with cam lean issues. I fought my LX for a long time before figuring that out. I will make very minor adjustments to my rest if needed, but more times than not, my bare shafts are already hitting with my fletched arrows.

On a bow there is much more than adjusting the rest to get the bow in tune.