This is the first bow that I have shot in many years that I have not been able to get fixed blade broadheads and field points to group together. I’ve made numerous left and right adjustments on the rest but broadheads always impact to the right of the field points. Granted, I haven’t shot many bows lately because I shot the same Mathews MQ1 for 18 years and it was very simple to tune. However, I have helped friends tune their bows and have always been able to get broadheads and field points to group together. I shoot the Halon very well and last summer I was shooting good field point groups out to 100 yards. I hate to admit it but late last summer I finally gave up and adjusted my sight to move my broadheads into the bullseye.
I was shooting quite a bit over the weekend and doing some tweaks to my rest. The closest I could bring the groups together at 20 yards was the broadheads hitting about 2” right of the field points. The broadheads are about 4” right at 30 yards.
Here are some specs:
28.5” draw, 70 pound, right hand Mathews Halon 6.
QAD Ultrarest
27” Easton FMJ 400 with 3 Blazer vanes fletched right helical. Total arrow weight with 100 gr. head is about 416 grains.
The broadheads I’ve been shooting (all 100 gr) are: Slick Trick Magnum, Slick Trick Standard, Shuttle T, Wasp Boss and Wasp Hammer SST. All of these broadheads group well together but they all impact right of field points.
I’ve been shooting the Halon maxed out on poundage since I got it. I checked it on my Cabela’s deer scale over the weekend and it indicated 75 pounds. I’m not sure how accurate that is.
I watched a few YouTube videos on tuning the Halon and on one of them the guy was using 300 spine arrows because he said that he has figured out that Mathews bows like stiff arrows. I suspect that arrow spine might be contributing to my problems so I backed the bow off 2 full turns, which I believe should have dropped the poundage about 8 pounds. Backing the bow off didn’t seem to make much difference.
I realize that I’m pushing the envelope and may be underspined with the 400 FMJ’s and I’m thinking about buying some 340 or 300 FMJ’s but I’m hoping to get some advice before doing so.
I should also note that the bow was paper-tuned at the shop when I bought it but I have moved the rest around since then trying to bring broadheads and field points together. Also, I did the “French Tuning” thing with a field point arrow and was hitting the string perfectly both at 9 feet and 9 yards but that didn’t help bring the broadhead and fieldpoint groups together.
Any help is greatly appreciated before I go back to the old MQ1...
Thanks!!!
I'm relatively certain I don't have hand torque. I've been very conscious of it and made sure that I was not torqueing and hand torque has never been a problem for me in all the years I've been shooting.
I shoot a caliper style release and I've been very careful to make sure that no part of my hand other than my trigger finger makes contact with the release.
As Brotsky stated, I think your arrow shaft is too weak. Take 3 full turns off your bow and shoot to see how it responds. If it cleans up your issue you have the answer and can move to a .340 or stiffer spine.
If that doesn't correct your issue completely you need to move your top hats moved around. You can effectively shim the cams in the direction they need to go which in this case would be away from the riser (assuming you are right handed). A broadhead right means a left tear and you shim in the direction of the tear.
You can move the rest TO THE RIGHT and see if they come together...not the left.
Second, and likely would be best, is to have the shop switch the spacers on the cams. This is equivalent of YOLK TUNING THE BOW.
If you had yolks, which we don't with the Halon, you would twist the left yolk to bring the BH toward the FP.
That basically SHORTENS the string and moves the cam TO THE LEFT. If the shop can put the thinner spacer on the left and the thicker on the right, this will move the cam LEFT and be just like twisting the left yolk.
This will bring them together and you can move the rest to fine tune from there.
I have tried moving the rest in both directions and I have not been able to get the broadheads closer than about 2" right of the field points.
I'll back the bow off another turn and see what happens.
If that doesn't do fix it I'll take it to the shop and have the top hats switched around.
I suppose it's possible that it's a combination of weak spine and needing to switch the top hats...
Thanks again guys!
Thanks guys I appreciate it!
Looks like I need to buy some new arrows. Any reason why I shouldn't go with 300's vs. 340's other than they're heavier?
Just for comparison I run a GT velocity 300 (both Pro and XT) with a 20 gr. insert weight and a 125 gr BH. They are about 30" long (don't know the exact length off hand) and they weight 456 gr.
I really like that cam system on the Halons. I still am sticking with cam and 1/2s but if I were to switch it would be to that system. While there are no yokes, you can do the same thing with the top hats. The advantage of the top hats is that once you have them shooting perfect, the only thing that changes when you change strings is your nock set position. Once that is set properly you are rocking again. With a yoke, you yoke tune with every new set of strings or as strings/cables creep.
i shoot the 70# 28" draw and i shoot a .300 spine - but i do shoot heavier broad heads. and 525 grain arrows.
in a hunting bow i always lean towards the stiffer arrow, they are usually heavier and more forgiving. its hard to shoot to stiff of an arrow from a hunting set up.
I knew I was pushing the envelope if not underspined with the 400's and it will be nice to know that I have the option of going to a 125 gr. head now and the bow will be more forgiving.
I appreciate all the help!
For what it's worth, my old 29" draw Mathews MQ1 at 74# groups broadheads and fieldpoints together on the FMJ 400's out to at least 60 yards but that bow is a heck of a lot slower than the Halon.
I just found and bought 5 new 28" FMJ .300's fletched with Blazer vanes on eBay so it will be a relatively small investment to experiment...
The bow being a split limb model has nothing to do with it and there never was a tuning issue with split limb bows.
I bought five new 28" FMJ 300's off of eBay and stripped the straight fletched Blazers off of them and re-fletched them helical with Blazers.
I backed my bow one turn below max, so probably about 68#. I shot numerous groups with field points and broadheads and made numerous adjustments to the rest but still could not get the groups to come together.
I took my bow back to the shop and they laid a straight edge on my top and bottom cams. The straight edge laid across my top cam lined up very parallel with my string but the straight edge laid across my bottom cam deviated several degrees from parallel with the string.
They switched the tophats on the bottom cam, which made the bottom cam parallel with the string, i.e. removed cam lean. We checked paper tune.
I shot it a few times in the shop with both broadheads and field points and it looked somewhat better so I took it home. Once I had more time to shoot at home I found out that broadheads were still hitting to the right of the field points. I tried moving the rest to the left until I ran out of adjustment and the groups never came together.
I then moved the rest quite a ways right (closer to the riser) from 13/16" and broadheads hit about 4" right of center and field points hit about 1" right of center at 20 yards. I made tiny micro-adjustments to the left with the rest and shot groups after each micro-adjustment. After about 3 micro-adjustments to the left, the field point and broadhead groups came together just left of the bullseye and I fine tuned my sight to bring them back to center.
After finally being satisfied that broadheads and field points were grouping together on the 28" FMJ 300's I decided to try the old 27" 400 FMJ's and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they grouped well too.
The attached photo is the FMJ 400's with 3 field points in the left target and 4 broadheads in the right target, shot at 20 yards. I also verified the matching groups at 30 yards. I might still have some fine-tuning to do but I think I'm on the right track.
This has been a frustrating experience and I'm happy that I think I finally have it figured out.
Thanks everybody for your help!
At one point I thought I had my Halon dialed in but I really didn't. I was never able to get the broadheads to hit any closer than about 2-3 inches right of field points at 40 yards. It was probably more like 6 inches at 60 yards. I ended up just giving up and moving my sight. This was the first time I have ever done this in my life...
I did some more research this year and decided to try some bare shaft tuning with both 400 spine and 300 spine FMJ's.
The first shots through paper from about 6 feet away with the Halon that was tuned about as good as I could get it were pretty shocking!
I still couldn't eliminate the tears.
I did some more research and found out that Mathews sells a master Halon top hat spacer kit for $50 and I found a Facebook post where a guy uses the kit to fix an issue just like I have been having. I figured I would have to buy the kit or try to talk my shop into buying the kit and install different tophats so that my $1000 bow would shoot correctly.
In the meantime I have been questioning my form, although I have been shooting bows for 50 years and I felt pretty good about it.
I decided to pull out my old MQ1 (which groups fixed blade broadheads and field points together out to 70 yards) and shoot it through paper.
I was very pleased with the initial shots through paper with the MQ1 and with just a few minor adjustments I was able to shoot bullet holes.
A little more tweaking and I was happy.
I was shocked at the results!
The tears were much better and with a few tweaks I was able to shoot bullet holes with the 300's.
The 400's still had a tear.
Last night I shot 100 grain Slick Trick Magnums, Standards, Shuttle T and Wasp Boss on the FMJ 300's at 20, 30 and 40 yards and they're grouping right with my field points. I still have some fine tuning to do but I can finally say that I have it cured!!!
Some of the irony in this whole situation is that if the archery shop would have just switched my upper tophats last year instead of the lower tophats I would have cured the issue a year ago.
I'm finally happy...
Yep! top hats make tuning the Mathews pretty slick. Without them its frustrating to say the least. Good shooting :)
I'm guessing your grip could be contributing to the problem, not the actual grip on the bow but how you are gripping it with your hand. I've discovered that the Halon is very sensitive to hand position. I've found that for most consistent results I have to drop my wrist and let the bow's grip rest against more of the palm of my hand. That's a lot more hand contact with the grip than I'm used to. I used to shoot the MQ1 with a high wrist with the bow grip only contacting my hand in the web between my index finger an thumb. But that hand position induces torque on the Halon which I could really see when I shot fixed blade broadheads. I didn't like the stock grip on the Halon and I replaced it with the $80 wood grip...
BTW, after more experimenting last summer with the FMJ 300's and 400's with different types of vanes, etc. I ended up going back to the 400's. For some reason they were more consistent. They also shot flatter than the 300's so I didn't have to change my sight tape that was set out to 120 yards for the 400's.
I'm still not 100% satisfied with the grouping of field points and fixed blade broadheads past 60 yards with the Halon. I think what it needs is more tophat tuning with some different width tophats vs. just swapping sides with the upper tophats.
