I hijacked the hell out of a thread on the CT hunter survey on the CT forum - sorry, get me talking fly fishing and I can go on even longer than I can about bow hunting... Ooph. Any way, I didnt want to hijack the shop thread... so...
What's your tuning method/choice?
I haven't paper tuned with my last few bows. My method has been pretty simple: 1.) Get arrows that, in theory, are the correct stiffness/length for my set up. 2.) Use a centershot tool and arrow shaft level to get the rest's initial position set. 3.) "Sight" in at 10, then 20yds. (I use a slider style sight, so I just move the pin for this.) 4.) Walk back tune. hang paracord in front of the target as a plumb line for true vertical, shoot 4-5 arrows at 20 (where I'm "sighted in") then holding at the same bullseye, I shoot a few arrows at 30, 40, 50, 60. I cant go further without hitting dirt - which sort of defeats the whole arrow tuning thing :). Ill 5.) note where those arrows hit the target relative to the vertical line, adjust my rest to move the arrows impact point so hopefully every arrow is in the same vertical plane (roughly), just getting lower on the target as I go back. 6.) Repeat until it looks like I have, more or less, a vertical line of arrows down the target. 7.) take out a standard BH, and go through some good old fashioned BH tuning - until I have them and FP's hitting as close to the same holes as my skill level allows. So, if they are like 8" apart at 20 yards I doing great... KIDDING! I just want it to look like a tight for me group at the given distance with the BH and FP arrows evenly distributed through out the groupings. 8.) Double check by shooting my FP's out as far as I can (typically shooting well at this point). 9.) Shoot my practice mech heads at various distances just to feel confident. 10.) Enjoy the fruits of my labor when shooting.
Never thought of it as being so many steps. Sort of surprising to see that. But it works great and has removed paper or bareshaft efforts from my tuning approach.
How about you all - how do you do your tuning?
I'm think folk's frustration with paper tuning usually mean they have one of the fundamentals listed above out of whack.
Your comments on anchor and torque. I used to struggle with that stuff. Then a guy on AT convinced me to try this thing called a "NoPeep". I dont know if they are still made, but it's the same idea as the little dots you line up on an IQ bow sight. If you torque the bow just a little, you see it. If your anchor is off, you know.
It allowed me to ditch the peep sight and makes pre shot on a deer or target super easy, draw, line up the dots, pin on target, squeeze.
Does it really work? About 6 years ago (or more now) I sold a bow to a buddy. I'm close to 6 feet, he's 6'5" with arms like a condor. He test shot the bow with my 29.5" draw that works for me, and his "anchor" was like 3" in front of his face. He just lined up the dots on the no peep, put the pin on the bull and nailed it - over and over again.
I liked it prior to that, I've been even more convinced since.
I bareshaft my carbons on my trad bows. only papertuned once and it was an exercise in frustration for me.
Shawn, you mention shimming the cams. I've heard of that, and years ago, Ben B (I think you guys are buddies - if I have my "shawn's" right ha ha ha) did some cool cable twisting stuff to a bowtech Allegiance (binary system) I had at the time. I've not done it since because 1.) I dont have a press and 2.) havent needed too on the 2 binary's I've had since. But it was interesting and worked. Is shimming sort of like that, or are you literally changing where the cam tracks relative to the limb's center? Or is it a different name for yolk tunning?
