First year recurve hunter tuning bow
Equipment
Bought a Shakespeare WamBaw X-12 from a local sport shop last year and having been practicing in order to hunt with it this year. I’ve gotten proficient with the bow and have now crossed over to the fine tuning world. I feel stumped how to fine tune it with information overload. Specifically I’m noticing a lot of midair wiggle in my arrows. My brace height sits at 9 and 7/8 inches untwisted. My knocks are just over a half inch and I’m shooting 400 spine arrows with a 45# 30 inch draw length. Need advice how to have better arrow flight!
a stiffer spine may help, post on Leatherwall and prepare for more overload.
400 may be too stiff. Is your bow 45# drawn to 30" ? A 500 might be a better match even cut to 31. What point weight are you shooting? Fletching? Glove or tab? And that brace height is waaaay high. You need a string at least an inch longer.
I agree with Dana - your brace height is nearly two inches too high. Your nock point seems too high at 1/2" but will likely change as you get the right spine arrows and lower the brace height. And it's also likely that the mid-air wiggle is from the feathers trying to correct the overspined arrow. That could also be a result of your release.
How are you measuring your brace height?
The Wam Baw ran a brace height of 8-9”.
400 spine is too stiff, you can try installing 100 grain inserts or heavier points(175-200) too help with arrow flight. Best to change over to 500 spine arrows, most average points should work (125-145). Try to keep a high FOC. When your brace height is correct your bow will be quiet and perform. Check with 3R website for bow/arrow calculator for best match.
You want a higher weigh forward on a bow that has to perridox (not sure of the spelling) around the shelf of the bow. Weighted inserts and shooting with a bare shaft until your arrow hits straight.
Look on YouTube for more detailed info and videos...
I agree with the others, your brace height is much too high and you're overspined. Remember, raising the brace height reduces the length of the power stroke...effectively negating your long draw length.
Is your draw weight 45# @ 30” or a 45# @ 28” bow drawn to 30”?
Find yourself some .550 spined shafts. Even with a .500 you're gonna need over 250 grains of tip weight. Because your bow isn't cut past center, you'll need a weaker spined shaft. I shoot a .600 spined 30" shaft with 175 grains up front from my 48 pound stick. Learn to bare shaft tune, and you'll find the spine you need. Lower your brace height, measured from the throat of the grip, down to 8" and start your tuning process.
AMO 58” Brace Height: 8-9 inch Riser pistol grip style- X12 has five piece wood lamination, X5 one piece of exotic hardwood. Tips - X12 wood overlay, X5 no overlays Riser window 5 inch Limbs: 1 3/4 inch in Black Glass Weights: 40lb, 45lb, 50lb, 55lb X 12 Stabilizer insert, X5 no insert Arrow speed for X12: 12 shots average, 410 grain arrow 45lb bow-173.62 FPS
And what weight points are you using? Which way are the arrows wobbling, up and down or side to side? If you are going to stick with the stick bows, start accumulating different weight tips and spine arrows so you can experiment to find what a bow wants. Once you find a setup that seems to fly good, put a broadhead on and see if the results are the same! Also, are you shooting 3 under or split? If 3 under you will want a second nocking point under the arrow.
OK - First thing? JMO, in your first year, your chances of shooting well enough to get into “fine tuning” are pretty slim. And your chances of getting “fine tuned” with 400s are about nil at that draw weight.
If you really do know your draw length, probably one of the Old Dudes on Leatherwall can put you onto an aluminum shaft & point weight which should be a whole lot closer than you are now; a lot of them have run their own shops, and did so back when ALL of archery was what is now referred to as “trad”.
I would take their advice, get some arrows fletched up with at least 4” feathers and see if the FPs and BH hit in the same spot to the best of your ability.
Then figure out to what distance you can put 8/10 onto a circle the size of a typical 3D 10-ring, and then do your best to set yourself up for shots at half that distance.
Point weight is critical to help others determine the problem. It sounds like your points are too light on a too stiff shaft.
What information are you getting that you call "overload"?
.500 spine cut to 31"s and 175 grain point weight or there abouts. Also lower the brace height 2"s and your nocking point is close, maybe 3/8"s and you will be darn close to tuned. Shawn
Holy cow, paper tune that thing with the feathers on the shaft, not bare shaft unless you plan on hunting with no feathers. It will get you excellent arrow flight without guessing at spine, nock point, point weight, brace height, it takes awhile but you KNOW which way to head with adjustments.........Mike
Lower that brace to around 8.25 then shoot. If the wobble is gone great. Likely it won’t be because at that point you are going to. E over sliver by a lot. Get some .500 sliver shafts and roll.
FWIW, if you are oroficient now, what till you get it tuned we’ll. Those groups are going to tighten way up.
Hey, muleys....
Have you ever paper-tuned a recurve shot off of the shelf?
I sure as hell haven’t... not with any success. Although I certainly tried often enough. And knowing what the same bow tunes with now, I can pretty much guarantee that all of my problems had nothing at all to do with the arrow and everything to do with my release.
Bare-shaft tuning a stickbow works really well if your form/release is fairly consistent and you shoot reasonably well. For the OP, with the the shafts he’s got, I’d start at 5 yards, because they’re stiff enough that I think they’re going to show stiff that quickly. I have bent aluminum and snapped off wood shafts while bare-shafting when I started too far back. If you start closer than necessary, you will figure it out pretty quickly. If you start farther back than you should have... you’ll find out just as quickly, but having wasted a perfectly good shaft or two.
Then you shoot at a vertical line on your target face and mark down how many fletched & how many bare shafts hit to the right of the line and how many to the left. Save Up/Down for later.
Depending on how good a shot you are, a pattern will develop within a few dozen shots - fletched should hit down the middle pretty much equally and bare will be to one side or the other - and you can correct from there. Once all of your shots are hitting in a single group, you can keep backing up & correcting until you are shooting from as far as you can still call it a group.
It takes time, especially if you’re tuning by length instead of point weight, and even longer if you shoot carbons, unless you have a cut-off saw at the range.
Aluminums are easier to get dialed in, but carbons are generally more forgiving because a high-FOC carbon is already half-fletched anyway.
And if you can get them grouped at 15 yards, then you can switch to all fletched and see if BH/FP will group. And they should, but if not, you can correct. Then you can keep backing up.
That’s not fool-proof. I had one of my bows looking completely dialed at 20 yards yards with a 28” 1916 and 125s, only to see them break high & right starting somewhere between 20 & 30 once I got to the range.
Just a couple more thoughts…
If you want to be able to tune by point weight, then you’re going to have to make sure that you can find a broadhead you like in the same weight as the field points that work. With two blade glue-ones and screw in adapters ranging in weight from about 40 grains to over 100, that’s not that difficult if you’re willing to do the assembly yourself. If you want something that is sold ready to go as a screw in, then you will be more limited.
And in case I didn’t say it already, it’s a lot easier to do an aluminum by length than carbon.
I agree with the bareshaft tuning suggestion. You should be able to get your bare shafts hitting with the fletched ones out to your maximum range. Don't worry about tail high/low/left/right for the bare shafts, just the point of impact. You've got to get a consistent anchor and release down first, regardless of how you decide to tune. The wobble you're seeing could be your release and not spine related at all. I get worse flight if I hold at full draw for a bit before release than if I release as soon as I hit my anchor.
Let me see if you are measuring brace height as I do- from string to deepest part of the grip. This is almost always 7 1/2" to 8" or so on my bows. Getting a string that is 1 1/2" longer than what is on it now should be about right. I would think that you would be much closer to correct spine with .500. Good luck with getting that recurve shooting as you want. And wander over to the Leatherwall for help with traditional gear, full of folks that can offer plenty of good information. 3 Rivers archery has an on-line spine calculator- might want to see what it says about your setup.
Bought a Shakespeare WamBaw X-12 from a local sport shop last year and having been practicing in order to hunt with it this year. I’ve gotten proficient with the bow and have now crossed over to the fine tuning world. I feel stumped how to fine tune it with information overload. Specifically I’m noticing a lot of midair wiggle in my arrows. My brace height sits at 9 and 7/8 inches untwisted. My knocks are just over a half inch and I’m shooting 400 spine arrows with a 45# 30 inch draw length. Need advice how to have better arrow flight!
Pretty sure you already said that! ;)
Brace height on the bow should be 8-9". 400 spine could be ok but you should be using at least 160 grain head. otherwise move to 500.
Cut you fetching off the arrows you have now, and shoot it bare, that will tell you alot. Im betting too stiff.
