new recurve tuning issue

[buddyrip]

I am new to traditional shooting and have aquired a samick journey takedown bow in 40#,fast flite string, shooting off of rest.Arrows are easton powerflight carbon 500 spine at 31", 4" plastic vanes and 100 gr tips. I have a 30" draw length and believe my form is pretty good at times. Had shot several arrows and had found the fletching was hitting hard on the shelf leaving a mark and damaging fletching. I moved the nock point up now more than 1/4"( was originally at about 1/2") and still lightly touching shelf at times. Wondering if i'm going in the right direction? Is this nock point, arrow tuning, form, or possibly bow tiller? Outsyder where r u?

[Foxtail]

You can go way up on your nock point up to 3/4" is ok and it will shrink your gaps aswell. If you are shooting of your shelf, feathers are better but vanes should still be okay. If you are still having problems with the vanes contacting the shelf, try sticking on a Bear weather rest and retune... Works better with vanes.

[buddyrip]

i'm already shooting off the rest (bearpaw) with vanes. I'll try as high as 3/4"and see what happens.

[OutsyderBC]

If it's porpoising (moving up and down) then you should move it up, if you are shooting 3under then this is not unusual, even an inch or more over perpendicular.
The other thing to do would be tie a second knock point below your arrow when nocked (not TOO tight - remember the string angle as you draw) with dental floss if you don't have a any more brass nocks.

Some of us tune and then de-tune by moving the nocking point to get us a required point on distance - don't worry about that now but my point is that whilst good tuning is pretty important you can tweak it to suit your shooting needs, indeed world class shooters do this particularly for indoors and sometimes for hunting.

Jimmy Blackmon and Dewayne Martin have YouTube vids breaking this down, worth a watch.

[buddyrip]

So I have just finished shooting another 80 arrows at 40 lbs on my new samick sage. today was checking nocking point with two bare shaft, 500 spine, 31" and 100gr points and I have ended up at about 1/2" above with a second nocking point tied below and a little play to accommodate string angle. most of my shooting is at
9 paces in my garage as it is illegal to shoot outdoors in town. I do cheat and step outside an open door to get 13 paces sometimes when i'm testing arrow flight. Thanks to my new buds Arne, Jimmy, and Jeff Kavanaugh I believe I've made big improvements on form and gone from afraid of not hitting the bag to 4arrows within 1/2" of a vertical string and sometimes 4 arrows in the space of a loonie. have also got some 30 lb limb that I use mostly and they come in handy when I need to hold for more than a moment to practice aiming.
This is what I'm getting at now is the aiming part. I'm quite comfortable shooting 3 under with index finger at corner of mouth but I would like to be anchoring with middle finger at corner of mouth like Jimmy does but find it quite awkward and kind of stooping forward. It is hard to get everything else consistent when I try that and find it is easier to do with a tab than a glove. But I will keep trying and hopefully ready to shoot some rad trad 3D next spring.

[OutsyderBC]

Good job Bud!

Do you have a club in town doing indoor one night a week or something? Might be worth checking out…….. get some distance, work with competent archers and maybe a coach?

There's few if any quick fixes in this game but hanging out with decent and helpful shooters is definitely a step in the right direction.

Look forwards to seeing you at a 3d in the summer

[Bowzone_Mikey]

I would think that your arrow is smacking the riser because your spine is too stiff ... try 125 or 150 grain points and see what happens ...

you want your arrow to flex around the riser as it leaves

[Onesock]

For a 40 lb bow you should be shooting at least 600s and maybe 700s.

[Muliechaser]

I shoot 400s with 100 grain tips at 45lb draw they flex just enough that they miss the riser on take off . Works great for me .i have excelent grouping at 20 - 40 yards . I get flack all the time for using such a light spine all the time . But what works for one guy may not work for another .

[greybark]

Good morning Muliechaser , your spine may be heavy . But like you say "if it works" . What are you LB or RC and draw lenght ?
Cheers

[greybark]

Good morning buddyrip , one of the reasons I recommened at least 45 lb limbs was the tuning nightmare of proper spine problems . Spine tables are fine but do not take in account of extreme sideways string travel during finger release at low poundage . Bigger hands , poor or release varience encourages more sideways string travel at release . Use feathers and remove vane contact , one less thing to worry about .
Cheers

[OutsyderBC]

Good morning buddyrip , one of the reasons I recommened at least 45 lb limbs was the tuning nightmare of proper spine problems . Spine tables are fine but do not take in account of extreme sideways string travel during finger release at low poundage . Bigger hands , poor or release varience encourages more sideways string travel at release . Use feathers and remove vane contact , one less thing to worry about .
Cheers

Right to a point, heavier bows and/or longer draws are way easier to work with, no doubt.

There is much choice for arrows in the 500 and up range too which works for this too which also helps and often eases the finances too without dropping too much $$ on the lighter spined (target specific) shafts. But now there are a few choices, reasonably priced down to 800 spine so you can get what you need without having massively heavy points and those rainbow trajectories.

Over length arrows works sometimes and also helps with aiming.

There is also little point in trying for perfection in your tuning until you have decent consistency especially on the release.

For the longest time I was on .400's and 125gr+standard 21gr inserts up front, shooting full length with a 29.5" draw - slightly weak (good. the weight of the feathers and wraps stiffens them).

I also worked with .500's and 100gr+standard 21gr inserts, full length and there were much weaker (not good)

My target arrows for the 2016 season are full length 500's with 80gr glue in field points and they are like lasers!

Like uncle Ken says, charts etc are a good starting point but you only really know by doing it and I have tuned all my bows over the years and you do get some odd results that should not work which is not surprising if you factor in bow speeds/centre cuts/shelf vs rest etc, etc, etc.

[buddyrip]

Since my last post I have made some changes. I put 3 1/2" feathers ( got them cheap) on my 500 spine full length arrows and changed to shooting off the shelf, 1/8" furniture felt on shelf and some tape with a matchstick on the side. Nock height at 1/4" with bare shaft was getting a nice arrow but with feathers it was bouncing of the shelf. I contacted the local shooting club and they do an 18 meter indoor target twice a week so I joined them on saturday, very casual group shooting 300 rounds and a couple of good old OLY shooters. Well I surprised myself by consistently hitting the target with some three arrow groups all in the yellow, this was with 40 lb limbs and no sight. At an hour and half of shooting I got tired and my groups started to spread. I will be back but with my 30 lb limbs. In all of this I have been trying alot of different things and reading alot of posts. I'm beginning to feel and see what happens to the arrow when I torque or move my bow arm or when I have a poor release by plucking or poor anchor as well as what I did right when I had a bullseye bullit. I now have the 30 lb limbs on and have two 600 spine arrows to play with, one bare shaft and one feather. They seem to be flying well with 100gr. or 125 gr, tips. I just now have my shooting set up in the basement at 17 meters thu a doorway and into the storage room. Hope the wife approves! Anyway, picked up some indoor targets and shot my second ever 300 round, at only 17 meters thou, and scored 227. Am waiting for some more 600 spine arrows so I can continue to shoot with this group and this setup during winter. First 3D shoot for me will be in penticton in late february, maybe see you there. I'll be toting my new stick.