A point or two about Arrows

I spent this past year this past year learning and testing arrows. Why did it take me so long? In my opinion you should not really worry about arrows until you have control of your shot cycle and start becoming consistent in your shot groups.

I like to use a three arrow group, that is what we did in the Army and it is a good standard. I have been able to get my three arrows in a nice tight group and that told me I have gotten my shot cycle down. Now, it was not perfect but it is starting to take final form.

When I first started shooting (using a 47 pound bow) I was using 400 spine arrows, and to me they flew great. But as I got better I would see a little movement from time to time. Then I went to 500’s and for a while they few great, but after a while that movement came back.

That is when I realized something was up. How could they fly great but after a while start to move? Really, what was wrong? Turns out it was me. My shot cycle had so much variance in it that I couldn’t see it moving. But why did they fly straight for a while?

That is when I learned a little trick. Those charts for arrows, you know them. The one we all use to choose the “proper” arrow. Well, they are off!

Yep, those charts are not exact and they do not account for several things that affect which arrow you should choose. The first thing is how your bow is cut. If your bow is bow is not cut to center, you need to subtract five pounds from your draw weight. And ….. If you are using a dacron string, you need to subtract five pounds from your bow weight.

So, my 47 pound bow is not cut to center and I’m using a dacron string. That means I should subtract ten pounds off my bow. What that means is when I use the chart, I shouldn’t be looking at the 47 pound range, but the 37!

I now use 600 spine arrows (still too stiff, I had to use 175 grain heads to get them to fly right). I have bareshaft tuned and paper tuned them and they fly great. In fact this past few months I have shot better than ever. The best part? That bow works really well with 800 spine arrows! But the charts say 500’s.

Lesson learned.

Tuning with the Lumenock

I will be the first to admit that I do not “tune” my arrows, nor do I make my own. I have the guy at the local pro shop make them. Doing it that way has worked great for me for so long, why change now? People always ask me for arrow tuning advice and look at me like I have a horn in the middle of my forehead when I tell them I don’t tune my arrows. “What, you don’t tune or build your own arrows? Blasphemy”! Is what I picture is going through their minds.

One reason I don’t is that I shoot instinctive and I believe that doing so is inherently inaccurate to a degree.  A person shooting instinctive is going to have a larger shot group than the person using sights, it just a fact of life. I’m understand that and I’m perfectly happy to live with that fact, trust me I don’t loose any sleep over it. But there are times when I wonder if I should.

Just in the past few weeks I noticed that a couple of my arrows seemed to be flying different. The vast majority of the time any problems in archery are caused by me not my bow or the arrows. It was only it seemed one of two arrows. So I questioned the equipment. Were they getting old and too beaten up to use I wondered. Maybe they were right, I should build and tune my own arrows that would cure the problem, yes that was it!

So I read up on tuning, watched YouTube video’s and even bought a DVD. What I found is that like anything else everyone puts the emphasis on something different.  No one can agree on anything in archery it seems.

The one neat trick that I liked was from the DVD. It was by Byron Ferguson (Tuning for Extreme Accuracy) and in it he said once his arrows are set, he has a final test. He takes his arrows to the range and shoots them at dusk using a Lumenock. If you don’t know what a Lumenock is, it is a nock made for hunting that when the arrow is released a LED inside the nock turns on, allowing you to see the arrow better while in flight and if your prey runs, you hopefully can follow or find it easier.

He made a great point that many times it is difficult for you to see the flight of the arrow and that what you thought you saw may not have been accurate. That is why he uses the Lumenock, his eyes could follow the flight of the arrow better.

I just by chance had a couple of them and went to the range, It is still too cold here to shoot outdoors and the snow is almost gone, so instead I shot indoors and simply turned off the lights. I could just see the target and let loose a few, wow, what a difference, my eyes could track it the whole way and the person watching said they could see it even better! Using the Lumenock I found out that my arrows fly just fine and yes, it was once again operator head space and timing that was the problem. I’m still going to have my pro shop make mine, but I will now check them using the Lumenock whenever I doubt the equipment.