# Longbow arrow tuning



## Stone Bridge (May 20, 2013)

Those of you who shoot and compete with Howard Hill style longbows that impart a great deal of paradox to an arrow on release, do you bare shaft tune your wooden arrows? or do you simply get shafts spined for your poundage and assemble your arrows?

I only ask because lately I've been messing with a Hill bow and I'm having trouble getting any wood bare shaft to fly straight at all. They all show very weak for me. I've never had this issue tuning a recurve with alloy or carbon arrows. I'm not well versed in wood and I'm surprised by my poor result so far.

Bow is a HH of 50 pounds at 27". I've gone up to 70# so far and cannot get a bare shaft to show stiff or even to approach stiff. I've even cut them down to 28" and they show weak. I'm using 125 grain points and don't wish to go lighter.

I've read somewhere that Dave Wallace does not bare shaft wood from his longbows. I'm wondering if the result I'm getting is something others see and they simply disregard with bare shaft testing and use whatever fletched shaft groups the best. Howard Hill was said to choose his arrows this way without using a spine tester.

Any thoughts?


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## rattus58 (Jul 9, 2007)

Stone Bridge said:


> Those of you who shoot and compete with Howard Hill style longbows that impart a great deal of paradox to an arrow on release, do you bare shaft tune your wooden arrows? or do you simply get shafts spined for your poundage and assemble your arrows?
> 
> I only ask because lately I've been messing with a Hill bow and I'm having trouble getting any wood bare shaft to fly straight at all. They all show very weak for me. I've never had this issue tuning a recurve with alloy or carbon arrows. I'm not well versed in wood and I'm surprised by my poor result so far.
> 
> ...


depends on my rush.... I try to bareshaft every arrow now... just to see... mostly cuz I'm using dowels... bareshafting can do a lot... but so too does an erratic release... so if your form is down... so too should your results be.

Aloha.. :beer:


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

My Hills like a wooden spine right near their draw weight. They also like a nock height higher than on my recurves (I shoot split).

You may be getting a false-weak reading due to some form/grip reasons. If you are new to the Hill grip, you may be torquing or higher-wristing it enough to throw things wacky. 

The nock height must be attended to early on to avoid strange flight. On the Hill's rest, there are three basic points of nock tune due to the flatness of the shelf: dead flat, off the belly side (low nock), and off the back side (high nock). There is no curvature to finesse with, so feel free to raise that nock quite a bit (test from one inch high and then creep downwards) to see what happens.

My Hills have the shafts offset away from the riser about four shaft widths from center. This is huge, and is the reason I believe my Hills like a spine near the draw weight, rather than spined over the draw weight that a closer-to-center recurve would like.

My initial thought is that you are severely over-spined. If anything else, at least try some weaker shafts down at the bow's draw weight to see what happens.

Good luck, and you'll certainly get it down fairly soon.


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## Stone Bridge (May 20, 2013)

Thin Man, so I take it you are able to get good bare shaft flight with your Hills? That you do test this way before fletching arrows? I have not tried wood shafts at 50# like the bow I'm shooting weighs. All my testing has been with spines at or above 55#. What surprised me was as I got stiffer in spine there was no indication of the flight indicating stiffer. All were still very weak.

If I shoot a variety of carbon shafts (fletched) I can make this bow shoot very nicely. I have not bare shaft tested carbon shafts because I want to use this bow with wood.

Will try some much lighter spines. In years past I shot hybrid longbows like the 21st Century and had no problem bareshafting those. They seemed to tune just like a recurve in my hands. These more conventional Hill bows are a different animal it seems if you're looking for good bare shaft tune.


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## JINKSTER (Mar 19, 2011)

Stone Bridge said:


> Those of you who shoot and compete with Howard Hill style longbows that impart a great deal of paradox to an arrow on release, do you bare shaft tune your wooden arrows? or do you simply get shafts spined for your poundage and assemble your arrows?
> 
> I only ask because lately I've been messing with a Hill bow and I'm having trouble getting any wood bare shaft to fly straight at all. They all show very weak for me. I've never had this issue tuning a recurve with alloy or carbon arrows. I'm not well versed in wood and I'm surprised by my poor result so far.
> 
> ...


I know ya kinda despise me and all...and this isn't a Hill Bow but I think it more than qualifies as it is one of those deals where the bow riser is cut nowhere's even close to center..and in such cases for me?...what's proven to be most effective is...

1.Weak Spined Arrows

2. Cut To Tuned Length

3. With Heavy Points

to...."Bend'em Like Beckham"...and snake around the riser rather than clack off of it aqnd give you "False Weak" readings...

These are 28 1/2" long, 11/32ndths Doug Fir, w/ 160gr glue-ons coming off a 42# selfbow...which I will always predraw/snap-shoot...cause...well?....it's a selfbow that I'm shooting off my hand...and btw?...Paul Jalon of "Elite Arrows" makes Dave Wallaces stix...now here's how my feeble crap shoots...






hope that helps...even if ya hate me.. :laugh: and L8R, Bill. :cool2:


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## JimPic (Apr 8, 2003)

I have a 64" Hill-style Zebra longbow,[email protected]" and it shoots a 2016 perfectly...fletched and bareshaft. Gave up shooting wood arrows years ago


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

I'll just think out loud on the situation here. 

First (and not meaning to insult), let's make sure that by weak, you mean that (if you're a RH archer) the bare shafts are flying to the right. Just checking to be sure!

I would think that 55# shafts left full-length (32") and drawn 27" would fall within a range of potential for proper flight. At a draw of 27" your 50# bow is shooting at about 47-ish pounds, but somewhere within those extra shaft inches should be a reasonable tune for that with 125 grain points. I shoot 125 grains, as well. I'd expect a full-length 55# shaft to be possibly weak, rather than strong.

I don't bare shaft without comparing to fletched. However, if your form is whacking the flight, I'd expect a fletched arrow to perform similarly to the bare shaft. Ergo the reason to compare with both fletched and bare.

Potential form problems to toss the arrow right include plucking the string with the draw hand pulling outwards away from the face rather than straight back. If your Hill has a straight grip, yet you are still have a recurve "hangover" and are using a more high recurve-like grip, this may be part of the problem, as well. I'll paste my mini-lecture on seeking a grip at the end of this post.

Until you are settled in with fletched flight to a moderate degree on a new style of bow, bare shaft tuning may be a study in futility. I don't bother to bare shaft with a radically different bow until I have some fairly well-guessed fletched arrows under some consistent control over quite some period of time. Then I can reference the bare shaft with a more established base to compare with.

My gut says: fletch up a number of arrows near and slightly higher then the bow's draw weight with the 125 points, leave them full length, and shoot like the dickens over the next month or so. Work only on form, and study (forum and books) what solutions are employed for a particular error you are encountering.

Once your shots become consistent and happily grouped within reason, then perform some bare shaft comparisons to see how the bares behave. Then you can minimally modify the fletched length, repeat the steady shooting regimen, and bare shaft again after a new level of consistency is achieved. 

My own Hill quest was to find a suitably _weak _arrow. It was hard for me to grasp how different the Hill's nature was as opposed to a recurve. But once I crossed the hump, things smoothed out nicely. Those Hills are dandy shooters, for sure!

Here follows my mini-lecture on my technique to find a suitable grip. I hope it helps. Someone else may soon come along with more advice to get you rolling. In fact, I hope that many hop on board (hint!), for I always enjoy a good edumocation.

*Gripping the Bow*

I shoot a variety of bows with radically differing grips. After having similar frustration with what you mention, I took a different approach to gripping the bow.

I let the bow tell me the grip it likes. One way I get into the bow's ballpark is to hold it over my shoulder, limbs parallel to the ground, and allow the grip to balance into my hand where it seems to want to be. I bend my elbow to differing angles and hoist the bow about ... up and down and laterally backwards and forwards. I am looking for the natural fall of the bow into my fingers and palm.

I then replicate this grip with an arrow nocked and draw hand applying slight pressure on the string as if getting ready to lift the bow to take a shot. The grip hand may settle into a slight variation of the "over the shoulder hoist" at this point. I keep all my fingers touching around the grip loosely, yet securely ... none of the open hand or finger tactics.

Another tactic to observe a natural grip is to simply hold the bow comfortably by your side as if resting after a shot, with the string up, usually resting against the arm guard. Here's the catch ... using your comfortable grip from the "over the shoulder hoist", notice the natural way the bow wants to lean by your side without forcing the limbs to be parallel to the ground. Some bows will indeed naturally hang parallel to the ground, yet others may like to tilt forwards in varying degrees with the upper limb closer to the ground. This can reinforce the feeling of the natural grip for that particular bow.

I solved my Hill longbow grip conundrum by combining these two tactics. The traditional straight longbow grip had been giving me fits. One day I was holding the bow by my side and began noticing that it felt uncomfortable to carry with the limbs parallel to the ground. Further study showed that as I let the bow hand naturally relax, the upper limb would tilt closer to the ground. I readjusted my grip to fit that natural tilt, brought the bow to shooting position, and then readjusted my elbow angle to complete the feel. Bingo.

Which brings up the elbow bend. I'm not gonna step on conventional recommendations here, but in my case the elbow and grip hand must blend their natures. You can experiment with this on a bow using extreme angles to get a sense of what I am saying. The high-wrist grip (which I have abandoned) will easily allow for a very straight arm, including the not-recommended hyper-extension of the elbow forwards into the string path. As the grip moves in degree from high-wrist to low-wrist, I find that the straightness of the arm and angle of the elbow wants for a bit more "relaxation" ... *in my case*. I highlight "in my case" for each individual has differing bone, muscle, and tendon structure and my circumstances and comfort zones possibly do not apply to someone else ... and may actually be detrimental to them.

I observe the spectrum from Olympic, flat-handed, high-wrist, open fingered, straight arm shooters all the way over to the longbow, full-palm, knuckles-up, bent elbow shooters (crouching like a lion ready to spring upon its prey is optional!).

Your bow grip is somewhere between those two extremes. I hope my observations may help you find more comfort.


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## Stone Bridge (May 20, 2013)

Thanks, Thin Man. You spent some time writing all that and I appreciate it.

Jinks, I don't despise you. I simply hate your form-changing, never stick with it, guts. LOL


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## longbowguy (Nov 14, 2004)

I don't try to bareshaft tune wooden arrows from longbows. And I buy spines near the draw weight. So I also think your shafts are overspined. Field points are cheap. I'd get a supply in various heavy weights and I bet you could get those shafts to fly and group. But I bet 45# or 50# shafts would tune best with 125 or 145 grain points. I would leave them overlong to begin tuning. 

Instead of bearshaft tuning I fine tune to get my arrows to fly right down the target line to where I am looking with the amount of cant I prefer. That is a more valid test to me than reading bareshaft results. I have Howard Hill and 21st Century longbows and the Hill bow tunes best with about 10# less spine than the 21st Century, or with two steps heavier field points on the same shafts. 

Those 70# shafts might need 190 grain points to tune well, but that would make good large bear and boar medicine. - lbg


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

Longbowguy, 

Thanks for jumping in. Solid stuff, without the wind. 

Appreciated.


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## J-san (Oct 12, 2004)

I have a horsebow that lacks a shelf and is shot off the knuckle. I had a spine selection issue similar to yours where I had very stiff shafts showing weak. Turned out it was a false reading and I had to go weaker with spine to get the shafts to paradox properly around the riser and fly straight.


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## rattus58 (Jul 9, 2007)

longbowguy said:


> I don't try to bareshaft tune wooden arrows from longbows. And I buy spines near the draw weight. So I also think your shafts are overspined. Field points are cheap. I'd get a supply in various heavy weights and I bet you could get those shafts to fly and group. But I bet 45# or 50# shafts would tune best with 125 or 145 grain points. I would leave them overlong to begin tuning.
> 
> Instead of bearshaft tuning I fine tune to get my arrows to fly right down the target line to where I am looking with the amount of cant I prefer. That is a more valid test to me than reading bareshaft results. I have Howard Hill and 21st Century longbows and the Hill bow tunes best with about 10# less spine than the 21st Century, or with two steps heavier field points on the same shafts.
> 
> Those 70# shafts might need 190 grain points to tune well, but that would make good large bear and boar medicine. - lbg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/rattus58/Handrelease_zps6886aff2.jpg

A neat little hand release that allows you to use your normal shelf.

You don't have to bareshaft tune to get arrows to shoot. This is proved over and over by anyone who sells arrows. However, for one who has multiple bows and wants to get arrows to group by spine/bow, bareshaft tuning is a time/work/frustration saver... and well worth the effort... group and mark for each bow.

Much Aloha,

:beer:


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## Viper1 (Aug 21, 2003)

Stone - 

Have to go with LBG here. 
Generally don't bother trying the bare shaft woods, the eyeball method is enough and paper tune if you really want something more quantifiable.
With aluminum, all of my Hills require arrows 10% to 10# weaker than expected. 

Viper1 out.


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## Stone Bridge (May 20, 2013)

Thanks all. I will try a much lighter spine. I've never had trouble with my Olympic recurves before. I wasn't aware of a false weak with Hill bows. I thought any bow showing weak needed a stiffer arrow. And so I started chasing in the wrong direction. My 21st Century longbow never showed this kind of false weak. I could easily bare shaft that bow with carbon or alloy shafts.

Jinks, in your video with the 42# selfbow, what's the spine value on the wooden shafts you're shooting? You are getting the kind of result I was looking for.


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## Bender (Dec 6, 2006)

With wood not only is it possible to bareshaft tune, but it is what one should do. If one is looking for the best possible results. It is often argued that paper tuning is problematic at best when shooting with fingers. The case only gets worse with woodies. Just keep in mind that even with the most meticulous culling and sorting that any given group at any given distance will be larger than what you would see with synthetics, bare or fletched. Its due to the inherent variables in the wood. Once sorting, culling, tuning etc is done, you still need to shoot and "proof" each arrow and set aside those that just simply refuse to cooperate. I no longer work to build a dozen at a time. Any given batch is a set of arrows that perform well together. An "Archer's Dozen" whether its 12, or 9, or 17 arrows.

A false weak indication is caused by an arrow that is too stiff, and the nock end the arrow whacks the riser as it flies by. With a RH shooter that drives the nock end left and the arrow dives right, apparently badly weak. The clue to this happening is the loud obnoxious whack, clack, clank, whatever that the arrow makes when it hits the riser. And less center shot the bow, the more susceptible the bow becomes to this effect.

FWIW I have come to the conclusion that not only tuning about setting up the degree to which an arrow flexes in order to make its way past the riser, but it is also about getting the timing of that flex right.


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## JINKSTER (Mar 19, 2011)

Stone Bridge said:


> Thanks all. I will try a much lighter spine. I've never had trouble with my Olympic recurves before. I wasn't aware of a false weak with Hill bows. I thought any bow showing weak needed a stiffer arrow. And so I started chasing in the wrong direction. My 21st Century longbow never showed this kind of false weak. I could easily bare shaft that bow with carbon or alloy shafts.
> 
> Jinks, in your video with the 42# selfbow, what's the spine value on the wooden shafts you're shooting? You are getting the kind of result I was looking for.


I don't have a spine tester Stone...alls I can tell you is these 11/32ndths doug fir feel just a notch stiffer than my 35-40# KK 5/16ths cedars but with more flex to'em than my .650 spine cheetahs...but I also put some heavy metal up front...160gr glue-on's.

Here's the thing with these things...most folks that are used to bows where the risers are cut-to-center (or dang close to it) have trouble wrapping their head around the fact that with bows where the riser is cut way before center?....the arrow has to wrap around the riser when shot...nock and arrow up on the Hill bow of yours and take a look at it from the backside...if you're right handed your arrow point will be way left of the string when the string is centered on the limbs.......leaving the shaft (at static) looking like this \

and that nock stays on the string to a wee bit past static when shot...to achieve clearance in that situation?...I load a bunch of weight up front on a real limber arrow shaft...to make it do this ( around the riser...heavy points, limber arrows and then cut'em down until they hit where ya look and appear to fly clean...without clacking against or off the riser.

and don't be shy about cutting them down...they ain't like CF shafts where a 1/4" can make a noticeable dif in tune...as I find with the wood shafting?...you can lop off a 1/2" at a time and it's sometimes hard to tell if that made a dif or not pending point weight...especially if your using light points like 125 and less.

This is how Dave Wallace's arrow smith "Paul Jalon" rolls...he pretty much insists on sending you a test kit...you tell him the type and weight of the bow and then he sends you about 4 "ballpark" shafts to test and tune...then you tell'im which flew best and he builds'em...but for me?...the challenge of tuning is a big part of the fun...and the way I figure?...if you can get'em to fly clean off the bow and straight towards the target and hit where ya look without fletchings?...that's way better than..

"yeah...that one looked good" :laugh:

The one thing I might stress to you is this....If you go "weak" on the shafting?...you can always cut'em down or go with lighter points (I shoot 70gr glue-ons on my 5/16ths cedars off a 33# D-bow)...but if your shafting is on the stiff side from jump street?...you're just gonna aggravate yourself.

Hope that helps ya...L8R, Bill.


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## Stone Bridge (May 20, 2013)

Thanks, Bill. It does help. It lets me know you do have to go very weak. Coming from recurves this Hill bow is different. Funny part is it shoot 500 spine arrows very well. They're 29" long with 125 grain points. I would think this combo too stiff but it groups very well. But since I want to shoot wood, I'll go with very soft spines and start over.


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## rattus58 (Jul 9, 2007)

JINKSTER said:


> I don't have a spine tester Stone...alls I can tell you is these 11/32ndths doug fir feel just a notch stiffer than my 35-40# KK 5/16ths cedars but with more flex to'em than my .650 spine cheetahs...but I also put some heavy metal up front...160gr glue-on's.
> 
> Here's the thing with these things...most folks that are used to bows where the risers are cut-to-center (or dang close to it) have trouble wrapping their head around the fact that with bows where the riser is cut way before center?....the arrow has to wrap around the riser when shot...nock and arrow up on the Hill bow of yours and take a look at it from the backside...if you're right handed your arrow point will be way left of the string when the string is centered on the limbs.......leaving the shaft (at static) looking like this \
> 
> ...


A spine tester is easy to make and is cheap... and I recommend a dial gauge to simplify your life with the project.... a cheap one is but a few dollars... 25 maybe or 30.

Aloha... :beer:


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## Thin Man (Feb 18, 2012)

My spine tester was about two bucks, but it's not as cool, exciting, or sci-fi as a dial gauge one. I truly do envy you folks who managed to rig up one of those. Some of the neatest ones are the rigs with those long hands that swoop out over a large clock-like face to read the spine in big print. But the dial models carry the most "official and accurate to the decimal" look to my eyes (though my homely nail through the hole certainly ain't no slouch!).


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## rattus58 (Jul 9, 2007)

Thin Man said:


> My spine tester was about two bucks, but it's not as cool, exciting, or sci-fi as a dial gauge one. I truly do envy you folks who managed to rig up one of those. Some of the neatest ones are the rigs with those long hands that swoop out over a large clock-like face to read the spine in big print. But the dial models carry the most "official and accurate to the decimal" look to my eyes (though my homely nail through the hole certainly ain't no slouch!).


Mine has a 1 1/2" face... :grin:


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