# Why do some say BareShaft tuning is useless on a compound bow??



## fotal (Jul 25, 2011)

I've been reading the posts about BareShaft tuning and feel that If I could set my bow to send a shaft with no fletching 40yards then I'd probably be absolutely on with its setup and my form. I'm still a bit confused about what to do when the nock is leaning 2 inches to the left but the tip is grouped with all the fletched arrows and all the nocks are level.(I'm good to about 15 yards, after that the BareShafts take funny curves in the last 5 yards and miss totally..)... so any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Back to my original question, what is the reason/science that some say BareShaft tuning is useless with compounds?? Or is it a definitive absolute positive requirement for proper bow and archer setup?? Could someone please explain... Thanks


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## mitchell (Mar 5, 2005)

I am not sure why anyone would say it is useless. It may be considered unnecessary, for some. For the guy who really knows his equipment, who works with his set up until he can do a good walk back tune, and can group broadheads and field points, he may feel like it is unnecessary and for him, a waste of time. However, the average hunter archer does not seem to fall in that category. So many take what the shop sells them, and shoot it. It is not unusual to find badly matched set ups where people take for granted the shop has the bow and shaft properly matched. This costs you accuracy, efficiency, and can give you fits trying to tune broad heads. 

On the other hand, if you learn to bare shaft your bow, you will have very few problems with broad head flight. Walk back may still be helpful to tweak your center shot, but the shaft will be matched and coming out of the bow well. To me that brings an element of confidence in my set up that is worth the effort.

Normally, you don't worry that much about the angle the shaft sticks in the target, as much as where the bare shaft hits relative to your fletched shafts. I am not in the main stream there, because I don't usually shoot bare shafts with fletched. I just take one bare shaft and get it to the point I can hit my spot from a minimum of 20 yds. Actually, for me, 25 yds is a strong preference. I have found that when you move back beyond 20 yds, you can detect minor stuff that you cannot see at 25 yds in your bare shaft. When you do that with bare shafts and fletched shafts, you may see the groups spread apart significantly.

Not only will bare shafting enable you to match your spine well, it will also often force you to address form issues, as you alluded to.

You apparently have issues with your set up. As you back up further, problems become more apparent. I would begin backing up one additional yard at a time to see how the groups go.


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## mitchell (Mar 5, 2005)

Scroll down the the section on tuning methods on this site, and read the discussion on bare shafting. The info is written for fingers guys, but the principles are pretty much the same.

http://bowmaker.net/index2.htm


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## aj wright (Dec 25, 2007)

If your hitting left with your nock but your tip is in there than move you rest into the right a thirty second or even less if possible I mean ever so slighty. Your in the right area you just need to fine tune it. I just tuned my maxxis to about 28 yards bare shaft and it flies like a dart. Which brings me to the question... Donyou have a binary or hybrid cM system? If you have a hybrid, tuning with your yokes are just as important as moving your rest. My bare shaft was two inches to the left and centershot was on so I put a half a twist in my right yoke and I not only corrected my bare shaft let to right but it made my arrow fly like a dart rather than a wobbled mess.


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## aj wright (Dec 25, 2007)

To answer the question about why some consider it useless, maybe because the use fixed blades when they hunt. I can get my bare shaft to tune, but my tuning broad head was two inches away. If I corrected the broad head, the bare shaft was off. Ive come to the conclusion that the bare shaft tuning is superior than broad head running simply because the actual broad head itself has too many variables of inconsistency. I guess the goal would to be to get your bh and bs to hit the Same and you might, but in the case of not being able to, a person that is tuning their hunting set up might find it a waist of time if they have their broad heads hitting the same spot. I am no pro at bare shaft tuning, but I see the extreme benefits, the more consistency in arrows over broad heads also the benefits if tuning bare shaft. When yur bow is tuned bare shaft it's like you can miss lol.


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## aj wright (Dec 25, 2007)

Another thought as I am at work thinking about this stuff... A friend of mine was broad head tuned out to 35 yards and totally issued with the bare shaft. After fine tuning he fixed the error. I say that to say this, paper tune your field point to get relatively close, than broad head tune (which will bring you even closer) then bare shaft tune... It might help you with the extreme erratic flight as you back up from 15 yards and bring your bare shaft closer to the bh. Any way, I'm done, good luck


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## Strungout2 (Jul 29, 2011)

aj wright said:


> If your hitting left with your nock but your tip is in there than move you rest into the right a thirty second or even less if possible I mean ever so slighty. Your in the right area you just need to fine tune it. I just tuned my maxxis to about 28 yards bare shaft and it flies like a dart. Which brings me to the question... Donyou have a binary or hybrid cM system? If you have a hybrid, tuning with your yokes are just as important as moving your rest. My bare shaft was two inches to the left and centershot was on so I put a half a twist in my right yoke and I not only corrected my bare shaft let to right but it made my arrow fly like a dart rather than a wobbled mess.


Absolutely essential to at least throw a few bareshafts out there next to some fletched to check for nock entry angle. Yoke adjustments fix cam lean at draw and will totally change the tune and point of impact of all your arrows so it is almost useless to go about all the fine work of small adjustments to rest or sights until cams are addressed. Same for cam timing..that is reflected in up/down entry angles being off. If all one has is a press, a bareshaft, and a buddy they can indeed be highly tuned beyond what most pro shops are offering. For fixing lean have buddy hold bareshaft against the flat side of cams at full draw and confirm it runs parallel to the string or more preferable to me is to use my suppressor bar as the reference since it is right in middle of bow and arrow shows the cam lean better there. If no suppressor bar but you have the tapped hole for one I would stick a loose dowl or old arrow wrapped with some tape in there coming right out inline to string while at rest. If you do these things please make sure to use common sense to not hurt anyone involved and use a release rather than fingers... you would not want to get too relaxed and creep up loosing the string on your buddy or explode your bow into pieces. So but whichever direction the cam is leaning towards is the side where you will want to add a couple twists to then either retest at full draw with buddy or confirm with some bareshaft shooting. (take twists out other side of yoke at same time will help keep things in spec). The bows with cam dots for timing are not to be taken too serious either and both being same is but a starting point. My Carnivore shot spot on bareshafts out the box slapping arrows together but with a slight nock low entry angle. It shoots better with about a half dot difference between top and bottom (bottom advanced-). Fixing adjustments are by adding or removing twists to the main buss cable and/or slave cable making sure to keep ata (axle to axle) in spec. Takes about an hour or two for this process. After your cams are good tuning is as simple as performing a modified french tune which is simpler than basic walkback tuning and but tends to sight issues as well. Best info's around on hybrid or such tuning is found in forum posts by Javi or in Nuts & Bolts pdf.. run a search and good luck


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## red44 (Apr 11, 2005)

Bareshafting takes any anomalys of the broadhead out of the equation. Like if the head had issues or the end of the shaft is'nt quite square. I get them as BS and FS as close as possible, then try the broadheads. In my experience, broadheads and bareshafts will mimic each other. So some just go to broadheads vs fieldpoints, I bare shaft vs fletched, just so save my broadhead target and get me darn close.


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## fotal (Jul 25, 2011)

Thanks everyone for the ideas. it's a binary, it was going left with the arrow out of line with the scope. I took 2 turns out of each of the "Y" cables on the right side. then pushed the rest (code red) a 1/64 back to the right. this morning, bareshafting to 30M, grouping with the fletched. Had 3 different bareshafts, CarbonOnes 900 with 70gr, and CarbonOnes 1150 with 80, and 90gr tips. all flew prefect, fletched arrows flying well, very little correction seen inflight. I'm good for now, now I just need the practice. .


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## TMan51 (Jan 25, 2004)

mitchell said:


> I am not sure why anyone would say it is useless. It may be considered unnecessary, for some. For the guy who really knows his equipment, who works with his set up until he can do a good walk back tune, and can group broadheads and field points, he may feel like it is unnecessary and for him, a waste of time. .


Hmmm,

Might want to look for a recent exchange in the "General" section on bare shaft tuning. There was a heavy duty swap/download between several tuners from meduim to advanced in skill and tactics.

I'm guessing that "the guy who knows his equipment" goes through some combination of tuning tactics, long before he shoots his first BH. Paper, French, bareshaft, planing, and so on. When he's done, he confirms his effort with a round of BH tuning. 

Very important to start with proper setup, with ATA/BH/Timing, in spec. From there you progress through some tuningand fine adjustments, then the broadheads magically fly to the spot.


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## da93teg (Sep 16, 2011)

I tuned my sniper near shaft at 20 yards and the arrow flight its perfect with broad heads


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## nock tune (Jul 5, 2009)

With cams and release I just use the bare shaft to tell me nock height and if the arrow is stiff or weak. then group tune from there, I don't shoot paper.
But when I shot round wheels and fingers I could bare shaft out to 60 yards.


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## BTM (Dec 31, 2002)

Great comments, guys! As others have said, it's important to BS tune only _after _you've gotten close to a good tune. Otherwise you'll lose/break arrows or cause an accident. An archery shop owner told me he loves BS tuning (by other people) because "I sell a lot of arrows to those who didn't do it right."


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## STUDENT-ARCHER (Jun 26, 2009)

just send the bows to super tuners..., I'm sure they'll come back shooting broadheads, bare shaft, and field points all in the same hole...

sounds like a great challenge for those with super tuned bows, and a good way to verify the bows are tuned ...or not.


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## bfisher (Nov 30, 2002)

STUDENT-ARCHER said:


> just send the bows to super tuners..., I'm sure they'll come back shooting broadheads, bare shaft, and field points all in the same hole...
> 
> sounds like a great challenge for those with super tuned bows, and a good way to verify the bows are tuned ...or not.


You can hire a cheauffer to drive you around, too, but then you never learn how to drive. Half the fun of being alive is learning how to do things for yourself.


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## bambieslayer (Apr 7, 2010)

the ones saying bareshaft tuning is useless fall into 2 sections
1 they don't even have a clue
2 they are extremely good at setup/component selection
that being said heres my procedure for optimal arrow flight "you mentioned yoke tuning "
1 time bow so cams come to the flats at the same time at full draw

2 set up rest centered on berger holes and square to riser [I don't have a laser so I nock one arrow clamp a second to the riser and use calipers to insure they are equidistant at both ends]
3 now I shoot a bare shaft through paper observe tear tail left tighten left yokes loosen right opposite for right tear high or low adjust loop untill you get a bullet hole at 5 yds step back to 10yds observe tear follow same procedure now go to 15 yds[ once you have bullet holes at 5,10,15 yds your are darn close]
4 group tune bare shaft and fletched at 20 yds adjust yokes to bring fletched to bareshafts if neccasary step back to 30 yds repeat
5 now screw on and spin test broad heads if theyr'e straight they'll group with your fp's.
a severe tail left condition indicates weak spine and will cause a right impact of the broadheads no amount of adjusting will cure this problem it requires a stiffer arrow. be carefull with broadheads they are longer than fp's. and influance dynamic spine


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## scottranderson (Aug 9, 2009)

I would say this. First I will say I dont shoot broadheads at all, only field points. And I do bareshaft with compound fingers its a great way to tune however I am not going to do it with a release aid compound. I tune my bow this way its not the only way its just best for me. I set my arrow rest eye balled on centreshot using middle of the limbs not the grip some grips are offset like my alpha elite. then I set my nocking point 1/8 highter then 90 deg. Its just a starting point. As time goes on I may move it if I see fit to if not I leav it there. I choose the correct spine arrow. Then I see how it groups only take notice of well exercuted shots and see how thay group in the x at 30yards on a 35cm nfaa field face if there tight there I leave the rest and arrow and nocking point. My windage on my sight sits to the left of centre shot I dont care becasue it groups in the x out past 80 yards if I exercute the shot well. 

So I may shoot a bare witch I just do if there is one in my quiver for the sake of shooting another arrow and it will land right of the group so Many times I have played with the left right with my rest and find the bare shaft dosnt move but moves the fletched arrows to the bare shaft by this time my rest is so fare from centre shot I have just detuned my bow. So I take no notice of bare shaft with release aid compound. Some other bows that I shoot that are set up will shoot the bare shaft into the group. But not all bows I have owned just a few. yes have tryed with many differnt spines and sometimes it works sometimes it dosnt eather way for me, I see it as a incosistent test for release aid compound. If others have great results with it thats great do it. For this little black duck I look 100% of how my groups preform over a rang off distancers overtime. That works best for me so I do it.


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## scottranderson (Aug 9, 2009)

Also when I shoot in the morning the sun is just right to see the arrow in flight very clear. And I like to see the arrow fly like a lazer and it does with this way I tune. ofcorse I cam time and set the tiller at a starting point before even think about the rest and arrow after I sight the bow in I run my sight marks throw archers advantage and see what it tells me about the spine of the arrow but I try to get 2 things to happen nice arrow flight and nice grouping over all distancers and I dont think I have to worry about any more with my rest arrow tune I leave it untile I chang strings and cables or chang my dw or dl. Also I take alot of care with 2nd and 3rd axis on my sight.


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