# arrow spine and finger shooting compound



## wcw (Nov 18, 2011)

Maybe I rambled too much with my question. Do I need to worry about my arrows being to stiff if I'm finger shooting a compound?
Thanks for any help.


----------



## mitchell (Mar 5, 2005)

You may get differing opinions, but I like mine to bare shaft out of the compound like they do out of the recurve. I am not anal about it; I just want a decent straight bare shaft at about 20 yards, and no less. When I do that, I have never had issues with broad head flight of any kind. Paradox is agitated more by a fingers release (as opposed to release aide) so it seems logical to me you would want spine to be close. I also think you can get by with a wider range of spine out of a release set up, due to the physics of the release aide, loop, etc allowing for much less paradox.


----------



## wcw (Nov 18, 2011)

Thanks Mitchell! You answered the question much better than I asked it. That's kinda what I thought...exact spine is more important with fingers than with release but not as important as trad. Any other opinions are welcome and appreciated.


----------



## b0w_bender (Apr 30, 2006)

I might go so far as to say that spine is more critical out of a compound then even a recurve. I say this because the forces on the string cause it to whip around the fingers faster and with more force. So I would pay at least as much attention to your spine with the compound as you do with the recurve. I'll go on to say that I think that to achieve the best accuracy having a properly spined arrow is critical.

Sorry if that means you need to go buy more arrows :cocktail:


----------



## wcw (Nov 18, 2011)

No, I figured I'd ask before I jumped in. What you said makes sense though. Thanks for the help guys. There is an amazing lack of information about finger shooting compounds on the internet, so any advice from you guys that have doing it is appreciated.


----------



## Boone theHunter (Oct 12, 2012)

I grew up shooting a compound with fingers then a release then started shooting trad a lot and just in the last year started shooting a compound barebow with fingers. I bare shaft tuned my longbow real good and was surprised how hard it actually was to bare shaft tune the compound. I got it flying ok but then with broad heads it went crazy so I had to start over. Spent a bit of time tinkering with different arrows and head weight before I got things right. I even had to make some switches to my shooting style and release. I learned (prob because of 0% letoff) my longbow was a lot more forgiving to shoot, I could be a little sloppy and still hit stuff, the compound is more touchy. So anyway I would recommend spending the time getting the correct arrow setup, bare shaft tuning ect... As it seems you want as much in your favor as possible shooting a compound with fingers. I don't know if it's because of the increased speed and power of a compound over a trad bow that accentuates problems but it seems like I can't get away with shooting arrows that are to far off the correct spine with the compound. I do remember shooting my souped up release compound rig back in the day and seemed like I could shoot about any arrow laying around through it ok.


----------



## archerm3 (Jan 4, 2007)

I think for compound fingers I have found that I can't shoot an arrow that is too stiff. Hard to find any stiff enough. I think that for recurves and such, the paradox starts right away at release and everything works like it should. But for a compound, there is a huge push that happens when the peak weight hits, with the arrow 1/4 off the bow already, that accentuates the timing errors of the paradox. so...more stiff...less paradox...less problems. Centershot isn't an issue shooting compound.


----------



## Jesse Schultz (Sep 11, 2013)

I may be wrong but these new bows are so powerful. That a little stiff wont hurt


----------



## OhioRed (Feb 7, 2009)

archerm3 said:


> I think for compound fingers I have found that I can't shoot an arrow that is too stiff. Hard to find any stiff enough. I think that for recurves and such, the paradox starts right away at release and everything works like it should. But for a compound, there is a huge push that happens when the peak weight hits, with the arrow 1/4 off the bow already, that accentuates the timing errors of the paradox. so...more stiff...less paradox...less problems. Centershot isn't an issue shooting compound.


I've had the opposite experience. I switched back to fingers last year and found that shooting the same poundage as release I had to switch from a 400 Easton flatline to a 500.


----------



## 893301 (Sep 17, 2018)

OhioRed said:


> I've had the opposite experience. I switched back to fingers last year and found that shooting the same poundage as release I had to switch from a 400 Easton flatline to a 500.


Same here. I shoot a 400 at 50#


----------

