# Check my Grip! Hard to get bows to sit level Elite E35's and others.



## ArcherXXX300

IDK If this thread is acceptable here, but I figured it would be relevant to bar angles and different grips of bows. I recently switched to Elite and got 2 E35's to shoot, one for indoors one for outdoors. I'm having difficulty with getting the bubble to sit level even though I've leveled and leveled the bows. My indoor bow requires less bar angle because I actually cant my indoor bow to the right and accommodate for the cant by tweaking the 1st axis after setting all 3 axis's. However on my other E35 it has an Axcel armortech pro 7 pin on it which has no first axis adjustment. I tried to shoot both bows with no side bar and the bow instantly felt wrong and at full draw it just wanted to tip over to the right hardcore (I'm talking like 20*+ bow cant). Felt like I had to imply a lot of muscle and torque to keep the bow upright straight and struggled to keep it there level (it was near impossible). I've read core archery, I've had coaching, I've had several good friends who are excellent shooters...but 2 different friends told me my grip was wrong. I don't entirely believe them. I depend entirely on a side rod now even to hunt...

Before anyone says it, the pictures were taken at full draw while I was using a hand held safety draw. Pics are of both E35's close up of grip. 























































And yes my pinky always does that when relaxed, my knuckles appear to be about 45* off the shelf to me at full draw...IDK but I've got to run a lot of bar angle and weight to get a these bows or really any bow to sit comfortably level for me.


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## N7709K

either give more thumb, drop fingers off the shelf, or tweak bars and second axis to get it to sit right


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## ArcherXXX300

N7709K said:


> either give more thumb, drop fingers off the shelf, or tweak bars and second axis to get it to sit right


Tweaking 2nd axis and then setting 3rd to a tweaked 2nd won't F me up at distance on 3d with left and rights or highs and lows?

My pinky, ring, and middle finger are pretty much curled up into my palm but very relaxed, thumb is pointing straight forward but relaxed.


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## Huntinsker

I think your grip looks good but I'd look at your whole arm position. You elbow is pointing almost straight to the ground with your "elbow pit" pointing straight up. In order to have your wrist and hand angled like that, your arm may want to "uncoil" so that there is less tension in your forearm and your elbow will try to rotate outward which can cause the top of the bow to tip to the right. If you hang your arms by your sides nice and relaxed, and then raise them to shoulder height, your elbow should naturally be pointing more outward than yours is in that pic. Just a thought.


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## ArcherXXX300

Arm position...total pic of form from side. Elbow itself is pointed around 45* like bow knuckles I think.










Different older pic from my C4


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## Huntinsker

Yeah it does look better in those pics. The 3rd pic down was what I was looking at. In that one it looks like it's laying pretty flat. I mentioned it because it's something I've noticed in my own shooting. When I get tired or lazy with my form, my bow holds differently and a lot of that has to do with my bow arm position.


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## Garceau

That used to be my grip - went to a coach and figured out I was using too much muscle in my hands to maintain it.

Relax your fingers more, I couldnt believe I even had tension in them. But rotating your hand out so much like that will put tension across the BACK of your hand and into your fingers.


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## ArcherXXX300

TTT morning crowd. 135 views and like 6 replies? My grip must be pretty decent then. Still doesn't tell me much about my bow cant or why I need so much weight or side rod angle.


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## redman

looks good to me


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## ArcherXXX300

evening bump again? Why the need for so much bar angle and side weight to sit level with the Elites?!


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## Perentie

Helping someone with grip is very hard to do with pictures. Helps a ton when in person and folks can actually 'feel' the hand and watch how the shot happens. Not to mention, everyone's hands are slightly different, thus slightly different grips are probably needed for different people. The coach can touch the persons hand and feel the tension in the hand muscles, and guide the shooters hand into a more relaxed and balanced position.

Also for the Bar weight/angles, this is a personal thing and there are no set rules for how much or what angles, and does have a lot to do with the individuals grip, accessories, and form. Not to mention what a persons goal is for the stabilization system, the feel and results for this will vary from bow to bow and person to person.

If I were to make any changes to my grip, I would personally reset the Stab/weight system and rework from scratch, to achieve the results I am looking for with them.

Not to mention a lot of bows are tuned to the individuals grip/form, not necessarily to the bows optimal tune.


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## Bowthrow

It looks to me as though the handle may be sitting on the thumb/palm muscle too much because of how far out your hand is angled. Even with perfectly relaxed hand muscles the bow won't settle right in your hand when you do that since the muscle is so hard even when not flexed. 

In the majority of consistent grips, the handle will follow the "crook" of your hand. My guess is the top of the bow is canting to the right and the bottom to the left from the way the pictures of your grip look(can't see if you mentioned that since I'm replying on tapatalk. I'm going to try to post a pic of the typical line the handle normally follows. It usually follows the middle of the creases of your hand. If you follow this line your hand shouldn't be so level to the ground but more at a 45° angle. 

(Sorry about my artistry, I did it all on my phone)


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## bigHUN

Can we try something? 
I learned this years ago when I was torquing the grip very aggressive, tried any kind of things and for at least a one year I was shooting tournaments with Vaseline in my palm. Than I got a hootershooter and learned to grab a bow from the machine and immediately could go scoring.
I would remove the front/sidebar, just for trial and error purposes.
Vaseline or any grease your palm, grab your bow grip and draw the bow with fingers/grip loose, let the bow slide into its position and settle in your palm with your elbow neutral twist. You may want to repeat couple times to feel what it means do not twist any bone/joint just hold your left arm raised without any twist as you would show a "stop" to somebody in front of you.
Did you got the bow plumb?
Now, put the front rod with straight disconnect (or directly into riser hole) and put two sidebars also leveled horizontally, approximately equally swivel in/out.
Raise the bow and draw it with grease on your palm.
How does it feel?
You may need to open up/close each sidebars to get the bow plumb..... 
{first of all, the front rod is pointing down, second you have a single sidebar pretty long also pointing downward.....need to brake all these torque errors apart and start from scratch building up the balance, start with bare bow sight attached and do with grease on your palm}}} 
Let see how it goes?


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## WebowJo

in the pic with the E35, your grip seems too aggressive, i do not have mine yet to show you 'proper' grip [and though I doubt I can do a perfect proper grip repeatedly, but thats what we should strive to], you're almost full fisting that grip there.

in the singel cam bow [dont recognize it sorry] i cant see your whole hand, but judging by your finger placements i'd say it seems a lot better.

what seems odd to me is that your form in general seems a little 'off' while not in a wrong or right way, I guess each and his own phisyque and I would need to meet you in person to see if thats just how you naturally are or if you're doing something wrong there, what I mean is your bow hand has a little curve, mine [and the fellows I shoot with] have a lot 'flatter' curve.

the other thing is that your anchor hand [release hand?] elbow position seem pretty high to me, Again I cannot tell you if thats a wrong thing, but i can tell you its slightly out of the ordinary.

now perhaps, and this is just me assuming things here, the two are related, flatter holding hand might also lower your elbow in anchor position.


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## ArcherXXX300

High release elbow, DL is shorter on indoor bow but I feel needs to be longer. I also look as though I have high shoulder in front, I'm sure everything is related. But if I raise my arm to do a stop sign my deltoid muscle comes straight up which may cause my arm bones to be more or less twisted...IDK. I know that my coaches said my grip was fine shooting my PSE Dominators, but IDK what the deal is with these bows. I have to experiment more. I relax my hand to the point of completely relaxing it at full draw and feel the bow pressure sinking into bone but I just have this inability to hold a bow level without a side rod with a ton of weight, it's probably bow arm driven. I'm off to the range to experiment and work on more stuff for the day.


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## SonnyThomas

C4 picture - disregard... Hand position is far from desired.

1st pic - pulling string into face. 

All pictures that show hand well, thumb is curling around riser.


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## bowtech2006

I know with most of my bows I've owned If I let the shelf touch my hand and my thumb touch the back of the shelf I can't get level at 40 and beyond. I had to move my hand down the grip so no touching shelf for me fixed it.


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## bigHUN

I have to say again something what I have seen many times (my club have more than 400 members i.e. and lot of them in highest level of competition)....
Our bones are different, the muscle structure in arms and hands, some folks working hard physical demanding jobs (construction or farms) and some sitting in front of PC with typing or eventually just moving the mouse around....most of them can not have a same or similar way of holding or gripping the bow. I have seen my construction workers hanging a whole pickup truck worth of weight on a single bar..because they saw it as a "very popular"..well, good luck with that. 
My firm standpoint is that simple copying a well progressing pro shooter's form with a single sided bar is just not working...stabilizer setup....many days of trial and error...
Also, not all manufacturers design and build their bows, and specially the grips in same or similar geometry, last time I shoot my GT500 I like the bow as "a bow" but could not get used to that big radius in the grip, I just could not get a comfort for repeating with that shallow grip.
If you switch couple bows (in your club in example) and don't look "how they look" but how comfortably you can "repeat your sequence"...you will see what I am talking about.
Best way to troubleshoot, strip the setup down to basics, grease your palm and start building up that your left arm and your grip from there... stabilizer is your very last interest.


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## Fury90flier

I see an alignment issue with shoulders -- level arrow but angled shoulders--head leaning forward a little-- in one pic, it looks as if more weight is on the front foot than the rear.

Just a slight change in balance- drop both shoulders, get them aligned, see if that helps...once the shoulders get aligned it should help with the balance of the bow.


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## xavier102772

I just bought an E35 myself. My previous bow was a 2011 Elite Tour. I have no issues with cant on the Elite bows or any other bow for that matter. Cant and bow torque almost always comes down to the shooter, not the bow. But you already know that. 

As for your particular issue, every pic you posted shows your bow hand pressing hard into the shelf. I don't think you can do anything but cant your bow to the right. Move your hand off the shelf and I bet your problem goes away. Also, like a few others mentioned, your draw elbow is really high which is also contributing to your right cant.


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## ArcherXXX300

Fury90flier said:


> I see an alignment issue with shoulders -- level arrow but angled shoulders--head leaning forward a little-- in one pic, it looks as if more weight is on the front foot than the rear.
> 
> Just a slight change in balance- drop both shoulders, get them aligned, see if that helps...once the shoulders get aligned it should help with the balance of the bow.


Release elbow always high, if I keep head still and draw bow I'm no where close to anchor like DL too short, I have to chicken neck to get nose on string and that brings release elbow way up...waiting on mods. Have had DL troubles and shoulder alignment problems forever started shooting 27", Measure 28.2" by wingspan method, 27.75" by yard stick to collarbone throat area to tip of fingers. I've shot from 27-28.5" DL on various bows and shot about the same scores with all of them and they all tuned.




xavier102772 said:


> I just bought an E35 myself. My previous bow was a 2011 Elite Tour. I have no issues with cant on the Elite bows or any other bow for that matter. Cant and bow torque almost always comes down to the shooter, not the bow. But you already know that.
> 
> As for your particular issue, every pic you posted shows your bow hand pressing hard into the shelf. I don't think you can do anything but cant your bow to the right. Move your hand off the shelf and I bet your problem goes away. Also, like a few others mentioned, your draw elbow is really high which is also contributing to your right cant.


Used to shooting shoot through risers where I would choke up on the grip as high as possible, also even with the E35 and the ninja (black cerakote or whatever) my hand when relaxed still slides all the way up that grip to the top. Tried Wilson tennis grip like I used on all my other bows but it seemed to make the elite grip really bulky.


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## Chase Hatcher

If it shooots good i wouldnt worry about it.


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## showard321

How much side bar weight is a ton?


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## ArcherXXX300

showard321 said:


> How much side bar weight is a ton?


I've run up to 32oz on a side rod, but it wasn't out nearly as far as on my elites. I'm still between 16-24 on the Elite's right now, haven't figured out exactly what I'm doing with these setups yet.


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## skiingcappy

Bowthrow showed a pic of crease in hand. Try lining this crease on the left edge of your grip, this is how I align hand to get mine to level.
Also just take your bow with your thumb and index finger straight out and let riser rest on your thumb, hold your bow out away from your body and see how you bow balances. Should be level, I know the bow elite 35 will almost sit perfectly level naked bow.
Gives you a places to start from. Good luck


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## ArcherXXX300

I'm still not getting far with this. I called torqueless grips today and haven't heard back...I think if I had a flat grip more like on my alpha elite or dominator that would work better for me. I've always shot this grip with many bows and haven't really had an issue. On my C4 I didn't have that wide shelf sticking out so the hand could really slide way up the grip. Also thumb is curling around riser slightly because I'm sure I'm subconsciously reaching to get to my index finger...I have to work on hand placement more with this bow obviously.


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## dwagoner

ima call Elite back tomorrow, i played with owners bow in vegas and he had a full grip on bow, like the hoyts, and i liked it alot... im not a riser with sideplates guy either. ive been waiting for them to get the grips into the mix, i want one for my E35.....


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## Garceau

Is Shrewd making a grip for this yet?


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## ArcherXXX300

Garceau said:


> Is Shrewd making a grip for this yet?


Checked site and saw nothing.


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## Astroguy

Retrain yourself to keep the elbow at around 9 o'clock on every shot. Then redevelop an overall feel for what is level. Not just the grip but all muscle memory.


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## jaydub

I had a similar issue. I needed a lot of weight (33 oz plus depending on bow) off the back left to get level. It severely effected my follow through, as the bow wants to dive left after the shot. You know what im talking about......In my case, all looked ok in a form photo. What I have to do is rotate my shoulder out (counter clock wise) before I draw. I had gotten in a bad habit of doing what felt good and it got me in trouble. 
I wasn't able to correct it until I was honest with myself. I took all the bars off and just started trying stuff until the bow was neutral at full draw. Turns out what I thought was a tension free grip wasn't, and while I was capable of keeping my bow shoulder down and fooling some good coaches, I did not have proper alignment. So now I'm averaging about 15 oz back and just a tic to the Left. Guess what? My shoulder doesn't hurt anymore either..... If your canting badly and you don't have an injury or a limiting handicap, in my opionion something isn't correct. I dont claim to be a coach, but I do know where you are at. Pm me if my rhetoric was hard to understand and I will help if I can.


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## ron w

too much hand in the grip. rotate your hand so that the grip sits further out on the pad of your thumb base. 
if you look closely at your pics, that thumb pad area is not being compressed back into your hand, to create a consistent bone to bone relationship in the structure of your grip. when that doesn't happen, no matter how relaxed you think your grip hand is, there will always be some tension in your hand, pushing against the grip, influencing the shot.
top pic on post #5 looks like the grip is way too deep into your hand. contact should be on the left side of your life line, not the right side. face of bow's grip should sit cleanly on the big pad between your wrist and base of your thumb. then, when you relax your hand, it gets compressed naturally back until the skeletal range of motion comes to a complete stop.


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## ArcherXXX300

ron w said:


> too much hand in the grip. rotate your hand so that the grip sits further out on the pad of your thumb base.
> if you look closely at your pics, that thumb pad area is not being compressed back into your hand, to create a consistent bone to bone relationship in the structure of your grip. when that doesn't happen, no matter how relaxed you think your grip hand is, there will always be some tension in your hand, pushing against the grip, influencing the shot.
> top pic on post #5 looks like the grip is way too deep into your hand. contact should be on the left side of your life line, not the right side. face of bow's grip should sit cleanly on the big pad between your wrist and base of your thumb. then, when you relax your hand, it gets compressed naturally back until the skeletal range of motion comes to a complete stop.


What do you mean thumb base? I've slightly altered my grip and my side rods have come in quite a fair amount as well as instead of the 45* knuckle my fingers are just relaxing as much as possible and resting very lightly on the front of the riser...still not sure on grip though.


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## nuts&bolts

ArcherXXX300 said:


> What do you mean thumb base? I've slightly altered my grip and my side rods have come in quite a fair amount as well as instead of the 45* knuckle my fingers are just relaxing as much as possible and resting very lightly on the front of the riser...still not sure on grip though.


Base of thumb = bottom of thumb...where thumb connects to the palm of the hand.

Sooo,
there are THREE things a shooter can do with the bow hand.

ROLL
PITCH
YAW

These are also the three ways to steer a plane.

Sooooo,
ROLL ANGLE on a F-16,
is when the fighter pilot dips the left wingtip up or down.

Sooooo,
for a SHOOOTER, ROLL angle is the angle of the knuckles.

45 DEGREES for knuckle angle.



This is a good place to START your experiments.

Try 45 degrees for the ROLL ANGLE for the knuckles.
Try 50 degrees below horizontal, for the ROLL ANGLE for the knuckles.
Try 40 degrees below horizontal, for the ROLL ANGLE for the knuckles.


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## nuts&bolts

ArcherXXX300 said:


> What do you mean thumb base? I've slightly altered my grip and my side rods have come in quite a fair amount as well as instead of the 45* knuckle my fingers are just relaxing as much as possible and resting very lightly on the front of the riser...still not sure on grip though.


PITCH ANGLE
is when the F-16 fighter pilot steers the nose of his jet UPHILL for a climb
or
is when the F-16 fighter pilot steers the nose of his jet DOWNHILL for a dive.

So,
PITCH angle for a shooter is the WRIST angle.

If you have a TRULY relaxed bow hand wrist,
the forearm muscles will be COMPLETELY relaxed,
and the wrist will match the GRIP angle.

Sooo,
if your bow hand wrist is NOT truly relaxed,
then,
you are applying EXCESS pressure to the TOP of the GRIP,
and then your bareshafts DIVE DOWN......

or
you are applying EXCESS pressure to the BOTTOM of the GRIP,
and then your bareshafts are climbing uphill.


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## nuts&bolts

ArcherXXX300 said:


> What do you mean thumb base? I've slightly altered my grip and my side rods have come in quite a fair amount as well as instead of the 45* knuckle my fingers are just relaxing as much as possible and resting very lightly on the front of the riser...still not sure on grip though.


THIRD THING,
is YAW.

THIS is the BIGGIE.

For a pilot,
say the jet has landed on an airstrip,
and the pilot needs to steer his jet into the LEFT HAND parking spot.

So,
this is a LEFT HAND FLAT turn.

This is YAW.


So,
for a shooter,
put a strip of masking tape on your grip.



Use a pen and make a centerline on the masking tape.

Grab your bow grip the "normal for YOU" way.



Now,
make a matching mark on the back of your hand.

Now,
you have a reference for your USUAL starting position for your bow hand....for YAW adjustments.


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## nuts&bolts

Now,
we STEER your bow hand THUMB.

So,
we might want to STEER your bow hand thumb a TINY TINY bit more NORTHWEST,
when your front stabilizer is pointed DUE NORTH.

Tiny change,
like moving the line on the back of your hand, say 1/64th inch to the RIGHT of the masking tape centerline.

Bow hand thumb stays level.

We just want to rotate the bow hand so the thumb points SLIGHTLY northwest,
and the mark on the back of your hand moves RIGHT of the masking tape centerline, say 1/64th inch.

OR,
we try and rotate your bow hand thumb SLIGHTLY NORTH EAST,
when the front stabilizer is pointed DUE NORTH,
and the mark on the back of your hand moves LEFT of the masking tape centerline, say 1/64th inch.

ROLL
PITCH
YAW

These are the three ways to adjust bow hand grip position, bow hand GRIP technique.

This beats the MOVE this.....or SUCH and SUCH CLOCKWISE or COUNTER-CLOCKWISE or more hand or less hand.

I always get confused with left or right,
cuz I never know if the advice has the ADVISOR standing in front of the shooter or behind the shooter.


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## ArcherXXX300

Thanks Alan...I think I'm seeing progress as my back bar doesn't have to be out nearly as far to keep the bow level.


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