# unfletched arrow paper tune question



## robass1 (Dec 26, 2008)

I dont buy the unfletched thing . If you are shooting bullet holes with your fletched arrows , you are good to go . You are not going to hunt with unfletched arrows anyway .


----------



## fletched (May 10, 2006)

robass1 said:


> I dont buy the unfletched thing . If you are shooting bullet holes with your fletched arrows , you are good to go . You are not going to hunt with unfletched arrows anyway .


But can you rule out the fact that if a bareshaft will fly straight, a fletched arrow will too fly straight.

Fletching are NOT used to stabilize your arrow. They are there to HELP stabilize the arrow. An arrow should be stable without fletching. Bareshaft tuning is the best way to tune. It is a balance between the shooter and the bow. Both must be right. A bow will never shoot no better than the one shooting it. A bow must be tuned not only for the arrow but for the shooter as well. Everyone has their own opinions about tuning. Mine is that when my bow is shooting a baresahft with perfection, my groups and consistency are the best they can be.


----------



## red44 (Apr 11, 2005)

I may not put as much into paper tuning as I once did, but shooting a few bare shafts and comparing them to fletched IS something I do. I find a bare shaft mimics a broadhead to some degree, so if I can get bare shafts impacting with fletched out to 20 yards or more I'm confident the broadheads on fletched arrows will too. Shooting the bare shafts first and getting them close will save you some wear and tear on your broadhead target and broadheaded arrows when it come time to shoot them. It might not be the only way to skin a cat but it works good for me.


----------



## PA.JAY (May 26, 2004)

fletched said:


> But can you rule out the fact that if a bareshaft will fly straight, a fletched arrow will too fly straight.
> 
> Fletching are NOT used to stabilize your arrow. They are there to HELP stabilize the arrow. An arrow should be stable without fletching. Bareshaft tuning is the best way to tune. It is a balance between the shooter and the bow. Both must be right. A bow will never shoot no better than the one shooting it. A bow must be tuned not only for the arrow but for the shooter as well. Everyone has their own opinions about tuning. Mine is that when my bow is shooting a baresahft with perfection, my groups and consistency are the best they can be.


great advice their ! keep at it you will get it take your time learn as you go. 
good luck


----------



## tileman (Jan 26, 2008)

could be spine issue????But if you are happy with the way it shoots, then who cares, Bare shaft tuning does have its place but like everything else it isnt the rule, it only helps to indicate certain issues with in a bows tune, other things can mimic tune problems, like hand torque, wrong spine arrows, fletching contact etc.If I were in your shoes I would play the the poundage of the bow first and see if is a spine issue and go from there,JMO


----------



## wolfclan (Jul 13, 2006)

red44 said:


> I may not put as much into paper tuning as I once did, but shooting a few bare shafts and comparing them to fletched IS something I do. I find a bare shaft mimics a broadhead to some degree, so if I can get bare shafts impacting with fletched out to 20 yards or more I'm confident the broadheads on fletched arrows will too. Shooting the bare shafts first and getting them close will save you some wear and tear on your broadhead target and broadheaded arrows when it come time to shoot them. It might not be the only way to skin a cat but it works good for me.


What Red44 said
I used this method years ago to control broadhead planing.


----------



## genietech (Jan 29, 2009)

Thanks guys. I will keep working on it.


----------



## bfisher (Nov 30, 2002)

Pretty decentadvice from most of the guys. There is no perfect way to tune a bow/arrow combination.

While paper tuning can show how your arrow is leaving the bow (hopefully straight) it cannot show such imperfections as too much rear drag from fletchings or too little FOC to help pull the arrow downrange. These two things can make arrows drift at longer range and groups open up.

The remark was made that we don't hunt with bareshafts so why bother? Then the other one about a bare shaft kind of mimics a braodhead tipped arrow. While both of these are correct the second one is more correct. If a bare shaft leaves the bow crooked it will tend to plane up or down or sideways just like a poor flying one with blades up front. So if you get the bare shaft flying well out to at least 20 yards or more then your broadhead tipped arrows should just fly that much truer.

There are other means of tuning also. There is French tuning, walkback tuning, tiller tuning and others. Each has it's place in the archery world. Is one better than another? Who knows? I never tried them all so am not arrogant enough to say which is the best or which won't work. 

What I do believe is that it's best to learn several methods and incorporate them together, if for no other reason than to use one to convince yourself that your equipment is tuned. The other reason is that sometimes, just sometimes, you'll have a setup that defies to be tuned a certain way. That's when it's good to know more than one way just so you don't go tearing your hair out.

Personally, being old school and shooting for over 35 years, I learned the old fashioned way of bare shafting. There is little that makes me feel better than seeing (or not seeing) nothing but a nock going into a bullseye at 35 yards from a bare shaft and then busting that nock with a fletched arrow and then once in a while slicing both those arrows with one with a broadhead. Yeah it can be expensive and doesn't happen often (can't shoot that well anymore), but I also have this saying "Easton makes them every day".

If I can do this then just every once in a while I'll punch one through paper to get my buddies to leave me alone.


----------



## mnjeff (Jun 19, 2004)

*arrow*

if you shoot fixed blade bh's put on on and see what that does.


----------



## skynight (Nov 5, 2003)

Here is my question on bare shaft tuning (which I always did when I shot fingers).

How do you account for the weight/drag/spine change of the the fletching when they are not there? If the bare shaft is tuned perfectly, how is it possible that a completly different shaft (the one with fletching) is also tuned perfectly.

Also, their seems to be 3 types of bareshaft tuning. The one I always used was shooting bare shaft alongside fletched shafts and adjusting nock height according to where the bare shaft hit in relation to the fletched shafts. The other type reads the tea leaves of bare shaft angle in the target, and the last is bareshafting through paper. Which of these three are you bareshafters using?


----------



## robass1 (Dec 26, 2008)

skynight said:


> How do you account for the weight/drag/spine change of the the fletching when they are not there? If the bare shaft is tuned perfectly, how is it possible that a completly different shaft (the one with fletching) is also tuned perfectly.


I agree completely


----------



## folker (Jan 22, 2009)

While I'm not trying in any shape of form to dispute paper tuning and its effectiveness, I've always wondered how it is possible to get "bullet holes" given the fact that even a correctly spined arrow is still flexing, I would assume out to at least 20 yards. Given this fact, it seems to me that unless the arrow passes through the paper at precisely the right time and you catch the arrow in between Oscillations that you would always have a slight tear in one direction or another.


----------



## red44 (Apr 11, 2005)

skynight said:


> Here is my question on bare shaft tuning (which I always did when I shot fingers).
> 
> How do you account for the weight/drag/spine change of the the fletching when they are not there? If the bare shaft is tuned perfectly, how is it possible that a completly different shaft (the one with fletching) is also tuned perfectly.
> 
> Also, their seems to be 3 types of bareshaft tuning. The one I always used was shooting bare shaft alongside fletched shafts and adjusting nock height according to where the bare shaft hit in relation to the fletched shafts. The other type reads the tea leaves of bare shaft angle in the target, and the last is bareshafting through paper. Which of these three are you bareshafters using?


The tea leaves I'm reading is not only the angle, but left or right of fletched. It's way more pronounced if your a finger shooter, but a release shooter can narrow down things too. You can add masking or electrical tape to add weight on the nock end. I don't know of a way to add drag. My intent is to get bare shafts as CLOSE to fletched as I can, before dealing with broadheads. If your bare shafts are impacting the same POI as fletched, and the shaft angle is the same or darn close, any diff in spine or drag is insignificant, and your broadheads will be right there with them. At least thats the way I go about it.


----------



## fletched (May 10, 2006)

skynight said:


> Here is my question on bare shaft tuning (which I always did when I shot fingers).
> 
> How do you account for the weight/drag/spine change of the the fletching when they are not there? If the bare shaft is tuned perfectly, how is it possible that a completly different shaft (the one with fletching) is also tuned perfectly.
> 
> Also, their seems to be 3 types of bareshaft tuning. The one I always used was shooting bare shaft alongside fletched shafts and adjusting nock height according to where the bare shaft hit in relation to the fletched shafts. The other type reads the tea leaves of bare shaft angle in the target, and the last is bareshafting through paper. Which of these three are you bareshafters using?


Good question. Here is the answer. To get an arrow to fly bareshaft, it must be very close in spine for it's length and poundage. Even though you may buy an arrow that says 55/75 doesn't mean that it will fly perfect through this entire range. It depends on the arrow length and poundage. An arrow will fly it's best a a particular poundage. It will fly good at other poundages and the farther away from the best poundage you go, the worse it will do. If you take an arrow and adjust you bow untill you get a weak tear and the adjust the bow untill you get a strong tear, you will probably cover a ten pound range. If you adjust the bow in the middle of the range, you will be very close to the perfect poundage. When you are at the best poundage, you will have range of 2 pounds up and down that the arrow will still be in a good poundage range. Adding the weight of fletching to the arrow won't have no more effect than changing the poundage a pound or two. It won't change the arrow dynamics enough to effect the spine. If your bow is shooting a bareshaft really well, then you are on or near the perfect poundage. If it is where your fletching will effect the spine of an arrow enough to make it fly different, then you aren't going to get good bareshaft results. 
When bareshaft tuning, I shoot through paper and then at twenty or thirty yards to see if I am good to go. I paper tune at every yard until I get back to 12 yards and look at every hole to determine my adjustment. After that, I very rarely have to make adjustments.
Over the years, I haven't just poked holes in paper on an occasion, I have spent countless hours experimenting. I have taken a perfectly tuned bow and made adjustments to see what effect it would produce. I have a big pile of arrows and a large selection of rests to play with. I have a lot of experience.


----------



## fletched (May 10, 2006)

folker said:


> While I'm not trying in any shape of form to dispute paper tuning and its effectiveness, I've always wondered how it is possible to get "bullet holes" given the fact that even a correctly spined arrow is still flexing, I would assume out to at least 20 yards. Given this fact, it seems to me that unless the arrow passes through the paper at precisely the right time and you catch the arrow in between Oscillations that you would always have a slight tear in one direction or another.


The arrow will usually flex about three times if the bow is tuned with a properly spined arrow. If you shoot the right spined arrows, the nods will stay in line with each other. If your arrow isn't tuned, you will see where the point entered the paper and you will see where the tail entered the paper. The hole will look like / or \ or _ or l If it is a flex tear, your point and tail will pass through the same hole. The hole might be a little bigger than the arrow but the point and tail are in line with each other. If you look closely at the hole, you can usually tell what the arrow is doing.


----------



## robass1 (Dec 26, 2008)

fletched said:


> Good question. Here is the answer. To get an arrow to fly bareshaft, it must be very close in spine for it's length and poundage. Even though you may buy an arrow that says 55/75 doesn't mean that it will fly perfect through this entire range. It depends on the arrow length and poundage. An arrow will fly it's best a a particular poundage. It will fly good at other poundages and the farther away from the best poundage you go, the worse it will do. If you take an arrow and adjust you bow untill you get a weak tear and the adjust the bow untill you get a strong tear, you will probably cover a ten pound range. If you adjust the bow in the middle of the range, you will be very close to the perfect poundage. When you are at the best poundage, you will have range of 2 pounds up and down that the arrow will still be in a good poundage range. Adding the weight of fletching to the arrow won't have no more effect than changing the poundage a pound or two. It won't change the arrow dynamics enough to effect the spine. If your bow is shooting a bareshaft really well, then you are on or near the perfect poundage. If it is where your fletching will effect the spine of an arrow enough to make it fly different, then you aren't going to get good bareshaft results.
> When bareshaft tuning, I shoot through paper and then at twenty or thirty yards to see if I am good to go. I paper tune at every yard until I get back to 12 yards and look at every hole to determine my adjustment. After that, I very rarely have to make adjustments.
> Over the years, I haven't just poked holes in paper on an occasion, I have spent countless hours experimenting. I have taken a perfectly tuned bow and made adjustments to see what effect it would produce. I have a big pile of arrows and a large selection of rests to play with. I have a lot of experience.


Nice post Fletched :wink:


----------



## skynight (Nov 5, 2003)

fletched said:


> Good question. Here is the answer. To get an arrow to fly bareshaft, it must be very close in spine for it's length and poundage. Even though you may buy an arrow that says 55/75 doesn't mean that it will fly perfect through this entire range. It depends on the arrow length and poundage. An arrow will fly it's best a a particular poundage. It will fly good at other poundages and the farther away from the best poundage you go, the worse it will do. If you take an arrow and adjust you bow untill you get a weak tear and the adjust the bow untill you get a strong tear, you will probably cover a ten pound range. If you adjust the bow in the middle of the range, you will be very close to the perfect poundage. When you are at the best poundage, you will have range of 2 pounds up and down that the arrow will still be in a good poundage range. Adding the weight of fletching to the arrow won't have no more effect than changing the poundage a pound or two. It won't change the arrow dynamics enough to effect the spine. If your bow is shooting a bareshaft really well, then you are on or near the perfect poundage. If it is where your fletching will effect the spine of an arrow enough to make it fly different, then you aren't going to get good bareshaft results.
> When bareshaft tuning, I shoot through paper and then at twenty or thirty yards to see if I am good to go. I paper tune at every yard until I get back to 12 yards and look at every hole to determine my adjustment. After that, I very rarely have to make adjustments.
> Over the years, I haven't just poked holes in paper on an occasion, I have spent countless hours experimenting. I have taken a perfectly tuned bow and made adjustments to see what effect it would produce. I have a big pile of arrows and a large selection of rests to play with. I have a lot of experience.


Thanks for the answer. Makes sense.


----------



## pointysticks (Nov 24, 2006)

those paper covered clothing hangers from the dry cleaners make great paper tuning sheets. i started with bare shafts. and my bow shoots great.


----------

