My experience is that rests (flipper, wire etc) are FAR more accurate than shelfs.

Disagree? What shelf treatment will rival a rest?

Feather rest? Toothbrush?

I THINK I disagree. A well tuned arrow from a shelf is just as accurate as a flipper. A LOT easier to tune from a flipper and button.

If you think about how paradox works, why would one be more accurate? The only thing that I can think of is that you can probably see the arrow better with a flipper.

Shelf treatment??? Maybe I'm missing your point.

Bowmania

Anything on the wood/metal bow shelf that raises the arrow(even a rug) is an elevated rest. Doesn't matter if it is attached to window side or on the shelf.It's just a matter of height above the shelf.

Minimal contact is always desirable, and that's a reason you raise a shelf or go with a stick-on or other rest. Shooting off the shelf is kind of a misnomer anyway since most people adjust it upward to minimize arrow drag and create a smaller spot. As raghorn said, either is an elevated rest.

Todd.. for example, toothbrush rest or feather rest Vs leather of any kind.

Ron... a practical question...not theological.

If you accidently heel a recurve when you release the bow pivots up and down. If the arrow is on a well placed rest the rest just pivots under it without pushing the arrow up. If you're on a shelf the bow hits ur arrow. Its kinda common knowledge that for most people rests are easier to tune well and more forgiving. the trick is to have only a small strip touching the arrow and the rest of the material if there is any being far enough below to not the arrow if you heel.

Most here can tell a rest from a shelf :-)

the little curly springy rest gets lots of kudos on t.talk. I put a para rest on a longbow and it worked very well. my favorite rest was a dropaway rest. been waiteing for one to come out for trad, lol....ron

One more thing, if your shelf has got a nice short well rounded peak to it that is directly above the grips pivot point it would be hard to say if there is any difference.

Thanks GLF/Gary. Thanks for your "kinda common knowledge"

Yes...I tried a Bear Weather Rest on my Groves and immediately gained accuracy bigtime Vs shelf.

Interestingly, Groves himself recommended flipper rests on his bows.

Guess this might also explain the accuracy of my Sentman and its tiny leather shelf..

I agree, at least that has been my experience. My hunting riser sports a bear weatherrest that I've modified somewhat. I cut a hole in it to permit me to use a stainless 5/16" bolt to adjust centershot to tune my arrows.

I can get an arrow flying acceptably off the shelf, but it is far easier [for me] to hang my bow on a hook when I'm in a tree if I have a rest on the bow. YMMV, but there are 'other' reasons to like an elevated rest other than just arrow flight.

I've been using elevated rests for half a century, mostly Hoyt stick on rests. In the past decade I have made my own and they work great, and plenty durable as well. Only time I shoot off the shelf is with a longbow.

The whole trick about any of it is "Minimal Contact".

A shelf will never be as good as an elevated rest in that regard, but can be made to come very close.

The smaller the shelf, and/or the contact point of the shelf, the better it is.

Rick

Yeah...there's a reason that some competitions don't allow an elevated rest

I think GLF's "common knowledge" is more to the point than anything having to do with friction.

Dude, OK, I'll bite: What's that reason? Why would some competitions prefer less accuracy. I'd bet it has to do with trad fantasies about Fred Bear / Howard Hill life and attire.

Sorry, what used to be common knowledge before compounds.

In my ongoing pursuit of mastering the KISS system (Keep It Simple Stupid) I prefer shooting off the shelf.

Works fine for me on recurve or longbow.

Again...for me.

As far as the rest of y'all, shoot what works for YOU?

:-) Before the wheel? !

JK,

The elevated rest won't make you accurate. But if you are already accurate, it will give you a higher degree of the accuracy you have.

In the next few weeks I will be deciding if I will hunt with my Tradtech Galaxy with a velcro shelf or my ChinaMag with a Bear Weatherest or an NAP Centerest. It probably doesn't matter for hunting. But in my preliminary messing around, the arrow was coming off the rest cleaner. If I really focused on my release, it seemed to clean up the off the rest shot.

So I probably demonstrated to myself that the rest is 'more forgiving'. Both bows were scoring the same. I'll tweak my setup and see if it changes...also will test with broad heads.

I have also thought about making a little shelf radius for one of these risers. My Tradtech already has a little radius and just a strip of velcro seems pretty good.

"The elevated rest won't make you accurate. " Disagree.

Bear Weatherrest tightened groups around 25% vs Velcro on shelf.

Back in the 70's lots of bows came with stickon rests and even some shelves were no long shelf shooting friendly. My first Shaffer came with stickon rest and my 79 Howatt hunter came with one you had the choice of putting on if you chose.

3Rivers put surface on my rest, set nock on fast flight string, and put beaver balls on string of my Samick Sage. String and shoot, shot at 2 deer so far and killed both. I'm happy shooting off the shelf. Good luck

Plenty of guys have great results with shooting from shelves. Plenty of guys aren't especially demanding.

Robin Hood didn't use a rest. Olympians do.

Some guys have other guys set up their bows. Other guys do it themselves.

etc etc etc

""The elevated rest won't make you accurate. " Disagree. Bear Weatherrest tightened groups around 25% vs Velcro on shelf."

It gave you more of the accuracy you already had. But a 25% improvement? At what range? That's too much improvement so you should check your form and tuning. Or just happily shoot with a rest!

Nothing more simple than a stick-on rest. You can duplicate it in less than a minute should the need arise. It simplifies nock set height, and allows for better performance...less arrow drag. Pretty simple...that's why I use one.

I'll stick with a rug rest following the kiss theme. Taboo as it might be I spend alot of time sneak hunting with arrow on string. Much easier for my small hands to captivate the arrow on the shelf verses a elevated rest and the rug rest doesn't slide either on a 90 degree day. I also realize the elevated rest wouldn't slide with out my arrow on it. Groundhog hunting grown in fence rows dictates the quick shots.

For groundhogs I'll stick with Browning .22.

more forgiving Yes. back in the 80s I used flipper rest to shoot vans it just worked better then off the shelf. accuracy is in the shooter with feathers I real do not notice a difference it just seems easier to keep the arrow on the shelf to me.

Sorry I don't have a picture right now of my shelves. But a well designed shelf will shoot as well as an elevated rest. They more than proved themselves including an IBO World Championship in the 90's.

Problem with most shelf bows. To much damn arrow contact on the riser. That arrow has to set on 2 pivot "points". One for torque the other for paradox! Flat shelves and sight windows interfere with both!

I like my 17 jk

"Why would some competitions prefer less accuracy. I'd bet it has to do with trad fantasies about Fred Bear / Howard Hill life and attire." Just trad police at work trying to make the simplest bows and setups the required standard.

Since inaccuracy is arguably problem numero uno for trad archers/bowhunters this type of mentality needs more people challenging it IMO. Or telling the tournament rules people why you're not shooting for score or not shooting in their tournament. Who knows how many people just silently decided not to participate according to their rules? It's a major reason why I lost interest in tournaments. Fortunately, there are few equipment restrictions for actual bowhunting (usually just bow draw wt. and broadhead cutting width or similar).

I'll just add, I have developed a new rest, but not sure I want the hassle of manufacturing it. I'm already involved in manufacturing STAR releases and it's a headache for me because I'm retired and the simplicity I do value is a hassle free life even though helping others is a motivation. Forget about trying to make money in trad. archery (few exceptions)...

We do need better rests for those who like 'em. Mine is sorta' like the Bear weather rest but better. Wish someone else would jump in, this is one area where the fix should have been done a long time ago.

One other idea, and I'm sure it not a new one, is a double shelf. For example, you have a regular shelf and while making the bow you develop a secondary shelf sort'a like a half moon where the straight side of the moon extends from the primary shelf and the top curve of the moon would be where the arrow rests. Could be roughly the size of a half penny but thicker so the arrow doesn't fall off. It would be part of the wood riser, or metal riser, etc. Not sure how the rules police would evaluate this.

Maybe some one has pics of a double shelf? Some guys have shot very well just using a peg of metal plugged into the riser. Too noisy for bowhunting, however.

When I'm shooting off the shelf I like to have the shelf edge beveled. It can help give better shaft and feather clearance.

I like an adjustable side plate so I made a narrow shelf module out of wood for my Dorado hunting outfit and my 25" Hoyt Matrix 3D riser. I can shoot a fixed crawl or even stringwalk off this shelf. :^)

The elevated rest thing is misleading. The claim existed that having a shelf virtually at the same level as the hand would make shooting more natural, more pointable. I don't know of any evidence to that effect, but I like low rests well enough. However, when shooting sights or arrow points the pointability may be moot for most shooters, and therefore there may be no point to the hand level rest. I find the higher hand position, that hand level rests require, to be more physically taxing. So elevation is mostly a posture/ergo issue.

Mechanically optimized rests, like flippers can be as low as you want them to be, or have any of a number of different attributes. They don't, not because they can't, but because we haven't got a place on the archery dial between easy listening, and pop music. People are trad, or something else, and there isn't any call for a Beiter level of sophistication in the rests of a bow that looks like a Howard Hill.

Questions that use expressions like "FAR" to modify accurate, are meaningless. There are definitely points in mechanically optimized rests, in some forms of comp. It is just as obviously the case that there aren't any points in other contests, or for most shooters.

One of the problems with a shelf close to hand level is discovered when the bowhunter goes from back yard to the hunt and wears a glove. Winter gloves often cause arrow interference, but in many cases even a light wt. cotton glove does as well...another point against low rests.

FAR more accurate? No. I disagree. Unless you're shooting off of a poorly designed bow, or a flat shelf that was designed that way with the presumption that something additional be put there, or an elevated rest used. The Groves bows I've seen were made this way. Shooting off of their shelves would be like shooting an arrow off the end cut of a 2x4. I'd wouldn't shoot an arrow off of a shelf like that and reasonably expect the kind of arrow flight and accuracy I want.

I'm a tiny, radiused, hard leather shelf kinda guy... talking selfbows here mostly, but I do the same thing on many kinds of bows... simple, durable, with minimal arrow contact. No need to 'fix' anything. Maybe the key is not to create problems that need solving ;^)

Regardless of what kind of bow I'm shooting, I like the arrow as close to my hand as possible without touching it. It's beneficial to the way I aim and shoot in hunting situations. No, a tight fitting glove doesn't interfere with the arrow. Coming back to that problem creation thing again.

I will admit that wanting to shoot off the shelf for me is purely a romantic thing and/or wanting to simplify the whole operation as much as possible.

Only real 'benefit' to shooting off the shelf I could see would be that your shelf won't fall off your bow while out hunting and leave you high and dry.

Can't say that shooting off the brush, flipper or any other elevated rest (I have a bunch of different types on different bows) make me any better of a shot because...

I'm not that good of a shot to begin with anyway!

8^D

"... a flat shelf that was designed that way with the presumption that something additional be put there, or an elevated rest used. The Groves bows I've seen were made this way." Jeff Durnell

Jeff's exactly right. Jimmy Elrod radiused my Spitfire's shelf when I asked...but not enough for me. I asked him to do that because I thought it made sense for a short bow.

Groves designed Spitfires with broadhead recess or even long overdraws for short arrows, therefore he recommended flipper rests.

When I first shot Groves bows I did use flippers but the Spitfire I still have would want more radius, so because I don't want to modify the very long shelf, it's getting rest that shot so well and started this thread.

I've just realized that an unstable-seeming, very fast longbow has too much shelf, so I'll mount a hard, tiny, Jeff Durnell/Gary Sentman style bump-of-a-shelf on it :-)

Incidentally, my idea of improved "accuracy" meant "much tighter groups."

Jeff, I'm just cautioning bowhunters to check for glove clearance. Not cool to have an expensive bow and find out even a cotton glove screws up your arrow flight not to mention a winter glove. Depends also on how the riser is gripped, too. Success/failure in bowhunting is often because of the smallest of details.

What Bowlim said about higher hand position is a good point. If you shoot with a high anchor, your structure is not as stable. I've been shooting with higher anchors the last weeks and dropped back down to do some long shooting and it was SO much easier to draw and hold.

It's really hard to isolate one factor that makes us shoot better. Every little variable tends to affect the shot.

But there is no question technically. Elevated rest is an advantage.

My guess is that elevated rests result in tighter groups (for me anyway) because they reduce hand position issues:

GLF wrote: " If you accidently heel a recurve when you release the bow pivots up and down. If the arrow is on a well placed rest the rest just pivots under it without pushing the arrow up. If you're on a shelf the bow hits ur arrow. Its kinda common knowledge that for most people rests are easier to tune well and more forgiving. the trick is to have only a small strip touching the arrow and the rest of the material if there is any being far enough below to not the arrow if you heel."

Guys that grip perfectly for every shot also walk on water :-)

FAR more accurate? No. I disagree....

Regardless of the reason why,,if someone is getting far better accuracy with one,,then how can you disagree with it...

So if a properly spined, tuned arrow cleanly clears the riser, like we have seen illustrated in those slow mo youtube videos, why does an elevated rest improve the clearance? Or am I missing something?

If you'll watch some recurve finger shooter videos you see that the back of the arrow does most of the shots go above the shelf and if the shelf is ur rest not far above it. Now consider a bow being heeled on a pistol grip whether high or medium with 50lbs of pressure on it the front of the shelf kicks upward quite a ways and does it very quickly. Just quick enough to contact the back of the arrow thats barely above it.

There is no such thing as an accurate bow. Accuracy is always about the shooter.

DDave

Camodave x1.

The most accurate shelf is one that has the least amount of contact with the arrow in the vertical and horizontal directional as possible. DBar

That's like saying there's no such thing as an accurate rifle. The shooter is more important. But the shooters accuracy capability hits a point where it exceeds what the gear is capable of

Well said JSDude............... DBar

A stick on rest on a recurve, A slick piece of cordovan on a longbow.

My TradTech Galaxy has a low radiused shelf. I run a narrow strip sideways across the middle. Shoots great like that. Even Stringwalking

I really appreciate most of the contributions on this site. This thread especially. I am 63 years old and have been shooting recurves since I was about 12 or 13. I have never been more than an "adequate" shot but my arrows have found their paths into a few critters over the years. I have always shot off the shelf as that is the way I thought it was supposed to be done. I read this post yesterday and stopped off to purchase a few stick on elevated rests to experiment with. Since we are not far from Archery Season, I did not want to start with my go to bow but put one on an older X200 to give it a whirl. The bow has always shot fairly well but was not my favorite. I was amazed at how my group tightened up and was pretty happy about it. Looking forward to more experimentation and putting elevated rests on other bows. I guess it is not too late for an old dog to learn old (new to me)tricks.

I've never had one break or fall off. And a spare costs and weighs almost nothing and installs in seconds.

I was a rifle shooter long before I was a traditional archer. I set at least one small group Canadian record shooting benchrest. I know what it takes to make an accurate rifle.

Rifles shoot bullets through barrels. An accurate rifle needs precision tolerance bullets and a precision tolerance barrel.

A precision tolerance arrow does not remotely compare to a bullet. And there is no barrel on a bow.

DDave

I shot smallbore with University of California's Olympic-destined team in college (I was a year too young).

The best Winchester 52 had to be selected for accuracy, to begin with, before anybody could win anything. The rifle itself had to shoot incredible, virtually immeasurable groups before its shooter could be Olympic material.

Some bow and setups are inherently not accurate. D'oh.

Cmon Dave....

Tell that to the guys that pay $400 a dozen for their arrows :)

There's a reason for adjustable tiller, plungers, adjustable rests. It allows EXCELLENT shooters to get the most accuracy and responsiveness out of their form. And it isn't just for sighted shooting.

And they aren't looking for forgiving bows. They want to get back exactly what they put in. Some bow designs are not made for that.

If the shooter is good enough to capitalize on that, they will be more accurate

Heck even a custom grip can make your bow lose accuracy due to torqueing and heeling. Target bows are made for accuracy, others are made for looks mainly and to be accurate enough to hunt with but you can improve on them to some extent.

I agree that the raised rest, plungers, etc and the style of shooting that goes along with them will increase accuracy on the paper targets and to a degree 3D, stump, and hunting, providing enough time is allowed for the shot.

But also remember some of our bows have the job of a rifle and or a shotgun at any given time. Usually on those bows the rug rest is preferred for it's simplicity. And yes there are exceptions for a few. One rushed shot with the arrow off the rest or stuck between the rest and plunger will nullify a lot of accuracy.

A properly 'radiused' or similar shaped shelf, or a simple match stick under the rug, works well. I find lateral adjustment is more critical to tuning as long as the shelf is 'okay.' A rest is fine as long as it isn't 'fussy'; I've tried a few that were.

The simple stick-on 'brush' rest works well if you want to try a rest without spending a lot.

This custom shelf (my design) is very accurate, and forgiving.

It's just a wood dowel attached to the factory shelf, and terminating in height at the berger button hole, then covered in velcro. Very adjustable, and very functional for a shelf.

Even if I were using a riser like the Hoyt Satori, I would not use it's plates, and would use my shelf.

You can see, that the arrow to shelf contact area is very slight, and the wear is minimal. The wear is more just dirty than actual wear, and that is after many thousands of shots across it.

Still not quite as forgiving as a good elevated rest, but it's close.

Rick

That oughta be as good as a rest or danged close Rick. A heeled bows not gonna contact the arrow.

Rick,

Is that just a set screw in the berger? Do you cover it at all?

Rick, The bow I am interested in doing that to has a shelf that slopes down a little. Will require a little creative sanding. But the Dowel is a good idea.

John, yes, just a brass screw, and tipped with velcro. I also have a shorter screw on the outside as a jamming/locking screw to keep it from moving.

Here's a picture of the same bolts I rigged up for a riser I warfed a while back.

Rick

"The simple stick-on 'brush' rest works well if you want to try a rest without spending a lot."

Perfect example of the problem we have with rests. I've often said someone and I hope I don't have to do it, needs to manufacture a better quality rest.

Here's the problem, for example with the brush rest. There are 4 problems, actually.

1. the arrow contact point is flat, approx. 1/2". Needs to be much less.

2. the side plate is hard plastic, no flex like a plunger of soft flap.

3. the rest can allow an arrow to fall off when the bow is shot vertically.

4. the rest can allow the arrow to be placed inconsistently when the bow is shot non vertically. To eliminate this possibility one needs to grind down the brush ridge so it is sculpted somewhat.

Every single rest out there for trad bows are examples of being made by people who didn't care enough or weren't perfectionistic enough to get them really right.

" no flex like a plunger of soft flap" should read: no flex like a plunger or soft flap.

The Bear weather rest would be ok if it had a soft flap to absorb arrow side pressure, but of course they didn't get that right either. Some of the Hoyt rest had this flap, but the plastic being hard was noisy.

Overall, I prefer NAP's flipper rests, but they have problems as well usually with no side pressure feature or the one that does is way too stiff, IMO. The flipper arm is unnecessarily too long, but can be easily cut down. The flipper arm does allow for clean arrow passage and is a nice design idea. NAP could easily make a side pressure flap and you would then have an almost perfect rest. Of course they can be used in combination with a Berger button, although the bb does typically make some noise in drawing the arrow. Usually not a problem until you draw back on an alert buck, etc.

I don't like/don't need a cushion plunger, unless I am intentionally adjustING to shoot arrows considerably out of the adaqute spine range for my bow.

I much prefer a solid strike plase/bolt, and arrows tuned to it.

Rick

fwiw,

Bear Weather Rest DOES have "soft flap to absorb arrow side pressure." I carved mine off. :-)

Pretty much everyone who shot a rest used the old flipper rest with the round piece of felt that came with them for the side plate. Once the plastic sleeve wears out use a piece of shrink tubing. During the 80s alot of Olympic style rigs sported a t300 flipper with a button.

Flipperless-elevatarug for me. :)

Rick, I thought I was the only one who detests a soft side/strike plate on a bow. I've said that for a long time and folks look at me like I have 2 heads.

The felt wasn't as good as a Berger button as far as function although it did quiet the draw. These days the rests come with an extra plastic sleeve, I believe although IMO the arm is way too long. The flip rest is really a brilliant concept, they just needed to refine the rest a bit more and if I were to visit NAP, I think I could convince them to go the extra step.

JK. the Bear Weather rest doesn't have a soft flap to absorb arrow side pressure. It has a ridge that doesn't really give with side pressure. It wasn't designed for that. Rather, It's function is to limit the lateral contact of the arrow which arguably increases accuracy as it may reduce lateral contact variability.

Repeated shooting wears down the ridge. The rest would have been better with a small flap instead of the ridge which is why the acclaimed Hoyt arrow rests had them. The problem with the Hoyt rests is that the plastic is too hard and can make noise. The Bear rest is a softer rubber and has a slight advantage in that regard.

I like things to be neat, well designed, and functional. Small things count for me. Of course, most people simply could care less about these points esp. the unnecessary about appearance of their equipment.

Yet, even the Native Americans apparently spent a lot of time decorating their arrows. Ever ask why? I'll tell you my theory. The decorations didn't help their success. But it allowed them to worry over and inspect their arrows to the nth degree, getting everything "just right" as a by product of maximised appearance. Beauty and function are often related.

Over and over again in bowhunting, I have seen how the difference between success and failure is often just fractional, by the smallest of details. Getting great arrow flight is usually not an accident. It requires attention to details whether it is a bows rest or one you put on. Same for grip, strings, tabs, etc. etc.

Improving is a pleasure, have fun...

fdp, they are arguably not necessary if one has a great release and arrows are spined well. But, consider most (not all) top end target archers use them and there is only one reason for that. For bowhunting, it is 50-50 proposition for me as I do value simplicity as much as possible in bowhunting. I use stick on rests for half my bows; for my other I just like a well designed bow rest. One certainly can get excellent arrow flight with a well designed arrow shelf.

Should read "well designed arrow shelf"...

"The decorations didn't help their success." should read "the decorations did help their success because it allowed them to worry over and inspect...blah blah...

David, step 3# in installing a Flipper rest after cleaning the sight window and sticking it on is to trim the wire to the length that is required for your particular arrow shaft. And if you are having all those problems with arrows flopping around on a rest, it ain't the rest, it's the archer.

Should have said "if a person is having all those problems with arrows flopping around on the arrow rest"

JK-My best shelf overall was a carpet rest. Today I just use a piece of leather.

Moosejaw Gary Sentman

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