I did a lot of bare-shafting last Spring after Wild Bill sent me a box full of arrows... lucky for me, he shoots very long 2016s and I need them down around 28” for my old (pre-FF) Howatt Hunter.

Anyway, Stu's calculator and my own bare-shaft experimentation both identified a 28” 2016 + 125 grain point as the right arrow.

Both the calculator and the paper bag test also indicated that that same arrow would be on the stiff side for the RER LB that I’ve been shooting. The RER isn’t in the calculator’s menu, so I used numbers for a Savannah as a best-case substitute....

So I got myself a half-dozen 1916 Tributes and have been messing with them for the past couple of hours.... and I stopped cutting at 28”, but the shafts were still flying nock left at 10 yards and hitting off to the right.

Dug around in the boxes until I found exactly ONE, 100- grain point, and.... I need to lower my nocking point but apart from that the bare shaft was going right down the middle with a fairly clean release, and a bit to the right with a clean, dynamic loose.

So I’m just scratching my head.... I’d been getting such a good match of observation to prediction with the calculator that I was a little concerned that I was going to have some trouble getting the shafts quite a short as I wanted them without having to add weight up front... and now it looks like I need to get a dozen 100-grainers just to figure this all out...

About all I can figure is that I wasn’t figuring in enough weight for the insert, but I never would’ve guessed that +/- 5-10 grains would count for anywhere near this much. Maybe my DL has expanded more than I figured, but I still don’t know why everything was hunky-dory with the Hunter and off by so much now.. But on the plus side... these arrows are looking like almost exactly 8 GPP; they’re zipping right on down- range (so far as I can shoot them here) and the bow is as quiet with these as with anything I’ve put through it, including aluminum-footed, 11/32” cedars...

You didn't mention raising your brace height. I would have tried that first in trying to correct left/right nock travel.

Is the bow weight in there somewhere?

DH bows are a couple pounds more then what is is marked on them. Get the real weight for the bow before bare shaft tuning.

You need to weigh inserts and nocks if you use the calculator! My wife's Tributes came out perfect for her bows using the calculator. I usually use "generic" recurve or longbow for bows not on the list. We don't shoot those short hybrid D/R longbows though! :)

Bowlim - actually, both the Hunter and the RER LB are marked #55@28”, and with my new anchor point, I’ll be able to use the back of a BH as a draw check with these arrows cut 28” BOP...

The Howatt probably is a few # heavier and it’s a good recurve, but the RER is using a FF string... so the difference between them is potentially so slight that I should probably save myself some trouble and tune them both to shoot the same arrow.

Rick’s online version of the calculator suggests that a 1916 insert will go 16 grains... I’m using a 9/32” BJ nock on the ground/swaged end, so thinking 13 grains for that

I've seen a lot of variation in insert weights depending on the brand! The inserts for my wife's 1716's were 9.5 grs. Nocks were 5.9 grs. I think you better weigh yours. Never had nocks or standard inserts that heavy in any size aluminum I've built! Makes a LOT of difference in the outcome of your calculations.

Yeah, it sure could....

At this point, I’ve cut them as short as I’m going to, and they’re flying nicely, so not much left to do but buy lighter points and confirm by shooting at longer range...

Didn’t feel like my best shooting, but I did put 22/25 into a group that measured 6” wide X 8” high from 17-18 yards out. Not gonna win many trophies with that, but the left-right scatter was 100% on me... and all but 1or 2 of the 25 would have been easy follow-ups on a good-sized deer...

If I can get the fletchings to stay on, I’ll try 25 with a broadhead... and hope my target can take the abuse!

Matt ...clean the area to be Fletched real good with lacquer thinner. Then DON'T touch that area with fingers. THEN use Saunders NVP fletching cement. Works great on bare aluminum when prepped properly!

x2 Saunders npv

Try bare shaft planing and you won't run into the problem with nock kick.

www.acsbows.com/bowtuning.html click on 'download printable version'.

Bowmania

I have an RER Vortex 43 @ 28". It shoots a 2016 with a 175 grn point very well. Which is the same arrow I shot out of a Tomahawk which was 55#.

Well, I THOUGHT this bow was a Vortex, but somebody set me straight on that.... Doesn’t matter to me, though.... I understand what the difference is, but it’s just a name to me...

And oddly enough, I was just out shooting the bare shaft + 100 and I noticed it was really critical of my release.. if I didn’t get really full expansion on my form, I was getting some flyers showing stiff.... shot a 100 and a 125 Side-by-Side for a few dozen without paying attention to which was which and found that both actually shoot pretty well, most of the time, with the 100 tending to break a bit to the left and the 125 a bit to the right.

So I guess that means I need a bit more form work... and I probably shouldn’t have taken off that last 1/4”...

Well, thanks to all of the help that I got on my Duco post, I now have two shafts fletched up, anyway…

Couldn’t resist the temptation, so I took them out in the rain with two bare shafts and took a few quick shots....

Fist one was apparently a little TOO quick and landed conspicuously off the mark, but the next three were pretty solid for being shots in the dark... and the rain. Just glad it wasn’t windy!

Just checked the image ere and realized that you can hardly tell where the bare shafts landed, so I circled them in red.

One of the fletched shafts buried all the way up to the fletch, so I highlighted that POI in green.

The other one you can see pretty well... LOL

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