At what distance should you shoot bare shafts in order to get the best indication of their flight?

Depends on the shooter. If you are really consistent you should be able to bare shaft out to your max distance.

For safety, I like to start 1t 15 feet shooting through paper, make adjustments to the bow or arrow components then only move back if the nocks are out less than an inch or so.

As others will stress, you need to be sure that you have solid repeatable form. Bareshafting will magnify any form issues. Assuming you have good form, start at 10 yds and continue on back to 20--- if your arrows are well tuned at 20 that is likely "good enough". I like to move back to 30 just to be sure. If you're going to hunt with the bow, you can now put on broadheads to verify that they impact with your fieldpoints and/or make tuning adjustments accordingly. Be sure to do all tuning out of the wind.

I start at 10 yards and then move gradually out to 25 yards. You can get a good idea of the attitude the arrow is flying by observing the flight at these yardages.

I have bare shafted arrows that shot very well out to 50 yards. Even shot a few 3d shoots years back with bare shafts just to prove it could be done. Just bare shafting to tune out to 20 is usually adequate.

http://www.acsbows.com/bareshaftplaning.html

http://tradgeeks.com/how-to-bare-shaft-tune-arrows/ Check these out it should help

I don't know if you asked the question the question correctly, but the answers you're getting are pretty much tuning related.

For me, I would shoot 20ish yards to see arrow flight.

Now if you wanted to see that for tuning purposes, I'd say don't and read this document. www.acsbows.com/bowtuning.html click on 'download printable version'.

That's a general answer, because after the impacts match, I then shoot to see if the bare shaft is flying straight - it usually is.

Bowmania

Good thread!.....Am I doing it wrong!? I start at 10 yards and shoot a bare shaft with the point weight I want and I watch the flight, but more or less, I judge how the arrow impacts the target. If it hits and sticks in the target with nock right, then its stiff. Left, its weak. I am right handed. What does it mean when a fletched arrow consistently hits right? ~Wojo

ny -

For trad, 20 yards is a good number. The serious target guys will do it at distance (70 meters). The really good shooters are doing that to cull out arrows.

In my experience a good 20 yard tune will carry you out pretty far, if your skills are up to it. Just remember, if you're good enough to bare shaft at distance, something like walk-back tuning may also be appropriate.

And for the record, on a new rig or new component, I usually start at 10 yards - just in case.

Viper out.

I start at 10 yards, and work my way back to 40 as I improve state of tune.

Wojo 14. To truly answer your question you need to COMPARE point of impact between bare and fletched as outlined in the documents already referenced.

As a novice Bare-Shafter, I can tell you that you can wreck a shaft by starting off too far from your target. I’ve snapped brand new cedars when they hit flying too far off-line.

I would pretty much ignore nock orientation in the target unless you are shooting into a pile of sand.

Best bet IMO is the vertical line test as taught to me by 2bears: sheet of paper; line down the middle; mark POI of bare-shaft hits. If bare and fletched hit in the same group, keep backing up until they don’t, then make adjustments until they do, then back up ‘til they don’t, then adjust ‘til they do. Repeat until you run out of either range or patience.

Especially if you shoot pretty high FOC arrows, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t be able to group bare and fletched right in there together from as far away as you can shoot an identifiable group.

But that’s what’s great about the vertical line on the paper; even if you’ve backed off to where your “group” is about 18”, you might find (by marking those bare- shaft hits) that over the course of 50 or 100 shots you can see that the bare-shaft hits are grouping 3” to one side of the fletched arrows.

I did that at about 50 feet in the back yard - turned out that I wasn’t shooting an 8” group so much as I was shooting two, four-inch groups. Once I got my bare shafts grouping onto the centerline, the whole group came down to where 90% of my shots were in a band about 4”-5” wide.

Which will leave you feeling a lot better about your shooting....

I don't worry about how the bare shaft lands in the target but where. Target materials can have too much influence when a shaft strikes and enters to turn it one way or another. Once the bare shafts are impacting with my fletched shafts, then I may tweak point weights or shaft length little by little to try to remove any left or right of the bare shaft in flight that I can see. However I have found (for me) once I get bare shafts impacting on a vertical line with my fletched arrows at 20 yards, I'm usually good to go.

this is a bare shaft robinhooded into a fletched :)

I found its not necessary. I don't shoot bare shafts at anything animals or targets so my arrows are what I tune with.

Guys -

Not sure, (OK, I am sure) where the non-sense about ignoring nock kick-out cam from. Problem is that the same thing that causes the nock kick-out also causes the different impacts between bare and fletched arrows. In fact, if the two don't agree (are in opposite directions), it's pretty safe to assume the shooter is causing the error.

While target material can be directional, if you think about it, if the target imparted a direction to the shaft angle, wouldn't it do the same whether the arrow was fletched or not?

Viper out.

Nice rug!

Very nice bow, too- and good (but expensive) shooting.

"I found its not necessary. I don't shoot bare shafts ...."

I'm curious...(serously) this seems to happen all the time--here and other forums as well. Since you don't bare shaft, why did you even post on a thread asking about bare shafting?

The over arching problem with bareshafting is the fact that bareshaft results are ONLY as good as the individual archer is capable of shooting. .

And the fact is that the majority of folks don't have a shhoting sequence/form that provides results that are consistent enough to interpret in a way that makes sense,

This especially true of the shooters that use swing draw type methods, and or "burning a hole" in the target type methods.

The swing draw causes a MAJOR problem with bow arm stability. And a sloppy bow arm has as much, or maore of an affect on arrow flight as release does.

No, I'm not infering that I am a superior archer, and that I don't have issues, because I do. BUT, I now enough about shooting sequence, and how a bow and arrow work, to understand what the cause of an issue is normally, So, I can identify the problem, and resolve it pretty quickly by going through a simple chcklist.

If you don't have a dedicated, defined shootig sequence, you have no way of understanding what causes the nock kick, ANd typically, folks start right off the bat looking at brace height, arrow spine, nock height, and on and on. When in actuality, the issue is that the archer isn't executing each shot the same way, during each shooting session. This is a HUGE reason why we see threads all the time that infer that a bow sddenly went "out of tune" and arrows appear wek, or stiff, and string nock appears hig, or low.

Even Howard Hill, who so many folks want to emulate, talks about shooting several ends of arrows, concentrating on each step of his shot sequence, to ensure that he was executing the overall shot properly.

Now, there are exceptions to these examples, but not a lot of them.

That being the case, I completely agree with Bowmania. And for the majority of shooters, and the ability they have, that method is plenty good.

Got to agree with Viper's last post. I bareshaft at 17.5 yards because that's my actual distance in the laundry room to garage indoor "range" at home.

I don't see how the target bag "knows" the dif. between my fletched arrows and my bareshafts when they impact differently.

And when I've tuned stuff up, cleaned up my release, and they impact same spot & line up together- don't think the target knows that either! ;-)

-but, I have had the occasional arrow hit a hard and/or uneven spot on the bag- (usually along the side)- and the shafts- bare or not, will hit straight and then flop off to the side. But that's easily seen.

The target bag don't "know" nothing. That's comical. What I was referring to is bag targets, the packed material inside can and will kick the nock end of a shaft left or right some depending on what it hits in the target (a ridge or crease in the material). It happens all the time with stuffed bag targets and can just as easily happen in a foam target. Its hard to hit a spot in a well-shot foam target that's not already got an arrow hole somewhere. What Im getting at is I wouldn't want to base my decision on my bareshaft tune based on how the bareshaft is stuck in a target material. Where it impacts and its flight to that point is what I base my tune off of. I see lots of questions asked that refer to the position of their bare shaft in the target. That can be misleading.

Here is a link to a youtube video by Ken Beck. It nicely illustrates the relationship between arrow impact point as well as the knock right or left aspect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6fcVAZWNU

I shoot into a compressed straw bale. Bareshafts consistently present severe nock left compared to fletched. Flip the bale around now theyre severely nock right. Have i entered some type of alternate world on the other side of the target? Some target materials are better than others when analyzing nock position... I find point of impact a more reliable indication of tune.

Well, this is not world-class shooting by any stretch, but I put 75/110 (65%) into a 4” band down the middle today, shooting 18-19 yards; black marks are the bare shafts; 25 on the right, 15 on the left, so I’m not going to change anything until I can shoot again on a CALM day, and at longer range, and when I’m making a really concerted effort to stack ‘em in there. This was pretty loosey-goosey, but some days you just feel like launching 100 arrows or so...

I’m also going to get a new string on there before I change anything; new leather on the shelf and side-plate, too....

But in case anybody wondered what the whole paper bag thing is about....

And in case you’re wondering, I don’t worry too much about the elevation and usually hold deliberately up and down the line; easier to keep track of the holes when they're strung out a little.

Form, repeatable form is the basis for accuracy, bow,pistol or rifle. Many threads on this site have had posters acclaim their accuracy after dropping bow weight. They found lower bow weights allowed them to hone their form and consistency

Here's the problem with nock kick. If your as experienced as Viper it's probably not an issue, because any arrow spine choice he makes is going to be in the ball park.

A newb on the other hand can be way off in spine and nock kick is prone to false readings. Tuning by impacts can save a newb from putting a bullet in his head in that situation.

Here's one other problem, if you can't use nock direction once the arrow is in the target, you have about a 1/4 of a second to determine 'nock kick' direction. That's if your arrow is traveling at 200 FPS and your shooting from 50 feet. That can make a newb prone to peeking.

Just a note of caution. I used to think that impacts or bare shaft PLANING eliminated false readings. It doesn't, I'm lucky the chamber was empty.

I think the key to a really tuned set up is done first with impacts or PLANING, then get out 'nock kick' if there is any and then verify with paper, which I do at 12 feet and 12 yards.

Bowmania

Here is 3 sets of shots from 11 yards. I am right handed. 45#, 56” recurve, center shot, easton axis 500 spine cut at 28.25”. Standard inserts with 200 gr point. I can tell bow fletched and bare the arrows do not fly perfect. Bare shaft visually kicks right and as you see penetrates the target nock right. I am thinking these are a bit stiff. ?? I think I need to go longer on the shaft anyway considering I am drawing 28” on this bow. Thoughts? ~Wojo

Group 2 ~Wojo

Group 3 ~Wojo

Vastly different degrees of experience here. I have never experienced arrows hitting sideways and breaking with my original selection of spine. Wojo14 those targets sure appear to be indoors. I would bet the distance is toclose to read your groups. You are good to go to 20 yards. As GF stated put a sheet of blank paper or cardboard over the face of your target under the string. Then shoot a bunch alternating between fletched and bare shaft, Mark them then read the overall pattern. Unlike the pros,at our level of skill it takes more than an arrow or two to establish facts. It can be difficult to determine tuning from human error. Good luck.>>>---> Ken

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