On another thread, Viper weighed in with this:

"Bare shafts will go where THEY want to go, fletched arrows will go where YOU want them to go.

"Once you understand that, the rest falls into place."

Well, I THOUGHT I understood it, but now I'm questioning myself (almost always a healthy exercise...).

If I have a prayer here, what Viper is saying is that the fletched shafts will go where they are aimed, while the Bares will go where they are aimed ONLY IF they are spined correctly.

Or do I need to re-boot my learning process?

THX!

Matt, good question. My thinking is a little different. Bare shafts go where they are pointed. They have no drag to pull them back in line. Nocking point high-bare angles down hill and strikes with the nock high. Fill in the blanks for low,left,and right. Feathers straighten out the arrow. "Fletched arrows go where you want them to go" Don't we all wish. Not to dismiss Tony. I highly recommend his book. He takes things for granted and don't go in to detail here like in his book. Here we are supposed to know. We make adjustments to MAKE them go in the general direction we want. As you are suggesting though,if way off in spine either will have a mind of their own. Too weak or too stiff may clank off the bow. Too stiff pointed slightly left as most Trad bows are set up,the farther it goes the more left it will be. That is if it doesn't crash into the bow and get redirected. Weak flexes too much and goes right with out the bow crash. RH shooter. If used correctly charts and calculators will get you close enough to avoid those scenarios. The bare shaft don't lie make the fletches hit with it and so will the broadheads. When broadhead tuning the corrections are the same for broadhead (both fletched) as they are for the bare and fletched difference. Hope that makes sense.If not you know where I am. >>>----. ken

Bareshafts will demonstrate the bare truth of dynamic spine--- how a particular shaft comes off of a particular bow. Fletchings correct to a certain extent spine issues. Put a big broadhead on a fletched shaft and it will also let you know if your arrow is too stiff or too weak. All this is contingent on one very important detail--- you must have good repeatable form to get reliable results.

Before I get jumped on... Fletching can mask spine issues where they are very apparent w the bareshaft.

Theriflman No reason for anyone to jump on you. You are correct. >>>----> Ken

Gf, I think your forgetting one thing. The bare and fletched shaft are the same spine. As mentioned feathers will correct (mask) spine issues.

The bare shaft cannot correct spine issue OR more importantly human error. A bare shaft can't want anything, so I disagree with Viper's syntax. Like 'my bow likes a heavy arrow'. A bare shaft impacts where the spine and human error direct it to impact. I don't want to put words in Viper's mouth, but I think that's closer to what he meant?

BECAUSE feathers correct mistakes, that's why it's a good idea to practice with bare shafts. Whey you practice you want to know you're mistakes.

Bowmania

Going to beg to differ:

"Bare shafts go where they are pointed. "

Yeah, well, only out as far as it takes for them to start turning sideways!

LOL

I'm gonna stop thinking about it and go shoot for a while...

Check with you later...

Viper is right and it doesn't need the arrow to turn side ways. When I am trying to bareshaft an arrow at 30 yards a 450gr will go down earlier than the rest. A small mistake when releasing will send it left or right without fletching to compensate. That's why is better to use more than one bareshaft and mixing them with the fletched ones while shooting. This is my experience.

Matt I though you were going to disagree with what I and Todd said. Todd just used more words to say where they where pointed.:^) O.K. maybe I should have said in the direction they were pointed,instead of where they were pointed. Matt they won't turn sideways if they are the right spine. Did you read the thread where the guy was grouping bare shafts at 20 and 30 yards. He asked if he was doing it right and the next step. I have one set of bamboo arrows I have not bothered to fletch. they don't know any different. >>>----> ken

I guess I should clarify a few things...

So, Todd - Nope, did not assume that bare and fletched shafts would be mismatched. That said, I have proven to myself many times that (with adequate fletching), a mixed bag of spines will group about as well as I am typically willing to believe that I’m capable of shooting. Of course, I might change my mind about that if I were to shoot a few 300 rounds with precisely matched & correctly spined arrows vs. the dog’s breakfast that typically fills my quiver ;)

Because you never really know what you’re capable of until you stop doing it wrong.

(And just for the record, NO, I would not waste any time bare-shaft TUNING without matched arrows, but tossing a few shafts of the CORRECT spine into the quiver does keep me honest, whether the rest of my arrows are matched or not. Bare Shafts are my BS detectors!)

So really, we’re all saying the same thing: Bare shafts put all mistakes on display for all the world to see. Doesn’t matter if you have the wrong spine or a bad release or a high/low nocking point: if the arrow comes off the rest/shelf wrong, things can only get worse from there.

I think that’s what Tony was saying about them going where THEY want to go.

On the other hand, big enough fletchings can mask all manner of ills by simply correcting things before they get out of hand... albeit more slowly with a big, gnarly Broadhead up front...

GF -

That's right, but even if we forget about user error (ie a shooting machine), a fletched arrow will tend to go where it's pointed. That's just because the increased air resistance at the tail end (fletch) tends to make the tail stay behind the head.

With a bare shaft, even if pointed dead center on the target, lateral and vertical forces (spine and nock position) errors will cause the arrow to respond to those forces, since there's much less correction, via the increased air resistance.

Think about it: A perfectly spined arrow will oscillate (paradox, as a verb) about it's axis in the direction it was pointed. For a right handed shooter, a still arrow will flex less and veer left and a weak arrow will flex more and veer right. Ditto for high and low nocking points.

The tricky part is that we are not shooting machines. Our quirks can and should be included in the tuning. That's why most decent shooters will group better with slightly stiff arrows vs perfect b ared shafted ones.

Viper out.

"On the other hand, big enough fletchings can mask all manner of ills..." That is 100% true, think of a flu flu. But you don't bare shaft a flu flu to make sure it's the correct spine.

If you have an arrow that will fly straight with no fletching, how much is too much and how much is too little?

Bowmania

Fletching is there "ONLY" to compensate for tuning & shooter error.

We all need them to some degree. Some more, or less than others.

None of us are "shooting machines".

The "perfect tune" is as illusive as bigfoot, and even when/if achieved, it is still different from one shooter to the next due to differences in the shooters.

Bareshafting is a tool, and a good tool at that, but it is only as good a tool as how well you learn to use it. It can/will show you "much more than" just tuning "IF" you learn to read, and use it properly.

Rick

Really glad I brought this back up, because I was chatting with one of the guys at the club who was conjecturing that a slightly WEAK shaft is somewhat more forgiving. He’s a good guy and a better shot than I am, so I wasn’t of a mind to push back on that, even though I had my suspicions that he might be mistaken.

And frankly I’m pleased to hear a contrasting opinion because I’ve convinced myself that for hunting purposes, a stiffer shaft will out-penetrate a weaker one every time (assuming that mass, velocity and trueness of flight are all equal).

I’m not necessarily advocating UEFOC, but given a choice between a lighter shaft with a heavier head and a heavier shaft with a lighter head, I think the former is the better choice...

So if I’m going to be a little bit off one way or t’other.,,,

But I guess now you may still wish to figure in your bare shafts showing a little weaker than fletched - which is not to say a little bit WEAK, but just a little WEAKER THAN.

As in: A #90 bow is weaker than a #110 bow, but it’s still a little too stiff for the likes of me....

Todd -

Sorry buddy, not even close to being true. All fletch, any fletch will do is mask minor shooting or spine errors. Screw up bad enough, and nothing is going to help. Think about it, if flu-flus could mask that many errors, then we'd all be using them for 20 yard/18M competitions and there's be a lot more perfect scores being shot.

The facts are. you don't need a lot of fletch to mask minor errors and no amount of fletch is fix poor or inconsistent form.

IOWs, larger fletch might benefit a really good shooter more than a putz.

GF - Penetration doesn't even enter into this equation, unless things are grossly mismatched. That discussion belongs more in the "neo-trad" thread than one on tuning.

Viper out.

Nope - increased penetration would just be a desirable outcome of getting everything else right...

GF -

The problem is that with modern equipment of adequate weight and anywhere near tune, penetration just isn't an issue. Sure, a perfect flight will yield better penetration in a lab setting, but in the real world, probably much less than you think.

AGAIN, we're not talking about an arrow flying down range sideways ;).

Going back to the "neo-trad" thread, "penetration" was something we never really worried about 40/50 years ago.

Viper out.

Understood!

But society-at-large is a lot less accepting of hunting than it was, and the parcels that we have access to hunt on are a lot smaller than they were. Around here, somebody finds a bow-killed deer in their yard and it makes the Police Blotter. Some places are now plagued with coyotes and/or black bears where there simply were none 50 years ago...

All of which adds up to me wanting to be the absolute best shot that I can figure out how to be, and wanting to do what I can to get an in-the-dirt passthrough to help with as short a recovery effort as possible.

Heck, I even asked for a recommendation on a good elevated rest for hunting! Flipper II is in the lead.. I suspect you have a preference yourself....

GF -

You're right, as whole, the general feeling about hunting has changed, heck I know mine has. Not sure if it's for the better or worse.

But I think something else changed. 40 - 50 years ago, I think the average bow hunter was a better shot and better prepared than a lot of the guys out there today, and I mean both neo-trads and the compounds guys, and in a lot of states, the x-bow guys too. We've gone over the reasons in each group, but I still believe we were more grounded or at least more committed to what we where doing back then. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good guys out there now, but the not-so-good guys seem to be growing in numbers too.

Viper out.

Even a grossly out of spine arrow will fly down the middle. Feathers can hide a multitude of ills. Bare shaft won't. They'll go where they want/have to.

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