I have never owned an ILF Olympic style bow, so I am posing this question.

Not asking if it is the best option, just wondering if it is possible.

If you had an ILF Olympic bow that was say 5# lower in draw weight than what you normally shoot, would it likely be possible to set up the plunger to shoot an arrow that is a bit too high in spine?

Such as, you should be using an 800, but could it be set up to shoot well with a 700, with plunger adjustments.

I'm not the end all be all of tuning & plungers, but I don't think you get there with only plunger adjustment. Possibly with combined plunger & a changed brace height & bolts out several 3 or 4 turns...BUT for ONE CHANGE it won't take very much extra weight up front to alter your .700 spine shaft to the weaker .800 spine need for your lighter bow.....without changing the other things......maybe.

Let me understand: limbs used on ILF rig are bottomed in and the draw weight is #5 less than usual? You may get away with center- shot -> arrow tip is in line with the string instead tangent to it.

Ive been able to use a heavier spine with plunger adjustment only. Im shooting uukha scurves,25# with victory .204 800s. In my experience, it depends on limb performance with what you can get away with. These scurves like a heavier arrow and the plunger seems to be an easy way to make it happen with a stiffer spine. Truth be told, you wont know what ypur setup likes till you start monkeying around with it.

Yeah, there's always the heavier point weight ;).

Basically, I was wondering about getting a "training bow" without buying yet more arrows.

I use my Omega's for recreation and trad 3D, mine are low draw weight and shoot 700's exceedingly well. These are the bows I really want to shoot. I am working through some TP prob.'s

I may be able to get away with my vintage Yamaha YB66 for that purpose, it shoots the 700's pretty well.

Just a retired guy with too much time to think ;)

Likely yes. Mostly it depends on center cut, not bow weight, as long as it is within reasonable range. I have a Frankenbow that will shoot arrows from 1913 to 2016 with an adjustment to the center shot.

I can tune arrows from 800 to a 400 by adjusting point weight and plunger stiffness. Limbs are mediums and 38@28 , carbon/foam. It has worked for me. I do get less distance with the heavy 400' s though.

Centershot determined spine (within reasonable parameters) the further past center the stiffer the spine it will tune with, just like George said.

Just like any other bow.

Y -

Can you do it? Yes.

Will it be optimal? Maybe not.

Will "optimal" matter? Depends, but frankly, if you have to ask, you probably don't have enough experience with it for it to matter.

Viper out.

I agree with fdp, You can adjust the plunger to change center shot and as little as a 1/16" deeper will change spine need by about 5# or .050 in deflection.

Bob

His spine is too stiff, he will need to back-off his plunder first until the arrow is in line with the string before working with plunder tension.

Guys -

We've all used plunger depth for spine tuning, but on an ILF rig, it's a last resort, not the first thing to do. That's what the limb bolts are for.

Viper out.

Viper, that's why I asked in the first comment if his limbs are bottomed in and the draw weight is #5 less than what he is usually shooting. No answer yet.

Can you, Yes. But, what Viper said. Not optimal. I just picked up my first ILF setup of my own. I've tuned at least 100 for other people. My 42@32 longbow shoots 33" 500s with 135gn on the front perfectly. I threw my Zipper Z4s on a borrowed Satori 21" making the Z4s 42@32, they bareshafted perfectly. But once I got my 21" JC Optimus the pad angle added 3# and those 500s are flying weak. I can adjust the centershot and they will fly true, but I moved down to 400s now they bareshaft correctly with a stiff plunger and centershot. I could have use the limb bolts to change the weight, but the Z4 ILF are shaped funny and won't give me the room to adjust any more than tiller.

https://texasarchery.org/files/pdfs/TuningForTens.pdf <--- this is good for tuning basics.

A year ago I got an ILF Olympic rig to play around with and ended up chasing my tail during tuning because I thought the plunger would have a great impact on the tuning. Compared to a regular off the shelf or fixed elevated rest non-adjustable weight limb bow it takes a bit more attention to detail. I found out that the plunger does not have as much impact as I originally believed. It is really more for fine tuning the arrow flight and impact point. As others have said, the limb bolts, point weight, center shot and to a point brace height are where the major adjustments are done. I now have my rig shooting far better than I can shoot.

"Viper, that's why I asked in the first comment if his limbs are bottomed in and the draw weight is #5 less than what he is usually shooting. No answer yet."

If this question was posed to me, here is the background on the original question;

I do not own an ILF Olympic style bow.

I was posing a hypothetical, general question to try to obtain some information on how much leeway a riser cut past center, with a plunger could provide with different spines.

It was prompted by a passing thought as to whether I could pick up a lower draw weight bow for training, and not have to buy different spine arrows, expressly for it.

Realizing the result would not likely form an optimum combination, but wondering if it would be "good enough" as a training tool.

I do have an older, one piece laminated target bow that I have arrows for, that I have found will perform the same function for training that I was looking for, so I have decided to drop the idea.

That's a very wide-range question with a lot of unknown, but I will just say this: I can shoot the same arrow .400 from a #55 OTF cut to centre + side plate = +0.125 and I shoot the same arrow from a #42 OTF cut past centre + side plate = -0.125.

Can’t be done

Thanks for all the information/replies.

I have lost interest in the idea; though like many threads, this one will go on for a while.

Should be; this one MAY go on for a while

Yamaha yes it will work fine IF you have enough room to adjust the button in far enough. Then use spring tension to fine tune.

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