Stickbow Target Archery Forums

I am having some tuning issues with my outdoor bow and haven't been able to nail it down as to the cause. I have a pse zone with #40 medium vectors shooting carbon tech 35/60 (about a .460 spine) with 100 grains up front. I have group tuned the bow and adjusted the tiller accordingly to get the best groups, I have bareshaft tested the set-up and everything appears good, the bareshafts impact with the fletched, and the fletched arrows all group together, so the problem is I can see the arrow in flight and it is not dartlike!! It seems to oscillate in a counter clockwise type circle, but impacts fine???? I just do not like the looks of it. I have shot it as far back as 35 yards and it still impacts just fine, but it flies funny..LOL!!!! I can't figure this out, it is not porpousing, and it is not fishtailing, and it groups fine. Any ideas??? I have also checked for contact and it is getting away clean??? Pretty strange..huh?? But also it is not forgiving, I mean one little flaw in form or release and I am way off base.
thanx

It seems that you are shooting an arrow which is too stiff. I would check the plunger position. Is it possible that you have compensated for an overly stiff shaft by moving the plunger out of the correct position?

Personally, I reckon that if your groups are good you shouldn't care if the arrow flies backward nearly all the way to the target.
I agree that the plunger alignment might have something to do with this, but before you change anything make careful notes on everything about the set up (I'm sure you do this already) so you can go back to it if things don't work out.

Good luck.

I haven't really altered the plunger position, but I do have a very low setting on the spring tension due to the stiff impact I was getting early on. I may add 5 grains to the front and see if it helps, I will also try adding a little more poundage to the limbs, I have the top limb bolt bottomed out now, but do have a turn or two left on the bottom. I will try that and see what happens. It is a difficult set up to tune due to the light arrow weight, and the fact that I am trying to get maximum speed out of it for flat trajectories. I think I have spoiled myself over the winter shooting my indoor bow at a whopping 140 fps!!! Can practically stand on one foot and hit the gold, now shooting 215 fps everything has gotten critical again.

I've seen that corkscrew affect with a nock that was too tight. It was a borrowed bow and borrowed arrows, so there may have been something else wrong. All I noticed was the nock tightness. The arrows kinda 'tornedoed' toward the target in a foot-wide funnel.

Barbwire...If you feel the bow/arrow combo is tuned well and bare shafting seems to be about where it should be and you THINK you are seeing something weird in the arrow flight but the groups don't show anything wrong I would bet what you are seeing is the rotation of the arrow on the way to the target. If you have a contrasting color cock feather or vane this can be seen as something strange in the arrow flight sometimes. Have someone stand a few yards behind you and watch over your shoulder with a pair of bino's and have you shoot about 40 yds so they have eneugh time to see the flight to the target, might solve your problem the easy way....warf

Are all you fletching the same color. If you have different colored cock feather it could cause the illusion of oscalating.

Art

Well the culprit was the nocks!!! I couldn't beleive it, I new they were a little snugger than usual, but not enough to make me consider them a problem, well just to check I boiled some water and refitted them and whoala!!! Good flight!!n I will remember the feather colors for future references, I usualy use darth vader arrows black and purple barred with black nocks..LOL!!! Usually take a little heat for that but don't feel like stripping them
Thanx guys!!!