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arrow flight not quite straight

catman529

catman529

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I haven't confirmed this but I am suspicious my arrows are not flying perfectly straight. On the hay bale target, they stick in angled slightly to the right (vanes coming out to the left), and sometimes hit a few inches left of the mark. When I shot a buck on friday evening, I had my release hand anchored well and looking straight through the peep sight, it all was centered with the pin right behind the shoulder, and the deer was not moving, broadside facing to my right, and I squeezed it off and the arrow went through the liver (deer still died quickly). It could have been user error, but I've noticed the arrows don't seem to fly straight on targets, and also the fact that I shot TWO trees on Friday before shooting that buck (thick growth of young trees, small shot windows, but wide enough I should not have hit any trees).

The arrows are spined for 45-60 pounds. The bow does not shoot more than 60 lb if I am correct. So it is on the upper end of the range for the arrows, however, my previous bow pulled more pounds than this bow and shot the same arrows just fine.

Maybe the rest (whisker biscuit) is too far left? If I move it too much to the right then the sight will not adjust any further to the right. But I can move it just a hair and see if it helps. The nock point is squared just fine and I use a release loop. Nimrod suggested I do a paper test and shoot through a piece of paper between me and the target to see if the arrow is flying straight or not.
 
Sounds like your rest isn't centered. I believe you need to move the rest to the right, if your vanes are left, to find center. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Go to the Easton arrow website and check out their tuning information. They have (or at least used to have) detailed information on tuning your bow. A quick way is to "paper tune". You do this by shooting at a close distance (around 6') through a sheet of stretched paper. I always used freezer paper. Your arrow and fletching will tear the paper as it goes through. The shape and direction of the tears will tell you what adjustments you need to make to your rest and/or nocking point. Make the adustments gradually as a little can go a long way.

Your ultimate goal is to get a "bullet hole" in the paper where the point and the fletching/nock are going through the same hole.

Once you are paper tuned, the issues you are talking about will pretty much go away. They should also have instructions on "walk back" and "group tuning" for further micro-adjustments to get field points and broadheads hitting in the same place.

You will be surprised at how much difference a properly tuned bow will make in accuracy and penetration. It IS worth the hassle of doing it.
 
scn said:
Go to the Easton arrow website and check out their tuning information. They have (or at least used to have) detailed information on tuning your bow. A quick way is to "paper tune". You do this by shooting at a close distance (around 6') through a sheet of stretched paper. I always used freezer paper. Your arrow and fletching will tear the paper as it goes through. The shape and direction of the tears will tell you what adjustments you need to make to your rest and/or nocking point. Make the adustments gradually as a little can go a long way.

Your ultimate goal is to get a "bullet hole" in the paper where the point and the fletching/nock are going through the same hole.

Once you are paper tuned, the issues you are talking about will pretty much go away. They should also have instructions on "walk back" and "group tuning" for further micro-adjustments to get field points and broadheads hitting in the same place.

You will be surprised at how much difference a properly tuned bow will make in accuracy and penetration. It IS worth the hassle of doing it.
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Totally agree with scn! Shooting through paper will tell you alot. You can build a paper tuning rack for under $10 and get a roll of paper at Lowe's for $3�shooting through paper will tell you alot about what the arrow is doing. Another way is to find a box and cut-out opposite sides and tightly tape newspaper over one of the openings and do it that way...although it doesn't work near as well as a tuning rack, it will work. Just make sure that the paper and target are on a height level equal to you shooting parallel to the ground�you can't shoot at down or up angles.

If you don't want to mess with it, bring it to me�I have a everything that we would need in my shop-targets, tuning rack, bowpress, saw, etc...
 
thanks for the info scn.

TNDeerGuy, I may take you up on your offer, sounds like you got everything needed and I will pay you for it. I would like to learn to do it myself but feel like that's something for the off season - right now I want it shooting good quickly, so I can get back in the woods.
 
Get rid of your whisker biscuit when you are shooting a fast bow like you are the rest gives on you and does funny stuff it is almost impossible for you to get consistent groups with a biscuit type rest with fast bows. That is what the guys at the archery den told me. With my rampage xt. I put on a qad ultra rest drop away and it fixed it right away. And it adds a touch more speed.
 
Also paper tuning is not bullet prof you may have torque is your hands and that can throw you off. I may be wrong and please correct me if i am but i believe that you can't compensate for torque by moving stuff around and paper tuning it.
 
deerhunter10 said:
Also paper tuning is not bullet prof you may have torque is your hands and that can throw you off. I may be wrong and please correct me if i am but i believe that you can't compensate for torque by moving stuff around and paper tuning it.
Click to expand...

You are correct.
 
deerhunter10 said:
Get rid of your whisker biscuit when you are shooting a fast bow like you are the rest gives on you and does funny stuff it is almost impossible for you to get consistent groups with a biscuit type rest with fast bows. That is what the guys at the archery den told me. With my rampage xt. I put on a qad ultra rest drop away and it fixed it right away. And it adds a touch more speed.
Click to expand...
it's not the fastest bow in fact it shoots pretty bad past 20 yards, at 30 it drops at least 8 inches or more, it's and older bow that doesn't shoot super fast.

deerhunter10 said:
Also paper tuning is not bullet prof you may have torque is your hands and that can throw you off. I may be wrong and please correct me if i am but i believe that you can't compensate for torque by moving stuff around and paper tuning it.
Click to expand...
I have a sling for my wrist so I can hold the bow without gripping it to reduce torque. There is some slight user error involved but definitely wasn't getting the flight I wanted.

Today I adjusted the biscuit to the right just a bit and the arrows don't go into the target crooked anymore, however I had trouble with consistency. I did get it dialed in OK but will still be taking it to your shop TNDeerGuy since I really don't know what I'm doing with it.
 
On an older bow, paper tune it(you're rest should always follow the "tear" in the paper), dial it in, and hunt. You could be over spined, or have a punching issue. Sounds like TNDeerGuy should be able to get you up and going in a hurry.
 
And, don't judge how it is shooting by the angle of the arrow in the target. They can hit "hard" and "soft" channels as they go in and do all sorts of crazy things.

It will be much better to have someone stand behind you while you shoot and judge the arrow flight.

You will be well served taking the time to visit TNDeerGuy and watch how he tunes on it. With the Easton paper tuning chart it isn't that complicated, but can get frustrating if you move things too much at once.

It can be a combination of nock height and arrow rest position. Someone that has done it a few times can definately speed your learning curve on it.
 
scn said:
And, don't judge how it is shooting by the angle of the arrow in the target. They can hit "hard" and "soft" channels as they go in and do all sorts of crazy things.

It will be much better to have someone stand behind you while you shoot and judge the arrow flight.

You will be well served taking the time to visit TNDeerGuy and watch how he tunes on it. With the Easton paper tuning chart it isn't that complicated, but can get frustrating if you move things too much at once.

It can be a combination of nock height and arrow rest position. Someone that has done it a few times can definately speed your learning curve on it.
Click to expand...
it was consistently going into the haybale target at the same off angle, which I seem to have fixed now, so I don't think it was a channel in the target. But yes I will be having Tndeerguy look at it and will learn from it. Right now it's shooting OK and I will take it in the woods but limit my shots, but I still need to get it fine tuned so it's shooting near perfect.
 
You may be canting your bow during the shoot. If you're right handed and the top limb and cam is tilting to the right you will shoot left. You can even be using an "open" hand to hold the bow you can still cant the bow. Watch how the bow sits in your hand. You want the bow to be on the thumb side of your life line of your palm. More on the fatty part of your thumb. This position puts the bow in the bow to bone position and torque is less likely to occur.
 
You could check your center also by nocking an arrow and align the string up in the center of the riser. I align the string on the upper and lower part of the riser the best i can to get close to center. if the tip of the arrow is going right or left of center move the rest to get it centered. This will get you very close and then you can make minor adjustments to get it near perfect.

It's like with a Mathews bow, it has a center line mark on the grip, you align the string up with that mark to get close to center.
 
Kinda smiling here. When I think of all the animals I killed with that bow and how well it shot for me, I tend to think the problem is not with the bow. However, I shoot fingers and CM shoots a release. That is one aspect plus he is shooting a wrist strap (something I ardently hate) and the open hand makes a difference.
 
The attack one does not let me center the arrow without the vanes hitting the riser. The way it was set up when i bought it from you had the arrow going to the left which it has to in order to keep the vane from hitting the bow. Tndeerguy pointed this out and also showed that I was pulling my shots and the biscuit was causing the arrow to fly crooked.
 

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