How do you tune your recurve bow?

[Murray]

We decided my wife needed a second bow for going to India - on the cheap, so we got her old intrepid riser, stuck on my stabs and an old site, stuck in my WinEx limbs (2# heavier and 2" longer than her own limbs), made a couple of new strings, eyeballed the centreshot etc... checked bareshaft at 18m - looked fine. Went to 70m - blam, same sized group as her (fairly well tuned) competition bow (exfeel/synerzy), arrows leaving the bow nice and straight.

Tuning - wossat then?

Originally Posted by BowSurfer

it is well to remember that tuning is not really so much about tight groups, it is about finding a setup that is forgiving

Hmm - actually I'd say that tight groups and forgiveness go hand in hand... because tight groups=minimising the effect of archer variation=more forgiving setup. If the arrows leave the bow clean and straight, and the group is tight, your job is done as far as your equipment goes IMO.

[Shirt]

Originally Posted by Murray

Tuning - wossat then?

Absolutely. Having spent the better part of two weeks tuning and faffing (say a total of 10 hours) with a Helix to shoot 18m, trying to get it absolutely right until I thought it was spot on, I went and shot a half FITA 18 with it.
Pulled my Axis out the bag, which had about an hours tuning back in May, shot the same round, beat the Helix score by 3 points and with considerably fewer iffy linecutters.
Repeated last Friday, but it was about 15 points.

Turns out the solution to this particular tuning dilemma was to sell the Helix.

[madmac]

I check the graph ask around the club to see what works best for others buy the arrows and then :
1 Set button rock hard no movement
2 string down the middle of the arrow
3 shoot at target adjust the group0 so its in the centre when happy
4 set button to middle setting with medium spring
5 set string to right of arrow
6 only adjusting button bring group back to centre
see tunning for tens

[Murray]

Originally Posted by Marcus26

Best tuning method I have seen for recurves is

1) Set centreshot down the centre of the string. Set plunger rock hard (swap spring for matchstick)
2) Shoot group then bareshaft
3) If bareshaft is to the left increase poundage, if to the right decrease poundage
4) once grouping together get your sights sets so you are hitting the middle of the target
5) set the centreshot just a little outside and set spring tension to medium
6) shoot group and bareshaft again, adjust cushion plunger to bring group back into the centre of the target.

I gave this a go tonight - with two sets of arrows:

ACE 670s at 27.25" and ACE 620s at 28" they behaved unexpectedly above - slightly stiffer arrows (one spine up albeit longer, bareshaft to the right which suggested these shafts were actually weaker than the 670s even though they're only 3/4" longer but one spine up. Didn't show much at 30m, but showed up quite obviously at 50. Oh well!

So, I carried on with the 670s as the bareshaft was right above the group at 50m, pulled out the centershot a tad, set the button "nice" (!), and the arrows stayed in the gold... with very nice flight.

Still got more testing to do, but results were surprising (I was convinced the 670s as they stand should be took weak!). Still - it was fun and it also gave me the opportunity to try my newest riser - with brace height of 23cm, it actually sounded a lot better than my #1 riser (which should in fact be identical!) hmmm... I might actually end up shooting this combo at the next competition to see what happens