Bareshaft Impacts

[7,3,miss]

Something has been puzzling me for a long time. Hopefully some of the more enlightened amongst you may be able to shed some light on this.

Most tuning guides recommend that a bareshaft hits slightly low/left to the group at about 20yds (R/H Archer)

Why???

I mean why would you want to set things up so that a bareshaft (with less drag) hits lower than a fletched (more drag so slower)

I understand that its supposed to be more "forgiving" - but forgiving of what??? Bad release, bad arrow selection, bad set-up?

Expanding on this, the simple, logical thing (is archery ever simple and logical?) would be to have the bareshaft impact higher than the group at 70/90m. Is this the case?

Fletched arrows have more drag than unfletched so I would expect an unfletched arrow to have less drag and so hit higher in the group.

Perhaps I am thinking about this in completely the wrong way. Someone point me in the right direction please.

Andrew

[Murray]

Other way round - some archers have found that, after fine tuning. the bareshaft is slightly low and slightly left of the group... it doesn't mean that all archers will find this.

As for bareshaft at 70m, yes I'd expect the bareshaft to be slightly high of the group, but speaking personally, in the group or slightly low of the group works best for me at that distance.

YMWV!

[its my party and]

I have 12 new arrows at 20 yards one bareshaft goes in the middle of the 10 bit of a squeeze mind you the other is 2" to left no matter the nock rotation! Will be testing that one for straightness when I get it down the club but that shouldn't matter if the nock is twisted! Ours is not to reason why!

[Murray]

Perhaps it's the one in the 10 which is wrong
It's always a good idea with new shafts to shoot them ALL bareshaft and select those which group together as a "competition set".
It's not unknown for there to be a few variations!

[WhitehartFB]

Originally Posted by Murray

Other way round - some archers have found that, after fine tuning. the bareshaft is slightly low and slightly left of the group... it doesn't mean that all archers will find this.

As for bareshaft at 70m, yes I'd expect the bareshaft to be slightly high of the group, but speaking personally, in the group or slightly low of the group works best for me at that distance.

YMWV!

I think the key phrase here is "after fine tuning", basically after fine tuning for groups with carbon arrows you find the set up that works best for you as this excercise takes up a lot of time many archers once finished go back to 20 yards or 30m and shoot fletched and bareshaft to see the relation of the two. The positions are noted so that if something breaks on the bow and tuning is required the archer can quickly go to 20y or 30 and tune the bareshaft and fletched to the fine tuning pattern. I think it was J Barrs who did this many years ago and he reported that he found his bareshaft to be slightly left and low and from that many archers just copied this and miss out the "fine tuning bit".

[Field Archer]

Originally Posted by Murray

Perhaps it's the one in the 10 which is wrong
It's always a good idea with new shafts to shoot them ALL bareshaft and select those which group together as a "competition set".
It's not unknown for there to be a few variations!

Totally agree with Murray, shoot all arrows bare shaft before fletching

[moo-mop]

Originally Posted by Field Archer

Totally agree with Murray, shoot all arrows bare shaft before fletching

I agree you can see repeatable left-right difference between arrows in bareshaft. I have then tried seeing the same statistical repeatable difference in the same arrows when flecthed (obviously going to be more difficult as group is smaller) but at my level I do find the differences between the matched set of ACEs I tested completely disappears.
So unless you are very good or they are indeed well out of a group I wouldn't bother about it too much!

As to the original question about bareshafts low and left: I also believe that's a statement that is repeated so often it has become a fact.
Sorry to always be so cynical about tuning, but I hear so much about fine tuning and if I can't see it (and although I'm not good, I do group as well as many that talk about it) how I am supposed to believe it!

[geoffretired]

There are two reasons that I can think of for having the bare shaft impacting low and left.
The bare shaft is more forward heavy than a fletched one so it tends to dip more readily.
If you tune so the bare shaft is in the group, it could be near the top of quite a large group, depending on the archer's skill. If that were the case, on some shots, fletched arrows could be pressing on the rest as the back end passes it.This would probably cause a wobble that could be avoided with a slightly higher nocking point; which gives the bare shaft low impact.
The left of group impact, I think, is to give better clearance again. For recurves, the stiffer arrow tends to fly left and therefore further from the bow.

[joetapley]

There's a fair possibility that optimum tuning occurs with the arrows leaving the bow with the point going down and nock going up or maybe the arrow aligned in this fashion so in some cases (depending on specific situation) at 30m the bareshafts might hit fractionally below the fletched arrows. At 70m say the bareshaft arrow probably hits 15-20cm above the fletched shaft mainly because the bareshaft arrow gets more lift during the earlier part of the flight.

The bareshaft hitting a few centimeters left of the fletched shafts (RH archer) at 70m say is bit of a mystery. Only possibility I can think of is an interaction between the fletchings and the arrow vibration during the early part of the flight and consequent yawing of the fletched arrow.

I don't think you can generalise on "the bareshaft should hit...." approach as its situation specific. For basic tuning put the bareshaft with the fletched arrow. For group tuning where the bareshaft goes is irrelevant, it's only used as a reference point.

[bkupris]

A wise man told me not to bother shooting bareshafts further than 30 yards or so because they tend to plane and give confusing results??