Bare shaft tuning

LAC Mark

Active member
I was trying to tune my new (to me) Uukha UX100 #38 to my ACC 620 28" on Friday, but the bare shafts were going left (bare shafts in the black, fletched in the 10 zone, 122 face at 30m), increasing the poundage wasn't bringing them in to the right. Out of desperation I removed the tape off the back end of the shaft and now all arrows are in the gold.
How important is taping the rear of the arrow to match the weight of the fletchings ?

Ps. I have a Gollo GT so plenty of adjustment for upping the poundage.
 

dvd8n

Supporter
Supporter
AIUK Saviour
Bare shaft tuning is a tool to help you get the best tuning for your bow.

To get the most accurate results from it your bare shafts should be as close as possible to your fletched shafts, just without the fletchings. Weight, length, profile, everything. You should also be tuning using the best arrows in your set, including the bare shafts.

On the other hand, it is a tool rather than an end in itself, and it's as well not to get too hung up on the results.

Having said all of that, I'd redo all the tuning from scratch, brace height, nock height, tiller, everything. It doesn't take much to make bare shaft tuning give weird results.
 

KidCurry

Well-known member
AIUK Saviour
I take it the weight of the tape was equal to the fletch/glue/tape. To eliminate any contact I'd reduce the tape by 50% and see if the arrows go into the red/blue area. Also where is your FOC? I would tape for plastic vanes but not for spin wings due to spin wings being so light.
 

LAC Mark

Active member
Sorry, to answer some of your questions.
Yes the tape was to replicate the weight of the fletchings, all my arrows were weighed and the bareshaft was set to the average.
I only have one bareshaft for this length of arrow, but I have another that is 1/4" longer so shot that as well and it was within 2" of the other.
I have no idea what my FOC is.
I must add this is the first time I've set my own bow up and done any real tuning, but I'd like to get my head around this black art before diving in with new arrows.
I'm leaning towards ACE's when I do, so I'd rather not go chopping them down blindly.
Just realized I did a rooky mistake by fitting a new string and not giving it time to bed in before tuning.
 

dvd8n

Supporter
Supporter
AIUK Saviour
Like I said, make sure that all your other tuning is spot on. Then have a play with your tiller bolts and button to observe the effects. The interplay between button pressure and centre shot can be a bit arcane, but the effect of winding in the tiller bolts with respect to arrow spine and bare shaft grouping should be really obvious. Wind the tiller bolts in a turn at a time and watch the shafts move around the target with respect to each other.
 

Mark2

Active member
AIUK Saviour
If you have never tuned before I wouldn't bother with tape on bare shaft tuning to counter the fletching weight. Personally I never have.Watch Grayson Partlowe on tuning the button for barebow. No tape to balance his big fletchings, but damm that's interesting.
If you can get bare shafts and fletched in the same 10 zone group at 30yds then you are pretty much ready to move on. That is assuming you are already happy with tiller and bracing height.
Also, bracing height can really give odd results on bare shaft especially if it is really low, and I'm guessing as you are shooting uukha yours is quite low.
 

LAC Mark

Active member
My brace height was set at 218mm (Uukha's recommendation) before winding in more poundage, but went down to just over 200mm, this is with a new previously unshot string.
I'm down the range tonight, so I'll bring the bracing height back up and see what happens.

Dam that Grayson's good.
 

LAC Mark

Active member
I had a good evenings tuning, reset my brace height (218mm) and tiller witch had gone mad (32mm) now set to 6mm, checked my draw weight (41.9#), then started tuning, got all 7 into the gold at 30m (122 face).
Well chuffed.

Sat down for a rest and noticed my limbs are upside down, so it's time to start again.
I should've realised when the tiller was so far out at the beginning.
 

Mark2

Active member
AIUK Saviour
The ironic thing is that most people that do it seam to shoot better when the limbs are revered. I've even seen it at tournaments.
 

Geophys2

Active member
AIUK Saviour
When I buy a set of limbs I don't take the manufacturer's word for it as to which is the top limb and which the bottom. I always clamp them to a bench and hang a weight on the end, the limb that deflects the least is then designated for the bottom. Oh and yes I had a more than one set of limbs from one of the top makers that were completely out and had to be used opposite to their marking.
 

Hawkmoon

Member
Uuhka limbs are made with a built in positive tiller, so that when an oly' recurve archer draws slightly above centre on the string the limbs are in sync, so if you'r limb bolts are even you will be shooting with that amount of positive tiller and as you are probably drawing below the nock this will leave you limbs out of sync'. If you are string walking then depending on how far your longest crawl is you will find that a slight negative tiller will give a better tune.
 

Rijodel

New member
When I buy a set of limbs I don't take the manufacturer's word for it as to which is the top limb and which the bottom. I always clamp them to a bench and hang a weight on the end, the limb that deflects the least is then designated for the bottom. Oh and yes I had a more than one set of limbs from one of the top makers that were completely out and had to be used opposite to their marking.
My w&w ex-prime limbs have a diference of 1 pound at 28" draw lenght, between top and botton ones.
 
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