. I like to grab the arrow by the nock to get it out of the quiver, I have a problem doing that with extra long arrows, plus getting around in the sticks is tidier with shorter arrows for me. My favorite length is net length, but that requires a 5 pound spine drop when using the same weight points. A 10 pound spine drop when using spent cartridges for net length blunts, as they weigh in at less than 100 grains. There is something about shooting net length arrows that is rewarding for form and accuracy. Whether it is how clean they come off the bow or maybe the indirect visual or maybe even the feel of the metal point on the finger at full draw.

I have never had great success bare shafting wood. Now I don't worry about it. I have been shooting the same bows for so long I don't have any trouble getting my arrows to shoot well. Of course, I do it all wrong, but it works. I have only a 25" draw. I cut all my arrows to 29" and mount 125 grain points. Spine is what the stated draw at 28" is. For example, on my 53# at 28" bows I use 50-55# shafts with 3 fletches of 5" length. While I don't recommend using my specs, it does illustrate that an ASL is often not really picky. It will also shoot 55-60# adequately. If a fletched arrow shoots accurately, you are good to go. As you might guess, I am not a tinkerer, but if I hold true, my stuff shoots true. Who else has a weird setup that works ?

For the young man in my yard? Even when he snapped the points off and tried them shorter they were wrong. In fact they got worse the shorter they got. I do not remember what his span of test shafts were, way under to way over in 5 pound increments. There is enough history on wood arrows that it is not needed to reinvent the wheel. A carbon shaft is in itself a weather vane. Because of the weight per inch ratio, if a wood arrow gets to slinging coming off of the bow that is a completely different momentum because of the weight of the shaft versus the weight of the head. Even my carbon shooting friends declare that a set-up needs to be retuned when fletch is added. With wood there is always one spine that will be slightly more tolerant of the the shooters variations. I find that most shooters over estimate their actual release draw length. many longbow shooters have claimed "28". Maybe when they try hard they can reach that, but at what cost to form and accuracy? After a while they will adjust to usually something less. Many years ago John Schulz suggested that I shorten my draw an inch, he was correct. Immediately all of my arrows were too stiff and too long, thank God for 160 grain Hill heads, quite a difference between 115 grain Bears w/o bleeder blades and 160 Hills. People can do what ever they want, 'we go round in circles'.

So what you are saying is his woodies were not even close to start with?

I have allowed guys to do it in my back yard. One was bare shafting a set of carbons and a set of woods. It is a large target. On the carbons he ended up borrowing some 200 and 250 screw in from me, Out of his ILF, that he shot with sight pins and shot split finger, he got the carbons to fly with what ever insert was already installed and just changed the heads until he those 250s which seemed to work. He wanted woods for his longbow, but being a former compound shooter he wanted to do it his way, instead of trying my available arrows. He bought six different sample shafts, full length. At 10 or 12 yards he never got them, even at full length, to settle down. The heaviest head that i had to glue on were 3 Rivers hammers. I would not let him shoot those at my target, they punch easy holes. He eventually broke all six arrows, before he gave up. Then he knocked on my door and asked if I had any ideas. i asked what his draw length was, he said 28", I asked him to show me, how about 26.5" with the longbow. I handed him three matching arrows already made up, they were perfect, They were the same arrows that I shoot out of my Morningstar. I did not make him free arrows, but I did let him use my fletchers in my basement to make his own, he ended up with a dozen perfect flying arrows without bare shafting any of them, with 145 grain heads and 4 by 4" feathers. No point in bare shafting woods, just ask by giving honest specs and get the right answer right from the start.

Larry...not following " it requires too much length and massively heavy heads..." why ?

DSJ:

10-15 yards is more than enough.

Bob

I sometimes make arrow for a number of people. I do it for others the same as i do for myself. I set the brace height to what it should be. i set the nock for what it should be for that particular bow. The arrow will be 3/4" longer than the shooters draw length. I need to see the person shoot. I pick three spines and use the planned head weight. I use the four by four inch, three by five inch or three by 5.5". I make sure that the nock is rotated that it correctly right angle the grain and the lower hen feather angles quartering into the arrow rest. One of those will be the right one. Bare shafting wood is a total waist of time, it requires too much length and massively heavy heads and one will end up with crazy stiff spines. The weight per inch is nothing like those carbon straws, which follow behind an aggressively over weighted head compared to the section weight of the shaft, all of that just to deal with the over stiffness. I consider a perfectly matched wood arrow to be a very fancy tool.

I have not posted on this site in quite some time, however I saw this post and thought I would interject my thoughts on SPINE.

Spine is not as difficult as some try to make it and it would be somewhat easier to understand if there were not two spine standards. The AMO (26" centers/ 2# weight) and the ATA (28" centers/ 1.94# weight.

Let's start with the only one you should use with wood arrows the "AMO". This is actually a mathematical formula. and you're only measuring how much a shaft will deflect or bend in thousands of an inch. Using your AMO spine tester you orient the edge grain of the shaft so it points up and apply a 2# weight halfway between the uprights. Let's say it measures .510. If you take the deflection and divide it into 26 you will get the bow weight for a "28" arrow. that being 50.9#. That arrow will shoot the line in a 50#bow cut 1/8" less than center at the arrow pass or strike plate, using a B50 string. Point weight 125gr. to 145gr. That 50# bow will usually be able to shoot a range of 10/12#, 5/6# either side of 50. For low stretch strings I add one spine range.

If your arrow is intended to be longer or shorter than 28" you deduct 5# spine for every inch longer than 28" and increase the spine for every inch shorter than 28" It's really that simple.

As the strike plate/arrow pass goes deeper add one spine range for every 1/16". As the strike plate gets deeper your usable spine range also increases.

You do not need to bareshaft wood arrows. It is not necessary for the spine to be exact you should be able to shoot a wide range of different spine arrows. In the above example 44/45#-55/56#, OH YES IT WILL!

How do you know when the spine is correct?

place a strip of 1" wide masking tape on your target vertical, make sure you're looking directly down the length of the arrow and place the point in line with the tape. If the spine is correct, you should hit the tape or be very close to it. For a right-hand shooter arrows to the left are stiff, to the right they are weak. Those conditions are corrected by changing point weight or arrow length. Very weak arrow will wag their tail at you as will very stiff arrows, porpoising is a nock set issue not spine.

Bob aka (aromakr)

I just went thru this process. Started with a Sherwood test pack. Shot all with 145 gr points at full length(32"), watched arrow flight all were flying tail left. Started shorting 1/4" at a time , the stiffer spine arrow started to respond first so kept shorting it 1/4" at a time till it got to 29"(my length I was shooting for) . Then started going down in point weight to 125 gr. Ended up with a bare shaft laser beam at 20 yd. with good shooting form, it will tell you when you don't (and easy to get mixed up with arrow tune) , bad form shows up for me towards the end of shooting session. Takes time, I like the results I got and feel it helps me at 35 yd (my point on distance ) with feathers on.

Can you bare shaft wood? Yes. However, it does present some additional problems. Wood isn't as consistent in spine or weight as are carbon and aluminum, though one can get them pretty consistent with a grain scale and spine tester. But lacking those two pieces of equipment, there's no guarantee that the few arrows you bare shaft are representative of the others you plan to shoot. Yes, vendors supposedly sell shafts within 5# spine groupings and plus or minus 10 grains, but checking with my own equipment indicates that a lot of vendors aren't that rigorous.

Of course, there's also the problem that most folks don't have form good enough to benefit from bare shafting, regardless of the arrow material.

For those of us who have been at this a while, bare shafting really isn't necessary because we've figured out the spine shafts our bows need through trial and error. That trial and error involved shooting a lot of arrows, watching how they fly and group. Similar to bare shafting, just not doing it with bare shafts. If I know the bow weight, the archer's draw length, the amount of center shot of the bow, the type of string and bow design, I can pick a wood shaft spine that will work fine and so can most others who have been at this while.

Zaccai, i had similar issues and solved it in another way.

I really don't like tuning arrows either but if you want the best flight you need to get kinda close. Big feathers correct a lot, but they are more expensive, make noise both in flight and in quiver, slow the arrow down, if colorful, present "flags" etc. And....you are making due and covering up, not fixing.

I gave up because of breakage but now....i simply shoot them at a soft backing from farther away. A grassy hillside, a sand pit, at 40 yards. Haven't broke another. Again, i hate tuning so i shoot and simply watch arrow flight. If it points towards the bow in flight it is too flexible, away, too stiff. If it looks like it flies straight away i am done and that is the spine, length, tip weight i will use for that bow. I write thst in my bench book. Feathers, which ever ones i choose, will only help that decent flight get better.

It is not as perfect or as picky as some, but it gets me closer than guessing. Especially with a longer draw, using heavier points etc .

Would you be willing to elaborate as to why Steve? Do you mean that length doesn't affect dynamic spine in wood arrows, or that it is simply best to use a shorter arrow as it will recover faster? I have been told they are slower to rover from paradox.

I have been told the same thing before. I can get "good" flight at 20' but when I start stepping back my impact changes, especially between wood and carbon. So one or the other is not tuned. It is left and right not up and down btw.

I have limited experience in archery and I know there is a long tradition of NOT bare shafting wood arrows. Until I see the reasons not to for myself I guess I'm gonna have to try. Noone's ever explained why it wouldn't work so I guess in my mind that meant it was still possible. I don't know, I'm weird like that.

Wood arrows are not carbon arrows. You can't treat them the same way. Shoot them with feathers. If they fly right, you are good to go.

It is best to cut the wood arrows as short as possible. That means leaving just enough length so that the broadhead will touch your finger at full draw. There is no tuning by length.

Z

I must confess I never bare shaft tune. My 65&70# Howard Hill bows shoot 70-75 POC & DF wood dead on out to 20 yards with 190 gr field tips and broadheads with 5.5 fletching. The only thing I did different this season was cut about 3 inches off all my full length shafts I was using. That made a big difference. I never wanted to make archery a Science project.

Good luck with your tuning.

Deno