[tpcollins]

I just installed my new dial indicator that's in .001" graduations instead of the metric one I had, and I just finished my set of (8) bare shaft Tactical Tapps testing. The dots from Jerry' marks are exactly where the needle rises (a well as the 180 degree side).

Setting the dial at zero with no weight as Jerry had indicated, I'd hang the 3# weight and compared the amount of deflection at the spine marked dot up. On the (8) shafts I had the following readings:

2 - .127" deflection
1 - .128" deflection
3 - .129" deflection
1 - .130" deflection
1 - .131" deflection



So with a range of .004" of deflection from a 3# weight, how much poi variation could I expect with this group? I do want to shoot them bare shafted at 20 yards if it ever warms up.

But I would think I could make more poi variations during the fletching process as much as anything else but I'll see. Thanks.

 

[Geekster lives]

You will not be able to get the fine adjustment with the fletched arrow. Turning the nock from vane to vane is a pretty big jump. 1/3 of a turn. The bareshaft allows you to get the nock in the exact right position. Then you can fletch it. If you really want to get to the nitty gritty.

 

[robertyb]

You will not be able to get the fine adjustment with the fletched arrow. Turning the nock from vane to vane is a pretty big jump. 1/3 of a turn. The bareshaft allows you to get the nock in the exact right position. Then you can fletch it. If you really want to get to the nitty gritty.

So if you are going to tune bare shaft why even bother to do spine deflection? Seems like all it will do is give you a faster starting point.

 

[SouthShoreRat]

So if you are going to tune bare shaft why even bother to do spine deflection? Seems like all it will do is give you a faster starting point.

Correct

 

[wapster]

So if you are going to tune bare shaft why even bother to do spine deflection? Seems like all it will do is give you a faster starting point.

To me it seems like a good comparison test between bare shaft and indexed arrow flight.... I am curious to which one is morew consistant

 

[Geekster lives]

Spine indexed and matching takes some of the work out. It ain't gotta be done. And certainly we get great shooting arrows without the step. But somthing to remember the static spine and dynamic spine. May not be in the exact same spot. The bow actually shooting the arrow and slightly turning the nock to get the shafts same poi is icing on the cake. You ever had a set of matched arrows and one still slightly out of the group. I have. Allot of times I get it to get in the group with this step.

 

[Geekster lives]

When I said it ain't gotta be done. I was referring to the bare shaft shooting. This step helps me a lot with shooting fixed blade heads.

 

[wildcatter109]

Your right robert, this will give you static spine and be better finding more arrows out of the dozen than 1/3" vane checking gives you right off the bat. But like anything the finer you want it there is even more that can be done to give you even more of the shafts shooting to the same with even more time preping. That is what I found bare shaft tuning to do.

I took geeksters advice a few years back, shot all the spine indexed arrows bare shaft.

From there I took the 8 or whatever that hit the exact same place on the bull, and started turning the nocks on the 4 or whatever number you have left that don't shoot to the same POI the majority did, till they hit to the same place the majority did.

I now had them all the same dozen or however many I had in the matched set "Dynamic" tuned to shoot all the same POI at 20 yards, I think the first time I did this I had 8 right off the bat, and got 3 more to all shoot same hole at 20 yards, leaving one for whatever, marked and used as a blacksheep if you will. If they will cut the same hole at 20 without vanes, they are dead nut with em.

Once fletched those 11 were deadly accurate out 70 yards as far as I shot em, but all 11 from the Mad Max shot withing 1/2" or less at 50 yards, yes with fixed blade broadheads. I did a video of 5 of them, but the other 6 shot just as good. geeksters advice led to getting even more arrows tuned before fletching. It's always about how anal we want to get. Not always needed, but better always takes even more effort, I can't imagine what a set of arrows would cost if we bought em this highly matched, but I bet they wouldn't sell very well unless you lost money on em.

I take it even farther weighing each arrow to less than 1/10 grain, you better the best and a bunch of em. Then the vanes to the exact grain of each other, when I am done all 3 vanes weigh less than 1/10 grain difference and all sets for the whole dozen exact, when weighted together. Then I do the same with inserts for the whole set. same for broadheads, that takes some time and lots of blades and collars to get 12 within 1/10 of a grain. Finally the nocks. There is no way a dealer could take the time and sell arrows this tightly matched that would shoot this good without loosing his business.

When I got done yes, I did see an improvement, but not at 50 yards, untill I got to 80 or 90 yards was when I finally could see a significant difference, and that was mainly in how every arrow shot to the same point. It was fun, and to be honest, if I just wanted to find 4 arrows for hunting that all hit to the exact same POI out to 50 or 60 yards, I could easily do that buying a dozen of Jerry's tight matched Tapps or Zombies, and fletching them as they came. But I proved to myself if time is nothing, you can get em even tighter, but it will take lots of components, and lots of time.

 

[no1huntmaster]

not sure how much is too much. But this is where the railess design is thought to be Superior. To allow some shaft flex on the shot without the arrow bouncing/flexing off the rail.

Of coarse I really don't buy it.

In my mind the .130 and .131 are the *******s really becuase there is one each and the spread. Set those aside to add in to the new doz.

Now i would get another dozen and do the same thing if you can waist the money. This is what I have done a few times. Costly but so worth it.

Right now have 19 arrows totally perfect. The other 5 arrows are all very close to each other in thier spread so they are still as good as the rest just not part of the first batch OF 19.

Those 5 arrows shoot as good as the 19 just a small p.o.i. change but the same tight group.

 

[GRIMWALD]

Correct

I am not sure I would agree whit that.
At 20 yards it is "probably" possible to get a 300 spine and a 400 spine to hit in the same hole but the further you move away from that 20 yard mark. I think you would find a different result.
Indexing with a tester, just confirms that all of the shafts are in the same realm of shoot-ability. the more levels of indexing the less likelihood of point of impact change.
Nock tuning only, is THE most accurate method of achieving same hole impact but only from a specific distance. To achieve that same consistency at other distances, the deflection values need to be considered also.

GRIM

 

[no1huntmaster]

Why i want to pay for spine matching...lets just call it arrow sorting instead of spine matching.

I have tried what i post below with some nice.001 shafts that were not sorted/spine matched and got lucky once but most of the time you will end up with a bunch of little batches of arrows

maybe 3 or even 4 batches in a dozen when considering the spread. you then need to by lots more dozens to add to those batches to get enough arrows to shoot.

All the little arrow batches are good if you re sight in to each one when you use it.

On a side note....any of these arrows would be more then adequate for some 30 40 yards hunting, but with some broad heads and speed increase

this becomes more important and un matched arrows show themselves much more.

Folks on ct have a quest for perfection obviously.

 

[Skeeter 58]

We need rt2 to join in on this one. He made a thread contending that after he spine matches his arrows he knows how they will fly, in relation to each other. Not sure if he nock tuned or not but I do know he was shooting from 50 yards and with a long mech broad head.

Help us out here, Joe.

 

[rt2bowhunter]

What i would want to know is. With the stiff side up on your jig. Check each side 3 and 9 0clock try and match as closely as you can there. Even if it means some arrows the stiff side marked are between the hens or on the cock vane. I found my groups improved after doing this. Now touching on shooting bare shafts. Im now wondering if the spline indexer will show us this without shooting.

Remember Jerrys pic of the arrow. Its not 3 and 9 but more like 1;30 and 5:30. Is the sweet spot in there. Really if you think about bare shaft tuning your finding the sweet spot. And where the stiff side dot ends up it ends up. Im happy with my arrows now. But i do have several bare shafts. I might play with them and see if i can find a spot where they match the closest. Fletch and shoot.

But theres more to this. If you add weight to the back of a arrow it will behave stiffer. If you add weight to the front it will act weaker. The spine checker cant read this. This difference will change the applied flex and change the direction the arrow follows or path would be a better way to put it.

I proved this to myself after i had my arrows that didnt fly alike. Shooting together then i swapped 80 gr for 50 gr inserts and the group opened up. When i swapped them back to 80 gr same hole again.
I think at this time you gotta have your arrows matched to your bow. Spine FOC weight are all going to play a hand.
When i think why did my POI change. Ive come up with. They wasnt matched but were close i found the sweet spot for my bow. But because they were different spine the different FOC changed poi. Because the applied force acted differently on each arrow.

Im learning as i go. And might be full of it LOL.

 

[Tapp-Nation]

Spine indexed and matching takes some of the work out. It ain't gotta be done. And certainly we get great shooting arrows without the step. But somthing to remember the static spine and dynamic spine. May not be in the exact same spot. The bow actually shooting the arrow and slightly turning the nock to get the shafts same poi is icing on the cake. You ever had a set of matched arrows and one still slightly out of the group. I have. Allot of times I get it to get in the group with this step.

Actually the static stiff plane is in the same location as the dynamic stiff plane. The Dynamic neutral plane is not usually where the static weak deflection is located.

Because of a number of things the average guy will likely miss the stiffest point when testing statically on a RAM.

The absolute best way to index is nock tuning.

We have done spine indexing long enough that we get really accurate test points.

 

[Tapp-Nation]

I am not sure I would agree whit that.
At 20 yards it is "probably" possible to get a 300 spine and a 400 spine to hit in the same hole but the further you move away from that 20 yard mark. I think you would find a different result.
Indexing with a tester, just confirms that all of the shafts are in the same realm of shoot-ability. the more levels of indexing the less likelihood of point of impact change.
Nock tuning only, is THE most accurate method of achieving same hole impact but only from a specific distance. To achieve that same consistency at other distances, the deflection values need to be considered also.

GRIM

I was thinking spynal tapps when i made that statement and the fact is black eagle executioners or zombies are very tight on spine. The odds are huge that a black eagle will be worse than +/- .005 deflection

Im convinced that a .001 arrow that has a +/- .005 spine deflection and a weight variance of one grain are capable of 100 yard accuracy.

 

[Ramrod]

Everything changes when you add the components. I never heard of indexing arrows until it was brought to CT. It was always matching the spine (.300, .400 etc) and having enough front of center. There multiple scenarios that worked. This is just my take, but I’m happy with most factory arrows. Heard a lot of people speak badly of GT’s, they always worked great for me. Yes, I’ve had to spin a nock here or there, but not very often.

 

[tpcollins]

I never heard of indexing arrows until it was brought to CT.

I've been indexing the sabots in my muzzleloader for the past several years to ensure each petal rides on two lands. I guess my crossbow shafts are next.

 

[Geekster lives]

As I mentioned before the bareshaft shooting ain't a got to. But for myself I like the results I get. That's all that counts in my book.lol.

 

[rt2bowhunter]

Like i posted on the other thread. I changed different inserts changed fletching indexed 180* from others. And i was shooting lighted nocks and FOC broadheads. At 50 yds not one arrow fired would have missed the kill zone. Or remotely looked like anything but a great shot on a deer. IMO were kicking the can splitting hairs. But i enjoy it and i think many on here do as well. Im not trying to say you gotta or its even needed. But dagonit they shouldnt put a scope on it lol.

 

[wapster]

Geekster...have you ever bare shaft tuned and found certain arrows that do not change poi even after you have turned the arrow all the way around ?(360)