Today just didn’t work out for deer hunting. I made the mistake of going to bed Friday, overslept, and somebody hit my parked tractor. I had to deal with that and it’s some process let me tell you. But I did get my new 250 spine gold tip hunter xt’s in the mail today so I decided to sight in with them, that leads to tuning for broadheads.

Let me just tell you. It was not fun and I finished the day (night) off just sighting in my single pin sight at 25 yards with my broadheads, checking the drop/hold over out to 35, and calling it. And yes, I been at it off and on all damn day. Just wrapped it up in the last 30 minutes or so.

Man you get on archery talk they will make you feel like the biggest turd unless you got that sucker dialed in right.

I’m hunting just the way it is until the season ends.

Sometimes it can be an ordeal. More than once, I’d make an adjustment in the wrong direction, get frustrated, and keep making mental mistakes. Did you paper tune it? That’s the quickest way I’ve found to get it right. When I hunted with a compound, I used an adjustable sight with one mark that was dead on (within an inch or so) from 15 to 25 yards. I never take a shot over 20 yards so that was good enough but for 3D or just general fun, the bow needs to be good out to 50 yards.

Tuning imo is important but not the end all be all.

I shoot “ the worlds most tune-able compound” and the available adjustments is mind numbing.

If you are shooting long distance, then I would want a perfectly tuned bow. For 20-25 yard shots, I believe you can live in an area of “ good enough” and be perfectly fine.

Agree, the 2 most important bows for hunting to be perfectly tuned to me are the ones that will be shot at longer ranges and lower poundage bows since a straight flying arrow with all its energy straight behind the broadhead will penetrate deeper.

Something overlooked by many is shooting form. You can have a bow tuned perfectly but a little off form and tweak the bow some and all bets are off on the arrow flying perfect. I have tuned bows for people that were shooting bullet holes in the paper with fletched and bare shaft arrows when com back and say something is out of whack. Watch them shoot, correct what they are doing and there you go. Often it boils down to basics. When I was tuning bows I preferred to tune a bow after 200 or more shots were through it. Get it close but final settings after that, goes for hanging strings also and setup after.

I appreciate y’all. I might have bitten off more than I could chew over on the archery talk forum. I think the difference is some of them are archers, then hunters. A bow is just a tool to get the job done for me, I’m not trying to go too far down the rabbit hole. 30 yards is the longest shot I will probably take.

AT is a good resource though. But damn the info is so conflicting it eats me up. Two charts tell you to tune two different ways lol. Like literally exact opposite adjustments.

Tuning isn’t a fix for bad form, as you can’t tune out to much face pressure or grip torque. So before you think it’s tuning, double check this first because it can cause massive distress when tuning the bow and arrows them selves.

Out side of that if you aren’t shooting fixed past 30-40 yards, it’s not a huge deal, but helpful and does have value.

With all this said the best tuned bow will out penetrate the same set up that’s out of tune. Tuning is essentially arrow recovery, and inflection points on the arrow. When tuning it may not even be bow it’s self, You can shoot a grossly over stiff arrow and it shoots lights out at <30 but is worthless at 50yard.

Oh I know for a fact my inconsistencies are a huge contributing factor to my headaches with this deal

Replaced the medium whisker biscuit with a large one today. Also added a 75 grain weight to the front end of my arrows (GT hunter XT 250 spine). That boosts my arrow weight up around 640 and FOC around 17%. It went so much better. Although I was working with a limited range today of about 15 yards.

I followed the Gold Tip chart for tuning with a bare shaft and a fletched shaft. Within about an hour I was hitting the bare shaft with my fletched arrow, although I never completely tuned the nose dive out of the bare shaft the holes were touching.

Switched to a broadhead, now I am cutting the holes I made with field points. I am happy with that
I will push it out to about 25 yards when I get the chance.

I kept wondering why my target bow was shooting out of tune. Checked timing, center shot, everything. Still off. Until a friend glanced at my shooting form and asked why I was shooting with more face pressure than normal. Sure enough, I'd let an old habit creep in. Next shots were back on track.

My completely unsolicited advice:


Get ride of the whisker biscuit and use a drop away rest. A cheap QAD runs around $65 and all the way up to a Hamskea that will run a couple hundred. Much, much better than a capture rest.


Also, why are your shooting that heavy an arrow? You are potentially over spined and gonna have to add that much weight to the front end to weaken it up to proper specs.

People need to stop with the Ed Ashby trend and damn sure don’t need to listen to Ranch Fairy and shoot a normal arrow.

Two weeks ago I shot thru a full grown buffalo TWICE with a 433 grain arrow at 280 fps using a 100 grain kudu point and a 53 grain outset. So he can take that “ shoot adult arrows” slogan and shove it up his ***. ( sorry for the rant but that guy annoys me to no end ).



People are having more tuning issues trying to shoot heavy carbon logs as a result of their erroneous advice. If you are shooting Cape buffalo and Water buffalo and Rhino and Elephant, by all means use a heavy arrow. If you are not then don’t think you are on to something new by using advice that came around in the 80’s

Grip and anchor point are the 2 most common form errors/inconsistencies that creep in.

Stance, grip, draw, anchor, sighting, release, follow through can all introduce inconsistencies to shooting though.

I have had some guys that have a tendency for one or more to creep into their shooting make a video of a couple shots when everything is right and when something goes wrong do another video and compare the 2. A lot of the time they can figure it out on their own from that.

I am shooting about 75 pounds on a 328 ata bow, pulling 30”. I am underspined at 300 and can’t tune out the left kick anyway. Even with the 12 grain insert and 100 grain point.

With 250’s, 100 grain inserts, 100 grain point, and 75 grain weight I got my fletched arrow hitting my bare shaft at 15 yards within a few minutes.

I think it was the whisker biscuit too small for the GT hunter 250 spine. It gripped my arrow ever so slightly. The large biscuit made all the difference.

I got a QAD hunter on my Christmas wishlist

Edit- I might could shoot the 300 spine if I had a little more adjustment. I’m shooting the PSE Brute NXT and there are no yokes or etc. without a bow press and improvised shims I pretty much gave my nock point, limb bolts, and arrow rest for tuning.

I want to keep her maxed out, tune my rest how I can, and tune the arrow.

I meant to add, I learned to pretty much quit worrying about the charts since they have directly conflicting instructions. Instead, adjust it over far enough that the bare and fletched shafts switch sides, and bracket them in together cutting the adjustment in half until it doesn’t switch sides. Then when it stays on the same side, creep it in together until they are only vertically spread using tiny adjustments. Then do the vertical.

My arrow rest was near topped out trying to tune the 300 spine arrow at around 415 grains total weight. I put a weighted 250 spine arrow on there with some foc and it tuned in near the center of the adjustment range on my arrow rest. Around 635-640 grains and 16-17% FOC with luminocks.

Edit- the vets will know what I mean by bracketing, just like call for fire. By the way, Gold Tip charts matched my results.

That’s a long draw! But a good thing!

I would venture a guess that too much weight up front is causing issues at the speed your arrow is likely going. With 275 grains on the nose, your arrow spine is weakened as well.


I would get rid of the heavy inserts and weights, and shoot an arrow with a total overall weight of 500-550 grains. I believe this combined with a drop away rest will solve any tuning issues you may have, have a great speed and will be suitable for any hunting scenario in NA

But it flies really good. I settled on a 670 grain arrow that flies perfectly. Loaded for bear!

100 grain insert, 75 grain weight, 125 grain Slick Trick Pro Series Standard. That slick trick is a nasty little head and I can’t wait to kill something with that.

I never had an issue tuning the heavy arrow, not one time. It tuned easy. It was the 300 spine arrow with 112 grains up front that gave me grief, but I still blame the whisker biscuit that was too small.

This heavy arrow is awesome. My bare shaft flies right there with my fletched shafts, and I grazed a fletched shaft with a fixed blade with the fletched shaft and a field point, a couple of times. Once I got her bare shaft tuned I did not have to make any adjustments for broadheads. Poked a hole in the vane of a couple arrows testing this combo.

I thought I was safe at 30 yards to shoot a group and literally wrecked a luminock on the very next shot just a few minutes ago. Luminock *almost* saved the shaft but not quite!

The lighter arrow was way harder to tune but like I said I blame the undersized whisker biscuit.

This heavy arrow tuned nicely, groups great, and gives me confidence. I can still shoot 30 yards on one pin with this combo as well, I have already learned my holds.

Why do I need to shoot a lighter arrow?

Edit- no, I definitely had issues tuning the 250 spine at 565 grains also. But that was the damn whisker biscuit!

But, I will try that combo. Drop away, lighter insert. But it will have to wait till Christmas.

I just picked up some of the 50 grain aluminum inserts from Gold Tip. They are LONG, the longest .246 insert that Gold Tip makes. It will make a strong arrow for sure.

I wouldn’t change anything this close to the season and roll with what you got.

But…..if you did want a faster arrow and flatter trajectory at any point, that would be an option.


Nothing wrong with your set up currently as far as effectiveness.

Good luck this season!

You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish

If I can get it to tune, I could build an arrow 140 grains lighter with 2-3% MORE FOC on the 300 spine shaft. That would be cool!

Unless you've got a problem like a leaning cam, bad bushing, etc, a compound is east to tune.

Apparently it is pretty common to take a perfectly fine bow and make the cam lean to shoot an arrow it don’t like

My question is, once you tune your bow to shoot the arrow you like, will it still shoot well with the arrow that shot the best before you changed it? I think both sides of the light vs heavy argument are avoiding that discussion. I’m just saying

Honestly I don't buy into the whole process you are describing. Perhaps that's a discussion you could have with the ranch fairy or someone who like him who has too much time on their hands. Most of us just want to shoot our bows and kill stuff.

I don’t understand so many people advocating that you go to a lighter arrow. Apparently the setup is a tack driver out to your hunting ranges. The heavier arrow should result in a harder impact…better penetration. The bow is quieter. The bow has less shock at release. You have a very good setup. Just my opinion…I’d weigh the upsides and downsides of lighter arrows. When I started bow hunting 30+ years ago, I killed quite a few deer using a Bear Whitetail Hunter…the bow with 6 wheels. It was slow, it was quiet, it was deadly accurate, tuning just involved a proper nocking point, and I never once lost a wounded deer with it. What good is a hunting bow that sounds like a .22 rifle and sends arrows flying who-knows-where? Anyway…point/counterpoint.