Yep it is just a preference. Like a little kid wants to talk to you about dinosaurs or sharks, obsession and what is fun and interesting. That is where I am at with traditional archery. I love it like a little kid likes dinosaurs. If I had the skills I would be cutting arrows from river cane and young shoots growing out of tree stumps, knapping my points, whittling a stick bow lol. But I have to choose a middle ground or skip deer season.

Realistically I will probably hunt with gold tip trad arrows the rest of the year.

But I have got to tell you. My inner child wants to run away to the mountains, whittle up a stick bow, cut river cane arrows and haft in some trade points, and go live like a pioneer

Learning about that mystical flight of the arrow now. I got one woodie that no matter how i tweaked it, hits left about a foot at 15 yards. Even without a broadhead or a field point at all. I got two that still are not quite straight but can keep them on a paper plate out to about 22 yards.

I asked my mentor in bowhunting, from work, how they tuned that back in the day. He told me they would just set that one aside and that is that lol.

I took several years to get into wood arrows. Finally did in 2022 so I could shoot a couple more classes at TBoT shoots. But ice enjoyed them. Bought a dozen each for my light and heavy bow weights.Then I bought prefinished shafts and built some I hunted in Africa with.
I actually had a dozen set up by a friend who is a arrowsmith for my new bow to take to Africa as well and killed two Impala with them. But in working with him on those I realized how my process of building mine was just as thorough and accurate so I'll go that direction from now on.

It would be awesome if you would make a post about your process with the wood shafts. I think my bad shaft has a crack somewhere. Maybe under the fletching, this was my first time fletching and i went kind of overboard with the glue.

I will try to after I get home. Leaving Missouri in the morning and already looking forward to my return in November.

Started bare shafting today everything was nock left, until I shot a carbon shaft spined about 335. Almost perfectly straight with 100 grains in the front. WTF?

My riser is cut more than 1/8” passed center shot including the strike plate. Doh!

But anyway, yep this much center shot makes me under spined by a lot with a 50-55 spine shaft 30.5”. That is also probably why i had two crooked shafts hitting and one that seemed to get worse as I got it straightened.

Late night practice after a day of mostly honey-do’s at some point my accuracy started falling apart, and I decides to try the bare shaft method of shooting a bare shaft and watching how it sticks out. What a surprise that turned out to be. At first I thought the consistent nock left with a 340 was because i had perfectly consistent piss poor technique.

Now I want to fletch up some of those stiffer shafts and give Magnus another go.

And people call it the simpler way.
To bowhunt.

It is the best way, it is the simplest in terms of “stuff”. It is probably the hardest in terms of skill. Might be easier to chick a spear lol. Tim Wells figure it out.

I was exhausted last night, thats my excuse. I went back to it this morning and the 335 spines are nock right even with 300 grains up front. I might not have had solid beck tension, and might have been dropping/swinging my bow arm last night.

Anyway I was also insistent on shooting minimum 20 yards last night with poor lighting. The bare shaft was probably swinging back to the left at range. I got back at it today, from 10 yards with the woods.

This is a very typical 10 yard group for me with this arrow. The top two are broadheads, the bottom is the field point. The field point is on my bad shaft so it may also play a role but it was hitting left last night with broadhead, not low. Holding point on the very right side edge of the vitals.

So yeah I would hunt with that from 10-15 yards. I have full faith in that razorhead, honed properly I can probably flick it at a animal and kill it at close range.

I played with nock point a little, i am shooting three under so I would assume it might fly nock low. I have three nock points on my string. I can live with this for now.

But within a week or two i will be shooting 50 pound limbs and starting over from scratch. I will probably end up with a 50 pound Bear Montana long bow soon too. I have been itching for that Bear Montana since before i started with a compound three seasons ago. I blame Roland Welker. I hope he got a great deal with Bear for what he did with that bow lol.

If ya’ll find a great deal on a 50 pound Bear Montana lemme know lol.

Edit- forgot to add I put new center serving on the string. The old serving had separation in the nock point, right where I wanted to try to shoot it.

Edit- not point on but using my 10-15 yard gap off my strike plate on the right edge of the vitals. Bare shaft tuning taught me, you want to choose between fixed crawl and gap. I can still use the fixed crawl with a little game point but for deer or larger that require broadheads, i will choose arrow flight and penetration.

It often takes new shooters quite a bit of time to get form and release consistent enough to get reliable results in bareshaft tests

Tell me about it. Last night i started doing all types of crazy things. At one point i was drawing all the way back until my field point was in the center of my shelf. That puts me at about 32”draw give or take. I started watching videos and learning about back tension.

I learned to stop worrying about back tension. I feel like I should just be happy i can hit what I am trying to hit within my limits, for now.

I know you are trying and learning but for now I would pick the one that works best for you then stick with it through season. Experiment with the others in the off season if you want.

Where's the like button???

He's right. While I admire your enthusiasm I'd suggest you pic a bow and arrow combination that works. Not necessarily works perfectly. If it shoots broadheads to where you look and they fly decent then make that work for this year.
I like travel. Especially to hunt. But I'm all about the destination and sometimes I miss good parts of the trip by not taking the time to enjoy them.

Traditional archery is a journey. Not a destination. Take it slow, enjoy the nuances and the growth.

That makes sense. For me, that is my compound bow. I will probably fall back on that for November. It’s the complete opposite of this bow, and with my LRF i have total confidence in her to 60 yards. The one I am thinking about selling! I will probably keep. She is nasty.

For now I am keeping out of the place I plan to hunt for the rut.

At a minimum I want to get those 50 pound limbs on there and build those arrows. I will try to do most of my tinkering during the week.

Out of all the tips and tactics I have picked up, back tension is one of the most helpful. When I’m cognizant of my back tension my shots are more accurate and arrow flight is better.

After years of doing this I've developed different arrows for different circumstances. Normally I shoot carbon and wood mixed as I save my woods for deer. Pigs or turkey can ruin carbon arrows.

Time for an update. I re-checked my center shot laying a bow square across it and eyeballing it last night and got something different yet again. Well, the limb pockets have not quite 1/8” slop in the fit to the riser, and the screws holding the pockets in place were stripped. So every time i re-string it I probably have a different center shot measurement. I can tighten them bolts down tight, string it up, and still can torque those limbs and change centershot fairly easy. There is also a tiny bit of slop between the limbs and the pockets as well. All in all i can move the string left or right about a half inch depending on how well the limb pockets are lined up. Total waste of time trying to bare shaft tune this bow but it explains a lot. I already built my riser up 1/4” with two sided heavy duty gorilla tape under the strike plate and am not moving it again.

So last night I put a good bit of Titebond III between the pockets and the riser, and in the screw holes/on the wood screws. Enough to squish out. I put the new 50 pound limbs in the pockets and put the limb bolts on as tight as they will go, lined up for centershot at “0”. I can still remove and change out the limbs but it does not address the slop on the limb pocket side. I could shim that with electric tape but I am done trying to make this bow something it is not.

I have some full length 34” easton 340 spine trad carbons, and found some double bevel razorheads at Cabela’s in Owatonna. I set my nock point about 3/4” high for shooting 3 under without potential false nock high from striking the riser. I realize that gives me actual nock high but that is more forgiving to accuracy than whacking the riser 1/3 of the time from nock low shooting. So to avoid all that hassle I said screw it and went nock high. Probably gonna tune nock high anyway because i shoot 3 under and i like to play with the string crawl.

I did not eyeball the “0” center shot that well. I was planning on using the 175 grain adapter in the razorhead but the 250 grain is the most accurate. It gives me acceptable accuracy to 26 or 27 yards I have tested it. About 22-23 yards I can shoot point on, 1 shaft right and pound the 7 inch circle. Hits a little high at 10-15 but at these distance I can use the arrow like a front sight on a 6 o clock hold and hit the 7” circle a little left and center. Or hold about a shaft right and line them up a little better. Really I can shoot almost instinctive like this inside of 20 yards. I can probably still use the thumb gap crawl for close range precision shots on small game but I have not tested it today.

The 50 pound limbs are pretty zippy. I put beaver balls in my string and with that, and what is now probably about a 600 grain arrow it’s about silent. Before the beaver balls, it was very noisy. Beaver balls installed with the “L6/L10” spacing really tame this bow, it was loud without them with either set of limbs.

I am done experimenting with this for probably the rest of the season. My poor heart can not take anymore of this drama with this bow. I have spent too much time working on this when i probably should have been sleeping. For the lessons I learned it was worth it, but now I am moving forward to focus on deer hunting.

Side note- the heavier limbs help out a lot with back tension and pulling through the shot. The 35’s were perfect for starting out though, I never would have put in the same hours shooting with these heavier limbs. I can really feel them stacking up in the back but it’s what I have got.

I have a beautiful 59' Bear Kodiak that I could not get to shoot. Would literally keep me up at night trying to figure out why I could not get good arrow flight or consistent accuracy.

as a last ditch effort, I ordered some 2019 aluminum arrows from 3Rivers and had them shipped to me. 1st shot I was optimistic, 2nd shot I was glad I found the issue. Now my arrow flight issue is fixed.


Bare Shaft tuning is something they didn't have back in the day...they found a arrow/broadhead combo that they liked and went and killed animals. IMO most people put the cart before the horse and WAY overthink their setup and tuning when they should be getting better at being in the woods and getting close to game

About 22-23 yards with wood, using the 6 o clock hold. No need to hold a gap left or right. One 125 grain field point and one 125 grain Grizzly Bruin, double bevel head. It is repeatable, but I learned my lesson trying to shoot groups and breaking arrows.

These are the cheaper 50-55 spine woods from Bass Pro. Hand straightened last night by rubbing them until they are almost too hot to touch, and bending/flexing in the problem area and holding it for 20-30 seconds. Check, repeat until it looks straight. Takes a little time but you can do it while watching a scary movie with fam

These arrows are full length at 31” and barely long enough to achieve a full draw with good back tension. But they fly true and hit hard. So this will be my arrow.

I took a hail mary shot at a doe. Probably 40 yards. She was wallowing through the tall weeds basically bedding. Taking her time moving slow. But still moving fast enough to get out of the way. My arrow pretty much flew where it was supposed to but way too slow to hit her.

I know it was a bad idea. She turned and went back to sniff my arrow before she went on with her business, but she still didn’t bust me! I tried to close the distance but i could not move fast enough with confidence to avoid spooking her.

No meat but what a freaking rush.

Edit- also right now i am tromping all over everything back here trying to find my arrow and spreading my scent. Also feels wrong. Can’t find my arrow in this stuff to save my life.