Finally got my timberhawk custom recurve in and enlisted the help of a seasoned trad archers to get it set up.

Set brace height, installed some silencers and got to shooting, started with 400 spine black eagle instincts with a 125 grain point. 3 hours later, we still could not get it to tune, after going thru 4 different arrow types. One arrow that he liked based on the the tune session was my fatty 2216’s tipped with 150 grains I use in my bear Kodiak. Darkness fell on us so we couldn’t fully finish but it gave me a good start, albeit was a little stiff. One thing we fought was the arrow kicking up off the shelf.

Went out today and shot a 2216 out of the new bow, which is 50-51# at my draw. Probably one of the worst arrow flights I’ve seen. WAY too stiff. Went back today and shot with both the 400 spine instincts and some 500 spine instincts I had laying around, both with 125 grain tips. . Pretty identical flight with both. Screw on a 125 grain broadhead and the 400’s with a broadhead are shooting a little to the right ( I’m left handed) of the field points. The 500’s fly like darts and broadheads group right with the field points.

Dawned on me I never shot my 2216’s with a broadhead so I grab an arrow and shoot it into the 3D. Perfect shot. Grab a few field point arrows and shoot about 3-4 rounds intermixing the field point arrows with the broadhead tipped arrow and it’s flying right with them. Go and get the bareshaft arrow and shoot it at 10 yards and it hits the target almost sideways.

So I’m left with two bows that shoot arrows tipped with broadheads very well, that don’t do worth a 💩 bareshaft and are outside the poundage chart range on spine.

Go figure. I’m convinced traditional archery is a form of sorcery

I feel the same way. The best bare shaft flight I have exoerienced was with some 300+ someodd grains in the tip and it still wagged one way then the other. So depending on the distance I shot from it reflected weak or stiff. All that FOC i guess straightened it out.

At this point I judge my arrows fletched and do not care about bare shaft with a trad bow. And it may not be the *right* answer but with three 5” feathers and enough helical, I don’t think bare shaft flight matters much unless you are way underspined or way off with your nock point. I go by accuracy and group size, pick the best of what i got and run with it.

Inside my short effective range, it’s probably not too tricky to get good broadhead flight. I switched to Zwickey Eskimos because they fly good, are cheap, and i can afford to tear one up in practice. But they hold up better than the new Bear razorhead, go figure.

I'm going tobtell you both this and whether you want to accept or not is your decision but regardless I am right.
If you are unable to bare shaft tune its you. Your form and execution or your set up (think nock height, etc), or some combination there in, is not correct.
Bryan I'd say you have a long ways to go before you'll be consistent enough to have much success with bare shaft or paper tuning.

That doesn't mean you aren't good enough shots to hunt. And for now close on arrow tune will do. But either an arrow has the correct kinetic spine set up or it doesn't. I had to play with a set up yesterday on a bow. I had the nock height off by a sixteenth of an inch. New string, just messed it up when I set it and it wouldn't shoot as I knew it should.

Guys this isn't a compound. This takes more time and effort invested. That's why so few do it, and fewer are good at it. Honestly few invest the time they should to get reall good with a compound or rifle before hunting. first three years I shot 100 to 150 arrows every day. Sometimes more.
But if you keep at it, you'll see the rewards.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I have never bare shaft tuned my longbow or recurve. I buy arrows spined for the draw weight, maybe 5 # over draw weight and fletch em and go shoot, never had an issue.
Might be over thinking this, get correct spine and put some fletches on them.
Shooting with fingers has a inherent issues, release is never perfect.
Lots of guys also like heavier points, 150 gr. They don't fly well for me and have lots of drop.

Have you tried a different length on your arrows, cutting off a inch or 1/2 inch or going a little longer?

I might have a few woodies I could send you to try out, what is your draw length? I shoot a 50# longbow so the spine should be close, spouse also shoots a longbow , 55# at 27 inches. We have tons of wooden arrows of varying species and many not getting used. Fletched up and maybe just needing a field point if you are interested.

Is it a fast flight string on your bow?

I 100% agree with you especially the parts about me lol. You read me like a book.

I did snatch a 50 pound bear montana off the classifieds in AT/trad talk and i pretty much have the same fixed crawl and same aim points/holds as i do with my recurve. What’s funny is my 500 spine gold tip trad shafts with 100 grain inserts and my 340 spine Eastons shoot the same out of this bow, which by that i mean they shoot pretty dang good. All i did was build out the riser 1/8” with a velcro strike plate and velcro shelf. Mind blown.

My recurve is a lot more sensitive to differences in spine.

No fast flight, this one has D97. I’ve owned 5 trad bows, two of them I’ve got shooting easily, two were a little rough and one caused me to question just about everything in life. That one I had to switch to aluminum arrows to get a good flight and now it shoots very well, but it “should” have worked great with the carbons I had. Made no sense and I’m still puzzled by it.


I relied on spine charts and visual arrow flight. I don’t have an arrow saw to cut carbon so I’ve not tried cutting an 1/4” off at a time trying to get it to tune perfectly. I too prefer 125 grain and 150 grain broadheads vs. the heavy weights popular today, but on carbon I’m shootings 100 grain outserts so in effect I’m shooting 225 grains up front. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the arrow it likes is outside the spine chart.

It’s just a funny thing how these bows react and each one is different.

Some people never bareshaft tune. Yhey rely on visual and the broadhed tune. Honestly I can't say it's any better or worse.

I wonder when bare shaft tuning came into vogue? I wasn't following trad archery in years prior but I know in the compound world its relatively recent.


I'm not questioning if its better or neccessary, as common sense dictates that if a bow will shoot a bare arrow shaft to the same point of impact as a fletched arrow, that set up is superior. But I'm not that consistent in my release and grip that I get good results.


Best I can hope for at this point is good arrow flight with fletched arrows that hit to the same POI with both field points and broadheads. I suspect that's really all that's really necessary at hunting ranges to stick an animal

I am one of the ones that never has bare shaft tuned for a recurve. I could see if being helpful but at the ranges I will shoot <25 yards I generally shoot Easton Axis 31 inches with the 75gr brass inserts and 150gr heads from the 50lb Bear Kodiak magnum 4 of the 6 in the last box shoot well to 25 yards which is good enough, the other two one off to the right every time and another low every time.

An arrow flying straight penetrating in the target straight gets the job done. The straighter it enters the more the force is applied to the head for deeper penetration with less shaft drag which really reduces penetration.

Well it for sure reflects on your level of expertise. Bare shaft tuning a compound with a mechanical release is no big deal. A trad bow is a whole other animal.

I never asked, how far are you shooting for the bare shaft tuning? If too close maybe not enough time for the archers paradox to kick in and straighten out the arrow flight?

Hope you get it worked out though, we need more trad archers.

Shooting about 10 yards.

I’m not concerned with any further attempts to bareshaft. I’ve got two bows with two accurate arrow/broadhead combinations, so I’m satisfied with that when I go out hunting.

I bare shaft out to twenty. I've done 25 but it's just to watched arrow flight. I star close of course but as I close in on the shaft length I'll move back. I finish with broadheds so I know that I know that I know. I don't want any questions running through my head when that animal walks in.

I am one of those that Passthru was talking about that has never bareshaft tuned my trad setups and they have killed every deer but one that I have shot at with Trad equipment and it was a miss, totally my fault.

Until form gets very consistent IMO bareshaft tuning is probably a waste of time. If form is off so will be the flight of an arrow when looking for true consistency.

A lot of references to it on the internet are in the last 12 years but I bet it has been around some circles longer. I think for hunting it is a spill over from competition archery and to be a winner in that you mostly likely have very good form and consistency to start with.

Well i am obviously a beginner but from what i have read over the past few weeks, the Cherokee used river cane arrows of all different spines and weights, and got the best penetration with very small 30-50 grain stone points. And some of those arrows were less than 500 grains and killed deer.

Then you look at guys like Noel Grayson, who has hunted like this all his life, and doesn’t even use a foreshaft. This guy is not looking for a way to add weight to an arrow, i don’t think he even tunes them. Shoots a D style self bow and river cane shaft with a tiny point.

I guess a war arrow was typically of ash, with a bigger head that was only glued. So it would break off inside you unless you push it through, and it still might. I just want to acknowledge that before somebody retorts about war arrows lol.

But i just feel like the pursuit of all this tuning with a trad bow is a complete waste of time, money, and effort in these modern times unless you are a guy like passthru, and have ample time and experience to accomplish that. Reason being, there is so much data and with dynamic spine calculators and etc, it does not take as much to find something that should work. But moreso not important before modern times?

What frustrates me the most is the insistence on no hunting without perfect arrow flight on the forums, probably coming from mostly a bunch of new guys that have not a clue. Because there are people on archery talk for example that have not a clue how to tune a bow, that have been lying and pretending for over a decade. Wish i was exaggerating but that is conservative estimate. And they will echo each other it is like being gaslighted i kid you not. I figured it out from yoke tuning my first modern compound.

Then maybe you broadhead tune by moving your rest and get good results at 40-50 yards or whatever. Take it to a pro shop and have a 1/4”-1/2” low tear. The most unforgiving tear by the forums.

When you figure all that out you want to say to hell with it. Set your rest 13/16 and center, sight in with broadheads or shoot a mechanical, or practice with the same heads you hunt with using a trad bow. Which probably hit darn close to field points inside your limited range with a trad bow.

Well Bryan if your tuned is far enough off your broadhead flight and impact will not be even close to your practice points. The other issue is it creates more work, drag, for the fletchings. I'm sure they don't mind but it slows the arrow. Penetration is negatively impacted. I'm sure you can hunt and kill with slightly off arrows because I did. But, once I reached the point where I was consistent, about two years in, I started to BH tune. My friend Bisch prefers paper tuning. My friend BillyJack, visual and Broadhead. Both are accomplished killers. The ones that bother me are the guys who don't think it's necessary and then claim a shoulder blade stopped the arrow or blame the broadhead on lack of penetration or . . . Pick your excuse.

Tuning, whichever method, is important.

And before you start on the natives and war arrow crud it doesn't relate. They did with what limited information and resources they had. You have better. Be better.

Well to be fair i don’t think i have tried a combo that far out of whack. And i absolutely concede to your point, i just needed to get that out there. Because i know what it is like to take bad advice and try to use it!

Broadhead tuning is a lot easier than a bare shaft with a trad bow.

Edit- the only point i want to make here is that bare shaft tuning is not make or break for anybody that wants to hunt with a bow and arrow, not by a long shot. I tried to bare shaft with my ash arrows, I never got them to hit perfectly straight out of the target not by a long shot. But the bare shafts absolutely hit harder and penetrate better than the fletched ones despite not hitting square, which says a lot about the drag of the fletchings inside of only 15 yards. There is a lot I don’f understand but I will never let my bare shaft arrow flight dictate whether or not I can hunt, ever again. The only reason I continue to experiment is because I can’t hunt when i am out on the road, and I am always trying to improve.

It’s been my experience that when your taking about hunting and fishing, a lot of guys fall into the camp of the gear nerds where they derive their pleasure from tinkering with gear and not actually employing the gear to kill an animal or catch a fish. Many guys, if not most, found on online forums are like that. This one is no different. Actually take note of how many people on here consistently kill game or even hunt more than once or twice a year. It’s much less than you think.

When I first got back into bowhunting I was at a local shop and a guy was helping me set up my bow. He kept giving anecdotal advice on when he “killed his deer” so I asked him exactly how many deer had he killed with a bow? Well it was just the one. That’s not the guy I want to learn from or take much advice from.

In any event, I don’t let gear issues keep me from hunting unless they are just catastrophic. Letting internet wizards dictate if you go out or not is just silly.

Passthru offers real world knowledge on trad archery and is a valuable source of info. I wish Bisch would get one here as well so we can have even more sage advice.

Passthru is my go to guy, i have followed him in the forums from the very start of my archery path. After applying bad advice you learn to filter it and he has always passed my bs detector lol. But like your acquaintance/friend, I haven’t killed hardly anything either.

100% i would rather hunt than tinker. Always on the road though. And i just can’t bare shaft tune arrows.

Most people bare shaft tune like “it has to stick straight out”. I bare shaft tune like “it groups with fletched shaft, good enough” lol

I'll be the first to say I do not know everything. In the end we are all fallible. We make mistakes, bad shots, bad choices. But I've done this a while now and kill critters fairly often. It takes work and commitment. If you aren't willing or able to give it that, sti k to hunting with a compound or crossbow. Which still should get regular practice IMHO.
My goal is to control what I can. If my arrow set up is perfectly balanced and I have a questionable release or anchor due to positioning or whatever, the negative affect on arrow flight will be less than starting out with just an okay balanced set up. If that takes me a practice session or two to accomplish well I guess I'm a gear need.
But I put a. Arrow through one shoulder blade and buried the broadhead in the far shoulder bone on a 400+lb animal. Sitting in a hide (blind) in Africa the last thing on my mind was did I have enough umph at 50lbs and a 27.5" draw length.

Well said sir

One of my uncles told me years ago. "if someone says they know everything about something quit listening, they just admitted they don't"

Mine told me " those folks who think they know it all anonymous the hell out of those folk that actually do".

I had trimmed it back past where 175 grain should have tuned according to the charts. Still showed “weak”. All my shafts always show weak unless i put a ton of FOC in them and shoot from the perfect distance to catch it straightening back out, before it wags back the other way.

I am suspicious that all my bows stack up heavier than + 2.5 pounds per inch. I have also been paying special attention to my release. Instead of pulling through i try to just hit my anchor, hit my back tension, think “everything lined up” and just released the string. Just drop it and keep my hand glued to my face.

So i put a 100 grain point on there. Voila. Did this 5 or 6 times in a row at around 10-12 yards. We will see if she still hits fairly straight in the morning. If she does I will fletch her up and shoot a 100 grain Muzzy. If I ever get time during the day to hunt, before seasons end.

Just one more hunt with trad gear before I hang it up, and go back to the training wheels because we just ate the last scraps of that doe today. I crave it. Next legal animal in range is going to get it! I don’t have time to be picky.

The crazy part is the sound. Lighter arrow usually louder. But this one is quiet.

Bare shaft with 175 or 200 grains you definitely hear it slash through the wind. Backed it down to 100 grains and it is nearly silent with the bare shaft.

340 spine, just a hair under 33”. About 32 and 15/16 inches.