I recently bought an arrow spinner. I have never used one nor have I ever done anything to my arrows after I have bought them other than inserting and fletching. This year for TAC I numbered my arrows according to the ones that hit the mark each time and grouped well, then used those as my main arrows. I did feel that I was shooting pretty good. Wanting to take this a little further I got the spinner to make sure that the arrows in my quiver spun well with broad heads for this upcoming season. Turns out that out of the 15 arrows I have, only 5 spin perfectly. A small test showed that these arrows can hit near perfect out to 40 yards with a BH. Great, I now have arrows ready for the season. (Should add, bow is tuned and made no adjustment to rest or sight) These few arrows also fly good with field points and group with the BH's. So my thought here is this. Before you go and try to make your field points shoot with the broad heads, shouldn't you be making sure you starting with a perfect arrow? (Might be obvious but I haven't really dug into this til now) This is all to say that you have the right spine etc as well. I also have a G5 arrow square coming as well to see if I can clean up some of the other 10 arrows. So I am curious what everyone else does to prep/build arrows? Moving forward, I'd like to spin before I cut, square them, weigh them out with components and see how good of an arrow I can make. Anyone else going or have gone off the deep end?? Any tips to offer?
1. shouldn't you be making sure you starting with a perfect arrow? - I think for 90% of hunters shooting deer at 20 yards the answer is no, you're shooting to 40 yards fine, your bow is tuned, BH flying with FP, plus are you buying .001 shafts? or .003 or .006? Because if .003 or .006 you're already not starting with a "perfect" arrow 2. I'd like to spin before I cut, square them, weigh them out with components and see how good of an arrow I can make. Anyone else going or have gone off the deep end?? Any tips to offer? - someone has been watching MFJJ, having a "better" arrow is just that, better. I fall more into question 1, I don't really even target past 40 but I have just got into fletching my own arrows and am probably trending towards where you're at right now.
I love going down the rabbit hole and encourage you to do so. But, do yourself a favor and spend a ridiculous amount of time just shooting your bow. A perfect shot is one hell of a lot more important than any gear you can buy. Good luck Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk
Agreed. Yes, I shoot my bow nearly daily. It's just fun to sometimes take things a little further than some times necessary!
I do believe it is very important for a set of arrows to all be setup to perform the same as each other before the bow is tuned to them. I'm no expert but try to be as consistent as possible. Since I'm quite the archery nerd, I also enjoy the process. So that helps. I've read of other people saying squaring the ends doesn't do much, but I really believe it makes all the difference in getting inserts to glue in nice and square. I think a very big majority of the time, if an arrow doesn't spin well, it is due to the insert install. When I square arrow ends after having them cut at a shop (I don't have an arrow cutter), many of them have tabs on them that need sanded off so the ends are flush. There is no way the inserts are going to sit flush with the entire diameter of the arrow with those little tabs on them. I would wager that the arrows that don't spin straight are due to the insert a majority of the time and you'll see quite a difference when you start squaring the ends before gluing in the inserts. My last set of arrows I had a shop trim to length had little tabs left on quite a few of the arrows from the cutting process, a couple of them pretty bad tabs. I will still have an arrow here and there that doesn't spin well when a broadhead is put on, but it isn't a real high occurrence. I have done arrows with a few variations over the years, but here is my current favorite process: Get arrows as bareshafts. I number all of them somewhere on the label, 1-12. Have them trimmed to the finished length I want. I split the difference of what needs trimmed and have them cut on both ends, because straightness defects in carbon arrows are most likely to happen on the ends. Square the ends well. Clean inside and outside of arrow ends with 91% alcohol. Glue in inserts. I put three lines of glue along the length of the insert, spaced out evenly. I push them in, spin them a 1/3 turn, wipe off the excess glue, then place the insert down on a hard surface and hold downward pressure on the arrow for a few seconds. Insert nocks. Now is where there are a few directions to go. They can be nock tuned by shooting through paper, group tuned as bareshafts to hit the same spot (by just spinning nocks), or just fletch them and nock tune afterwards. I far and away prefer to just fletch them at this point, with all three vanes the same color. Or perhaps three different color vanes. After they are fletched (I wait 24 hours to ensure inserts and fletchings are set), I go to nock tuning them. I prefer to shoot them all at 20 yards and align the nock with whichever of the 3 vanes that gives the best results but will sometimes use paper at 5' for this process. Arrows get shot multiple times until I'm certain they're all grouping together to the best of my shooting ability. Often times, out of a dozen, I will get one or two arrows that just won't make the same tear or quite group with the rest. I always align nocks so that the little indicator tab on the side of most nocks is on the left side of the arrow with the "indicator" vane up. Since all fletchings are the same color, or three different colors, the "indicator" vane facing up is then numbered according to which arrow it was when I originally numbered them on the label. The nock tab gives me a nock orientation reference without looking, and a number on the vane gives me a visual reference.
Yes, that's really great info! I will add some of that to what I do as well. I have never nock tuned before but will need to give that a try. I don't fully understand the process of it so I will need to research it.
