Ive always used mechnical broad heads but just switched to fixed. Ive heard of guys moving their rest and not their sight while tuning their broadheads and not hardly having to move their sight. Im just wondering if anyone could clear this up for me and give me a rundown on the best way to tune my bow to get the best flight out of fixed broadheads.
this is what worked for me. put a vertical line of tape on the target. step back to ten yards and shoot an arrow at the middle of the target trying to hit the tape. then move back and shoot an arrow at the tape at twenty yards, thirty. if the arrows start shifting left or right of the tape, then I adjust the rest very slightly until the arrows make a vertical line at those different distances. Once I've eliminated the left to right movement difference in impact from various ranges, I then use the sights to sight in. Also highly recommend helical fletching for broadheads.
i wish they could clear it up for me too. if you got your rest set on center shot and you move it to the right or left its not on center shot anymore.so the arrow most likely will have right to left or left to right fish tail. i shoot alums, i dont have to tune to my broadheads they fly the same as my field points, the only time i have had any problems with this is when i bought some carbons last year and i could not get them to fly with slick trick broadheads, so i went back to my alums.i could be wrong but it could most of the bad broadhead flight or hard to tune broadheads might be carbon arrow related. but i am most likely missing something,maybe part of my brain
I switched back to fixed blade heads this year purely for penetration reasons. I wasn't 100% happy with the lack of penetration that I was getting from big mechanicals. I want to experience the joy of a blood soaked arrow buried 6" in the dirt again.
Not every bow/arrow/broadhead combination flies the best when it's put at exact centershot. They all behave differently and thus need to be adjusted differently. While it may not seem like much a 1/16" move in either direction can have a pretty good effect on your groupings at 30 yards and beyond. Did you re-tune your bow after you switched arrows? Most likely the arrow weight, spine and FOC were different from your aluminum arrows to your carbons which will cause your arrow to not fly the same. It's not so much a fault of the arrow as it is making sure bow is tuned properly for that setup. That's definitely incorrect. There are way more folks shooting carbon arrows these days than aluminums and if you're shooting the correct size arrow out of a well tuned bow you should have zero problems shooting fixed blade heads. To answer the original poster's question the key to getting good flight from your fixed blade broadheads is having a good tune on your bow before you start shooting them. So pick a method that you think you can tackle on your own whether it be paper tune, french tune, walk-back tune, etc. Once you have that done and you're confident that your bow is tuned and shooting properly then switch to fixed blades. More than likely you're going to be pretty close to spot on. I personally like a paper tune to get me pretty close, especially on nock point/rest height. After that a walk-back tune should tackle any of your left/right issues. A combination of those two done properly and your broadheads should be pretty close when you start shooting them. In the event you're a shooting a little left or right a very slight right/left rest adjustment will likely fix that. The basic reasoning behind this is that fixed blade heads act like fletchings on the front of your arrow and they're helping to steer the arrow in one direction or another. If your arrow is slightly off (by as little as 1/16") you may see that reflected in your impact point compared to shooting field points. Sure you can move your pin a bit which may fix your issue at 20 yards, however if your arrow is tailing off to the right it's going to continue doing so even more at 30, 40, 50, etc. A minor left/right rest adjustment can straighten that out within seconds and you'll be set. The same holds true for up/down adjustments in very minor amounts. One area I think a lot of guys go wrong is not having a good tune on their bow before they start shooting broadheads and then they try to over compensate with rest or pin movement causing even further damage. IMO if your broadheads are more than an inch or two off from your field points at 20 yards then something is wrong from the get-go. Instead of fighting with it and making matters worse go back to your original tune and make sure everything is good. Or possibly look at things like arrow spine and straightness of your broadheads, nocks, etc.
If a broadhead doesn't impact with field points with centershot perfect, then there are issues other than centershot that need to be addressed. Centershot is one of the most important settings to a bow, imo, behind draw length and poundage. The problems could be spine related, steering/ fletch, rest ,etc. Broadheads typically will show if centershot is correct. French tune is the best method I have used to get centershot correct before going to broadheads.
Well Pro V1 Ive never actually shot anything with a fixed blade and just want to try them out. Ive always used Rage and never had a problem with them but I'm always really nervous that the blades are going to open in flight. When i first started hunting I liked them and bought a bunch of them so i wouldn't have to worry about buying more if i need them and i just ran out. I see that your shooting the Killzone, after giving it some more thought last while trying to fall asleep I'm most likely king to try the killzones.
It doesn't sound like its that hard to get fixed blades tuned right with justins advice so i might try that approach haha I'm not sure what i want to do at this point...prices in broad heads will probably make my decision for me.
As far as carbon arrows are concerned, a quality carbon arrow will have zero issues with broadheads. However, you may see issues with some of the cheap, inconsistent carbons.
Typically, a broadhead just shows that centershot isn't as close as you thought. There are exceptions as I pointed out earlier with spine etc. Most will find once they broadhead tune that if they go back to walk back, french tune or modified french that they will have their centershot correctly set. If not, then there are other issues that need to be addressed. Very small tweaks to a rest make big changes to a broadhead and have little effect on a field point.
It was referenced earlier but no link provided. Here's a link to Easton's Tuning Guide. Easton's Comprehensive Bow Tuning Guide | Easton Archery
