A few years back I cut down a hickory tree and made several things from the wood. One thing I made was a 6' Native-American flatbow. It is the first bow I made. After having it for a couple years, shooting it once very couple months, I am planning to make another bow. In my research I discovered that the tillering of my first bow needed honing. Since it had a 70# draw weight, I figured I could take a few pounds off and make a better bow that I could shoot for longer periods of time before my arm fell off. So I tillered and it has a much better bend now and a nicer draw. Up until I did this it shot straight enough and I could hit a 4'x4' target from 30 paces 90% of the time. Not great, but useable for my purposes. Ever since I tillered it though, the bow kicks the back end of the arrows off and the arrows don't fly straight. Every once in a while I get a straight shot, but most of the time they fly erratically so I am lucky if I hit the 4'x4' target from 12 paces 1/2 the time. Any ideas on how to fix this? the arrows are the same and I' am using the same shooting technique so it has to be in the tillering.
Also, is there a term for what the bow is doing? I have been calling it "deflection" since the bow deflects the trajectory of the arrow.
wish I could see you shoot it.. Check nocking point on the string, try moving it up. Measure distance between string and limb, same spot on top and bottom limb. perhaps too stiff an arrow spine.. just guessing without seeing it. woodsman
From what it sounds is that your arrow spine is too stiff. Change that and they might straighten out.
Another thing do the arrows hit the same spot every time just not where you want them to go. If the arrows are carbon they should all fly the same way regardless. So if your draw is the same every time your arrows should be precise just not accurate. If they are wood arrows then you might have multiple spine weights and the spine weights might be wrong for the bow now that you tillered it down some. Also are the arrows set up FOC (Front of Center) that helps flatten out the flight path of the arrow. Basically there are a lot of variables with matching arrows to a bow.
