Tuning Your Bow - Recurve and Compound

Tuning Your Bow
An Alternative Guide to tuning Recurve and Compound Bows.

Recurve Tuning
Compound Tuning
Common Methods (Applicable to both Recurve and Compound)
Recommended Reading for Tuning

REMEMBER: Always write down your “starting positions” before you begin so if need be you can return to your original settings. For this tutorial it is recommended that you shoot three arrows and bare shaft after any alterations are made.

PLEASE NOTE: All the examples are for right handed archers only. You must work opposite for left handed archers, with the exception of the nocking point adjustments.

Recurve Tuning

Correct arrow flight is all important if you wish to properly enjoy archery. Once you have bought your recurve bow and arrows the next major purchase after a sight should be a pressure button. The pressure button is important because it allows the arrow to fly around the bow handle upon release, the movement of the hand at the time of release causes the arrow to go left - this is known as the archers paradox. When you setup your bow the arrow should be approx. an 1/8th” left of centre of the bow string, this allows the arrow to fly left of the bow before straightening out - the arrow only becomes straight approx. 8 to 10 feet from the bow, until that time it is continuously bending left and right. The pressure button allows you to adjust this left of centre distance to suite your own bow and arrow setup - no one is the same.

How To Decide The Left Of Centre Distance
There are several ways of doing this, the best way is to “bare shaft test” the arrows, this is done by you shooting three normal arrows aimed at a mark on a boss 20 yards away, see where they group and then using the same aiming mark shoot a bare shaft - one with no fletches on - and see where that lands in relation to the three fletched arrows. If for example the bare fletch lands low and left of the grouped arrows this means your nocking point is to low and your pressure button to far out to the left, so what you then have to do is lower your nocking point slightly, then shoot another three arrows and your bare shaft, and carry this until the bare shaft lands left and in line of the group. We can now make our left adjustments, the left adjustment is made with the pressure button so we have to bring the arrow in towards the bow by turning the pressure button anticlockwise, and once again after you have made any adjustments shoot three arrows and then your bare shaft, until the bare shaft is impacting no more than 6" from the group of three fletched arrows, once you have the bare shaft approx. 6" from the group you can fine tune the pressure button and bring it in closer - it would be very nice to see the bare shaft in the centre of the group.

Compound Tuning

When you buy your compound bow the “salesperson” in the shop should have simply tuned the bow for you i.e. the arrows should be flying nicely from the bow. Because of the very nature of the compound bow design tuning the compound bow is more complex than a recurve bow, this is because if you shoot compound unlimited - with a release aid - the arrow must be in line with the bow string, this is due to the paradox of the compound bow being different to a recurve bow - it is an up, down movement as opposed to the left, right movement of the recurve bow - this is to do with the immense energy stored in a compound bow, and it is this energy on release that causes this up, down movement, also because the release is near perfect then the arrow will fly straight. The vast majority of compound unlimited archers also use arrow launchers as opposed to the normal type of arrow rest, a pressure button is not used.

So How Do We Tune A Compound Bow?
There are a number of excellent books and videos dealing with tuning the compound bow but can be confusing to the beginner. So I’ll try and simplify things, the two main ways of tuning a compound bow is the bare shaft test as above and “paper testing”. For paper testing you will need a frame of some kind an old picture frame is ideal you’ll also need something to stand it on, like a camera tripod and some paper, old newspaper is ideal. Cover the frame with the paper and place it in front of a boss, stand approx. 40" from the frame shoot an arrow into the paper and see what the tear looks like, if the tear is again low and left then as we did in the bare shaft test adjust the nocking point down and again shoot an arrow, carry on doing this until the arrow nock is level with the tear. Unlike the recurve bows pressure button, you cannot move the compound bows launcher once it is set for centre shot. So we must tune the arrows not the bow, there are several ways of doing this, you can change the weight of the pile, use for example a 9% NIBB point instead of a 7% for aluminium arrows or in the case of ACC carbon arrows again the weight of the pile can be changed, but for ACE arrows both the pile weight and the insert weight can be changed. Do this again shoot an arrow and continue until you can only see a “bullet hole”. Other alternatives include changing the spine of the arrow - use different arrows - and altering the bow weight - remember altering the bow weight also alters the draw length - this means you will need a bow press to alter your draw length back. Whilst tuning the compound bow as with the recurve bow can be fun, tuning the compound bow is more difficult and so it is advisable to visit a pro shop where all the necessary facilities are available to you. Remember the bow should already be tuned and the arrows flying straight before you leave the shop and so only a small amount of limited tuning is necessary.

Common Tuning Methods

Walk back Tuning
This is where you shoot an arrow at a mark on the top of the boss keeping the same sight mark from 10yards and then at 10yard intervals upto 100yards, and what you should see is a row of arrows down the centre of the bosses - you’ll need another boss placed on the ground beneath the first boss - a slight curve is acceptable.

Tiller Tuning (Compound Only)
This is where you adjust the distance between the tiller setting on your limbs until a group is achieved.

Powder Testing
To do this you need to sprinkle talcum powder on your arrow rest or launcher, shoot an arrow and see if the arrow removes any of the powder. This is used to discover if your arrow is hitting the arrow rest/launcher at all.

All the above information probably sounds confusing to the beginner and even some experienced archers have problems tuning their equipment, but with the assistance of an experienced archer most problems can be sorted out.