help with recurve

[Clint Daniels]

Just purchased my first recurve it is a Martin x-200. Just wondering if you guys had any suggestions on arrow flight. getting alot of movement side to side. shooting directly off the bow shelf. Bear hair and a leather pad. tried 100 grain and 85 grain points and neither seemed to affect it one way or the other. shooting gold tip 5575 carbon arrows with feathers.

[Foam Steak]

One of the drawbacks of traditional gear is the difficulty of tuning your arrows to your bow. Just requires some patience and work. May I suggest these two websites. One is called the Leather Wall the other is called Trad Gang. You can do some searches and read some posts and figure out the ins and outs of tuning arrows. There is a group called Kentucky Traditional Bowhunters Association, they have a shoot once a month in Harrodsburg. Check out the website www.ktbaonline.com (http://www.ktbaonline.com). O.L Adcock has a sweet website explaining some of the ins and outs of arrow tuning: http://bowmaker.net/tuning.htm. He advocates the bare shaft method which is what I use. Some folks don't agree with that method. Whatever. You are going to have to sift through alot of opinions and information.

You will find everything effects arrow flight including but not limited to: String thickness, brace height, Knock tightness on the string, how you release the arrow, arrow weight, amount of centershot, arrow length, arrow thickness, draw length and poundage of bow. All this stuff comes together.

You should be shooting arrows that are AT LEAST 8 grains of weight for every lb of draw weight. For example if you are shooting 50lbs at your draw length then you should really be shooting an arrow that weighs at least 400 grains. I generally prefer 10 grains per lb. Most of the arrows I shoot are between 550 and 600 grains.

Without knowing your drawlength or how heavy your bow is I will take a swag and say your arrows might fly a little better with the heavier tips and a lenght of weed wacker string inserted down the center of the shaft. That is a total guess. But the weedwhacker string is an easy tuning tool and maybe you have some laying around.

Good Luck! Maybe I will see you at a KTBA shoot one of these days! My name is Leif, I should be easy to recognize because I am much handsomer than most everyone there. :D

[ken w]

what s the draw wt , i have found that gold tips are a little stiff i shoot 3555s in my 50 and 60 lb bows, but you cant beat good po cedar shafts, i bare shaft test all my arrows
then shoot 5.5 in feathers and 190 gr heads

[gurn]

Side to side problems may be caused by fourm or spine. Most times if you have spine problems they will keep hitting either right or left, relative to the arrow being too stiff or too weak. Not knowing your draw or weight, I'm gonna guess the arrow your using is too stiff. Please give us more details.
As Foam Stake said, the O.L Adcock tuning method seems to be great, but will take alot of time. No method will work until you have a solid form.

[Clint Daniels]

my bow is 50lbs. my draw is about 26.5 inchs. the guy at the store where I bought the bow said I was probably pulling around 45lbs. with my draw length. I would guess my form to be decent. have been shooting bows for sometime though not a recurve.

[wwarrior]

Like the others said spine.. If you going to shoot carbons mayby 3555 will work??? You also may have to try differant weight field tips...
Check out these sites great information..
tradgang.com or
http://bowhunting.net/traditionalarchery/

[randy grider]

You definately need 35/55 gold tips. Start out with a full length bare shaft, and I would suggest a 125 grain field point, since most of the better broadheads are that weight.
Now, make sure the nock does not fit the string too tight.
Shoot into a target bale at 15 yards. If the nock is to the right of the point ( and i'm guessing it will be) you are still too stiff in spine. With the shaft full length the only way to weaken the spine is to add more weight to the point end, either a bigger field point, or better yet a 50-100 brass insert in place of the aluminun inserts that come with them. These can be purchased in the mail from "3 Rivers Archery".
Now if the nock is to the left, the spine is too weak. To stiffen the spine shorten the shaft 1 ", then bareshaft it again.
Idealy you're shaft should be 1-2" longer than you're draw length to provide broadhead clearance, and to keep from having to lug around big long cumbersome shafts that hang on every briar,limb or bush you get near while hunting.
If it helps i'm shooting around 50 # @ 27 " on my recurve, and I bareshaft 28" 35/55 with 100 gr inserts and 125 grain points with excellent flight.
You'll love the gold tips once you get them figured out, testing is half the fun:) !
One more tip, hi-speed cutting disc only for shortening carbo arrows, and you can remove the brass inserts by leaving a field point in ,heating the point and gently twist/pull the insert out.
KTBA is having a shoot next saturday June 7,come check it out.
Good luck!

[Clint Daniels]

Thanks for the great help gentlemen. Believe I've got it to were I am comfortable with it. Bought 35/55 goldtips and fletched 5 inch right helical western feather vanes with 125 grain stinger tips and is flying near perfect. I love shooting it! I'm so frigin ate up with shooting right now. Found out there is a little problem with the bow from Martin. The finish started to show small cracks and I contacted Martin and they said that they switched clear coats and had a problem with it and a few slipped thru the cracks and out the door. They told me to take to martin dealer and replace. Well dealer only had one and it has the same problem, but everyone semms really determined to fix problem so not worried.