Garret from WI asks,
Bill, I was watching your YouTube video on setting up Jordan's bow. I noticed in the video you set the arrow rest left to right based on aligning a nocked arrow to the string and limb bolts. After that you went on to start sighting it in. Does this mean you don't do any paper-tuning or bare-shaft tuning to make adjustments to the rest location? If so I'm very curious on your rationale. I have a Hoyt and I have to move my rest significantly left to get the "bullet hole" paper tears, so I'm very curious about this. Thanks for all the content you've created over the years. -Garret PS. I've been following you since the early days of Midwest Whitetail. I was wondering if Chad Lathrop is still in the hunting industry?
Bill responds,
Topic: Bow Tuning Tips:
There can be four reasons why you are getting a large sideways paper tear when tuning your bow. I cover all four of them here.
Garret,
Unfortunately, that video got so long that I didn’t have time for the final steps. I will have to do something on tuning at some point. I always do a rough sight-in before I tune. I want to be able to control where the arrow goes right from the start.
I have not had to move my rest much sideways on the Hoyts, by the way. Slightly in some cases, but usually any left and right issues are related to operator error on my part.
My guess is that you have one of four issues at play. First, some bows are more sensitive than others to hand position on the grip. I can really change how my arrows fly depending on how I hold the grip. You might experiment with other hand/wrist positions to see what effect they have.
Second, if you are pulling to the side at full draw (pulling your elbow around behind your body and not in line with the arrow) that can really affect left and right arrow flight.
Make sure you are pulling straight back from the target at full draw and not around behind you.
Third, you may be getting slight fletching contact. If you shoot a bare shaft through paper at six feet versus one with fletching that will really show whether this is an issue.
Fourth, and I hope this isn’t the case, you can get bad sideways arrow flight if your cams aren’t in line with the string. In other words, if one of the cams is leaning that will create sideways nock travel when you draw and release and you will see sideways arrow flight issues.
Generally, I can tell just by standing next to the bow when it fires if the arrow flight is good. Jordan’s bow produces really good arrow flight.
Good luck. (10/18/22)
