When shooting a bow you must know your correct spine stiffness. And I don't mean your back... HA
HA..? Ooook.... Just about every arrow manufacture has charts on their website to help you with your ARROW spine stiffness. But I personally think this is an estimation or a starting point and you need to check and makes sure it's correct for you. Checking the arrow spine is just one of many things the paper can tell you about your arrow. Because your arrow leaves the bow so fast and you should only be thinking about aiming. You don't see your arrow when it leaves the bow or how the arrow is flying. Now you may see the arrow but normally you only see an odd flight path and if you are a seasoned archer you can tell what is most likely going on.
So in this blog as stated, we are going to be speaking about arrow stiffness or spine strength.
So what is the paper is telling you?
First of all you need to start with 5 arrows, three that are fletched and two that are bare. Take whatever target you have and try to make it as chest level as possible. Reason being is you need to stand about 5 yards from the target, and you don't really want to be aiming down. Also being able to hit a bull's-eye is not just real important but being able to group arrows is. The pictures shows a bullseye but don't let that get into your head, it's pretty much just for reference.
So shoot all five arrows with the three fletched arrows first, and then the two bare last. You may have to do this several times to understand where the arrows are truly landing. You need to be able to determine what the arrows are doing and not you having shot placement problems.
In the picture to the left you will see a group of arrows in the center and two arrows to the right of center. This is telling you that you have too week of a spine. There are several things you can do to correct this that doesn't involve changing or purchasing new arrows. If you buy top of the line, you are going to spend approx. 13-18 bucks per bare shaft. So if you're like me that is a steep cost to keep shelling out.
One way to fix this is to lessen the poundage of your bow. Keep shooting over and over lessening your poundage until you can get a group with both fletched and bare shafts. Be sure
when you
do lessen the poundage that you use 1/4 or 1/2 rotations on the limb bolts. Also make sure whatever you do to the top bolt you do
the same on the bottom bolt. If you don't, you will cause the limb poundage's to be different. And that can cause a different problems. Although if you are shooting a recurve and not a compound you can cause your bow to be out of "Tiller".
That's where the string on the top of the bow is closer or further from the bottom riser than the other.
Now the picture to the right is of course, just the oppisite of the above. The picture shows arrow spines that are too
stiff. This is a little more difficult to fix if your bow is at its max poundage. Bows come in poundage spans like 50-60 or 60-70. If you are at the top of your poundage its kind of hard to increase it. So if your bow is maxed out you will have to take the plunge and purchase arrows with lesser spine stiffness.( I personally don't), but it might be a good idea to start your bow in the middle of its poundage range. I shoot at 70 lbs which is the top of my bows range but if you are a newbie, it doesnt hurt to start in the middle and go from there. So, if the picture at the right is what you are shooting, tighten the limb bolts up until you get a grouping of both fletched and bare. And again, take it in 1/4 to 1/2 turn incraments on both top and bottom limbs.
If you think about it, when you take a 1/2 turn on the top and a 1/2 turn on the bottom. Logic says you put a full turn on the bolts so really, it wont take all that long to correct these problems.
Something else that I need to mention, the length of your arrows matter as well. Even if you have a spine that is perfect for your bow, but your arrows are too long, it may act like a spine that is too week. So, all this above is assuming you have the proper length of arrows for your draw length. If you do determine that your arrows are to long (assuming that the draw length of you bow is correct) go to your local proshop and have them cut your arrows down. Don't just take them anywhere, make sure wherever you go they know what they're doing. There is a right and wrong way to cut them and you don't want your money wasted because of an uncaring person that just cuts them however.