"When shooting any compound bow it is necessary to shoot from the valley"

Kellog

The American
American Shoot
The title of the thread "When shooting any compound bow it is necessary to shoot from the valley" is taken from my Coach resource pack.

Tho I don't shoot compound very often this does intrigue me, as I was under the impression that it was generally far more advisable to shoot from the wall. I've found an article by Merlin that ultimately concludes that some bows are better shot from the wall and others from the valley.

What I'm looking for is an argument for or against the title of the thread :):stirthepo
 

Robin Astra

New member
Hi Kellog,

I think that Merlin are right. It all depends of the design of the particular cams. The trend is more towards cams that are designed to be shot from a solid wall. This is because cams are designed for increased arrow speed which means that the peak weight is held longer during the power stroke. As a consiquence vallies have tended to become shorter which makes it difficult to shoot from the valley. I have found that shooting from a solid wall promotes a better shot using back tension.

Robin
 

hypertigger

New member
i learnt how to shoot compound with a sapphire with accu wheels, which were great for a beginner, however, they were very spongy with a very long valley, so it was difficult to tell if you consistent with drawlength.

i then moved to command cams and shot them from the wall, and as Robin already mentioned, does promote excellent back tension, because you are constantly pulling and pushing, and not just sitting around holding some silly weight on your fingers. you then get a much more consistent drawlength, and i think you are less likely to punch a shot if you just increase the pressure all the time, your fingers will curl round and press the trigger.
 

Meddler

New member
Larry Wise - "Tuning your compound bow"

If you anchor on the front slope (before you get into the valley) shots will go erratically high - reason being they start off at a faster acceleration.

If you anchor on the back wall / stops, you get a ripple start to the arrow's flight. It gets an initial kick, then slows down before it speeds up again, a bit like "kangaroo petrol" on a car. It's not a smooth getaway... and shots tend to go erratically high and mayb even low for no apparent reason.

If you're in the middle of the valley, you get the "gentle" acceleration to peak weight.
 

Kellog

The American
American Shoot
Larry Wise - "Tuning your compound bow"

If you anchor on the front slope (before you get into the valley) shots will go erratically high - reason being they start off at a faster acceleration.

If you anchor on the back wall / stops, you get a ripple start to the arrow's flight. It gets an initial kick, then slows down before it speeds up again, a bit like "kangaroo petrol" on a car. It's not a smooth getaway... and shots tend to go erratically high and mayb even low for no apparent reason.

If you're in the middle of the valley, you get the "gentle" acceleration to peak weight.
And does that still apply with modern cam systems?
 

bimble

Well-known member
Supporter
Fonz Awardee
Ironman
AIUK Saviour
My spare compound has a bolt on the bottom cam (single cam) that when you get to full draw it comes to rest on the limb, thus preventing you from drawing past that point*. You set the bolt so it comes to rest at the bottom of the valley, and so you have a solid wall to draw to in the valley.

* - when I first got it it had been set at such a short draw length that you weren't over the peak weight and it totally threw me as I couldn't work out how someone was supposed to shoot the damned thing!!!
 

mk1

It's an X
Supporter
Well its all a bit academic now anyway with compunds having stops built into the cams you just pull against the stops as hard as you like.

In the "old" days of round wheels one of the skills was judging where the valley was and having a consistent draw length. :knockout: Archers would make marks on the cables and watch their sight picture to see the marks line up, or would attach block to the cables so they came together and stopped you drawing too far. If you had round wheels it was considered OK to shoot from the wall. So called because it was when you were steeply rising out of the valley and need the strength of an Ox to pull any further,
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
On the compounds with round wheels, and valleys that were very nearly flat bottomed, there was a range of draw where the holding weight didn't change enough to easily feel the difference. If you drew 28" or 29" it felt the same. But at 29" your arrow was given an extra inch of push and the holding weights were often 50%; say 25lbs. Some archers used clickers to tell them when they had reached the drawlength they wanted. Shooting off the wall, for bows like, that would have required a very well timed set up. Otherwise, the harder you pulled, the more the nocking point would rise or fall in the last part of the draw.
 

greydog

New member
Larry Wise - "Tuning your compound bow"

If you anchor on the front slope (before you get into the valley) shots will go erratically high - reason being they start off at a faster acceleration.

If you anchor on the back wall / stops, you get a ripple start to the arrow's flight. It gets an initial kick, then slows down before it speeds up again, a bit like "kangaroo petrol" on a car. It's not a smooth getaway... and shots tend to go erratically high and mayb even low for no apparent reason.

If you're in the middle of the valley, you get the "gentle" acceleration to peak weight.
Larry Wise was a big advocate of the 'shoot from the valley' approach, but I'm not so sure he still recommends it. Cam design has changed significantly in recent times with the trend towards smaller valleys and harder stops. This has partly been to increase performance (read speed) but it also increases consistancy (less likely to creep forward in the shot, encourages the use of back muscles rather than arms), forcing the archer to keep the power on rather than leaning back and bending their arm which high let-off, big valley cams can encourage.
The reason for advising people to shoot from the valley with early target wheels or high energy wheels and some twin cams was the way the stops acted on the cables, if you pulled hard into the wall on them you would get high/low shots as the stops would put different pressure on the cables, pulling the nocking point down and affecting nock travel.......shooting from the valley was the most consistant option in that case.
Almost every compound on the market today will perform better if shot from the wall. Aside from the fact that good technique requires it, it will make your bow shoot more consistantly.
 

Kellog

The American
American Shoot
Larry Wise was a big advocate of the 'shoot from the valley' approach, but I'm not so sure he still recommends it. Cam design has changed significantly in recent times with the trend towards smaller valleys and harder stops. This has partly been to increase performance (read speed) but it also increases consistancy (less likely to creep forward in the shot, encourages the use of back muscles rather than arms), forcing the archer to keep the power on rather than leaning back and bending their arm which high let-off, big valley cams can encourage.
The reason for advising people to shoot from the valley with early target wheels or high energy wheels and some twin cams was the way the stops acted on the cables, if you pulled hard into the wall on them you would get high/low shots as the stops would put different pressure on the cables, pulling the nocking point down and affecting nock travel.......shooting from the valley was the most consistant option in that case.
Almost every compound on the market today will perform better if shot from the wall. Aside from the fact that good technique requires it, it will make your bow shoot more consistantly.
Thank you greydog!

Your post very nicely sums up what other people on the forum have replied and what else I've read today.
 

jerryRTD

Well-known member
It all comes down to the cam design. I have two Oneidas one was made in 1980 some thing . It has about a 50% let off, a very gradual descent in to the valley and a long valley when you get there and no back wall. It will shoot well from just about anywhere. You don't even have to get in to the valley to make a good shot. But the draw lenght is a factor and I used a clicker to ensure that I loosed from the same point each time
Fast forward to the present day and the Pro Eagle, moderately hard cam and the best results come from leaning against a very solid back wall, just enough to get the arrow away cleanly. There is no point in trying harder if you do all that happens is the back wall is so solid that the extra poundage you pull in to the back wall is only applied for about an 1/8 of an inch if that. Not enough to make any difference at all. The kangeroo start thing is only for bows that have a spongey back wall. My Mathews for instance has a soggy back wall compared to the Pro Eagle.
 

GeoffT

Active member
Ironman
The title of the thread "When shooting any compound bow it is necessary to shoot from the valley" is taken from my Coach resource pack.
I'm fascinated......Is this a GNAS coaching resource pack? If so it is most definitely not up to date. Modern compounds are mostly better shotfrom the wall, IMHO.
 

Marcus26

Well-known member
Larry Wise - "Tuning your compound bow"

If you anchor on the front slope (before you get into the valley) shots will go erratically high - reason being they start off at a faster acceleration.

If you anchor on the back wall / stops, you get a ripple start to the arrow's flight. It gets an initial kick, then slows down before it speeds up again, a bit like "kangaroo petrol" on a car. It's not a smooth getaway... and shots tend to go erratically high and mayb even low for no apparent reason.

If you're in the middle of the valley, you get the "gentle" acceleration to peak weight.

Ah Larry Wise, how you wasted years of my life.
I use to use this book religiously back in the late 80's early 90;s to tune my bows. Then after years of frustration I threw it out and worked it out myself and got results. It's criminal that it is still sold and worse yet used by people.
This quote is seriously incorrect and does not match up at all with how the actual physics of compound bows work.
The key points here is that he has assumed that the the bow loses energy for a second if shot from the back wall, this is grossly incorrect. The energy is stored and on release the cables now do very little, the acceleration and energy transfer is relatively constant. (it does increase in acceleration but does not increase, then decrease and then increase as he is saying)

Now here is the key to his confussion
"and shots tend to go erratically high and maybe even low for no apparent reason."
OK if his concept was correct it would be one or the other. So why the randomness?
The reason is nock travel.
Remember when this book was written there was only twin wheel or twin cam systems out there. Timing was critical and cam design primitive. If your timing was wrong then you had very sensitive nock travel. Sometimes no matter how good your timing was you had nock travel problems anyway. Thus the bows were only accurate from the middle of the valley. This is also where Tiller tuning came from. Tiller tuning is not the balancing of your limbs, it is micro adjustment of your nocking point location and nock travel. For example I can move the angle of nock travel on a Hoyt Trykon by 1/2" by taking one turn off the top limb.
So the reason why tiller tuning improves groups for some is that they have now micro adjusted their cam timing to reduce the effects of poor nock travel. That's why it is a waste of time on most modern bows.

Now walls.
If your bow has a distinct middle of valley and a wall as described by Wise then please go buy a bow made in the last 10 years.
The wall as we know it today is actually a movable draw stop that is designed to sit within the valley and move forward and back of the valley to adjust draw length. If you set the draw stop in the cam's middle position your are shooting from the middle of the valley when pulling against the wall.
With a well designed modern bow you can shoot from the front or the back of the valley and get the same results.
Using a Hooter shooter I tested a guardian indoors. Hitting the same hole I then drew 3" short of the valley and fired. Same hole. I then drew about 60lb past full draw. Same hole.
Reason is that the bow's nock travel is very flat in those areas.
 

phil_r_58

Supporter
Supporter
Ironman
Valleys !

Yes, I remember those days well. Shooting from the centre of the valley was important on soft 30% and early 50% round wheels. There were no built in draw stops. And don't forget, they were not the modern short limbed bows. In many ways, the limbs were just a bit thicker limbs than re-curves. On the PSE and Jennings bows I used, it was possible to put some flex in the limbs pulling against the end of the cable.

We used to buy these little plastic blocks that had one tight hole, with a clamp, and one larger hole, that the cable could slide through. If you put one on each cable, you could set the draw length that they came together at, and that stopped further movement. Usually, we set them to the centre of the valley.

With modern compounds you would have a draw weight of approximately 400lbs to move without the cams, so you can safely pull against the wall.

And Trunkles and Kellog, I have a friend doing the GNAS coaching courses. He is a world expert in compounds, design, manufacture, production, and a world class shooter of 30 yrs experience. And he finds the GNAS coaching manual advice on tuning and using compounds to be from the dark ages.
 

Meddler

New member
And Trunkles and Kellog, I have a friend doing the GNAS coaching courses. He is a world expert in compounds, design, manufacture, production, and a world class shooter of 30 yrs experience. And he finds the GNAS coaching manual advice on tuning and using compounds to be from the dark ages.
That would be Chris Jones, then...

***puts NSG hat on***
Maybe we can ask him to look at the compound section of the training materials.

Iain.
 
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phil_r_58

Supporter
Supporter
Ironman
That would be Chris Jones, then...

***puts NSG hat on***
Maybe we can ask him to look at the compound section of the training materials.

Iain.
Well, love him or hate him, There are few people that know as much about compounds, apart from Ben of course, who has Chris's knowledge, plus his own. Although few will remember nowadays that Chris was also a formidable bowhunter class shooter in the 70's too.

Having been shown the process, experimentation and development of the new viper cams, which are the heart of the XV, this week, on a visit, we were left :jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp. See my blog about the day.
 

mk1

It's an X
Supporter
The wall as we know it today is actually a movable draw stop that is designed to sit within the valley and move forward and back of the valley to adjust draw length. If you set the draw stop in the cam's middle position your are shooting from the middle of the valley when pulling against the wall.
With a well designed modern bow you can shoot from the front or the back of the valley and get the same results.

Thanks Marcus for this clear explanation. I bough a Hoyt Saphire (5 years ago?) In the shop when I drew it up the oldish assistant said "ha its not sitting properly in the valley" took the bow away and came back a few minutes later with the draw lengthened. :rolleyes: It was bent arm days so I wasn't left adrift besides I too had a set of allen keys :cool:
 
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