5 arrows broken, vanes shaved off, wraps badly scratched, arrow rest wire bent

Archeropteryx

New member
I‘m a newbie shooting olympic and barebow style for about one year, yesterday I shot without stabilizers and sight. I know it would be good to have a coach, but at the moment all shooting ranges are closed here in Germany.



I’m desperated and cueless... I shot for about two hours indoors with a fresh set of six re-wrapped and re-vaned chinese aluminium/carbon arrows about one year old. 5 of them broke during the session at random spots: 3 in the front third, 2 in the last quarter. The point of fractures are quite clean.

Hereis a video of the broken arrows: brokenarrows.mov

I really don‘t know what happened. The selfmade vinyl arrow wraps are badly scratched, vanes shaved off a lot, the wire of the arrow rest, was bent inside often and had to be bent back. One time the Beiter clicker cap flew off...

That all never happened before... must be something in my anchor, stance, shoulder position?



My bow is a Gillo GT29 with long Uukha VX+ 36lbs limbs, giving a 74“ bow.
 
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jerryRTD

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You need to do a bare shaft tune to get the nocking point height set . Next we need to know what draw length you are pulling , the spine rating of the arrow, and the. arrow length.
You seem to be getting sever contact problems If I were you I would not shoot those 'Chinese ' arrows so far you have been lucky the next time one of those arrows breaks it could do you or some one close to you damage.
Next you need information download and read the 'Easton arrow tuning and maintenance guide' you should be able to do that on the Easton web sight..
One last thing 'Check the obvious; go over the basic set up and look at thing like are the limbs in the correct limb pockets or is the string on the bow the right way up?
 

dvd8n

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Jerry is 100% correct with his advice. But, clarify something for me - Is this the first time that you have shot these arrows?
 

Stretch

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Seems an odd choice to run close to the most expensive limbs and riser you can buy with cheapo arrows. Where did the arrows break - on the riser?In flight? In the target? In the wall beside the target?

When shooting bare bow do you shoot the same way (1 finger above, two below) or are you stringwalking? You can’t realistically expect an arrow to come out of the bow well across that wide a spectrum Of finger placement. You need to compromise. There is a good book on setting up a bow to stringwalk but for the life of me I can’t remember its name - if that is your plan you need the correct guidance. Don’t think the Easton guides cover stringwalking.

Did you take out the pressure button as well? Low clearance on the back of the arrow is often linked to stiff shaft (if using a button). So it could be wrong spine but... it could be many things.... like a very low nocking point for the walk.

Im not sure you get too many bare bow archers shooting spin wing type vanes. Robust vanes are a must for bare bow But tatty vanes is not the biggest problem.

Realistically it’s impossible to diagnose without seeing what is happening (and many people won’t go near a hosted file like the one you shared above). So really just throwing stuff out there.

Stretch
 

Steve1968

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How tall are you and what is your arrow length?
74" bow seems huge, never heard of anyone shooting that length bow before.
 

4d4m

Active member
How tall are you and what is your arrow length?
74" bow seems huge, never heard of anyone shooting that length bow before.
My longbow is about that; I'm 6'3". But my olympic style bow is 70", 74" for a target recurve seems unnecessary. The Easton charts always seem to come out way too stiff for me at my 32" DL but that in itself suggests that the setup the OP mentioned could be waaayy off the charts and very strange results could be expected.
 

Stretch

Well-known member
Bear in mind that Uukha are promoting (roughly- check their site for exact figures) that someone who usually shoots a 68” shoots a 70”; 70” goes to 72” and so forth. I don’t get why - so my cynical head says design a faster limb that costs more but is less stable so to get better results you go up a length or two to settle it down again... but hey I am a cynic. One day I will get to try these things and have my cynicism disavowed. If it works it works but if you do that (for example) with an XL Velos limb I think you’ll find the resulting shot very sloppy. (Not saying the Velos is better, just that you need to shoot the right length limb)

But they also said that the Gillo GT adjustment range invalidates their warranty (29” riser or otherwise).

I have mostly found the Easton charts to be spot on as long as your bow scales are accurate and you measure the arrow right. Many people calculate their bow weight using rule of thumb which rarely comes close and is more likely to be off with longer arrows.

My Hoyt Velos are marked 34# so at Max they should wind up to +5% just short of 36#@28”. Then I have 32” true drawlength so that is 36 + (32-28)x2 =44# but no. The full adjustment gives me under 35# and the #/” is way less then 2. Actual is more like 40#. (Annoying but true). I suspect the limbs are more like Hoyt 33@28 but that is a guess I haven’t measured it.

Of course it will always be a bit grey in the fringes between spine. Given the variation in release from one archer to another it’s actually a miracle that the charts work for anyone. I know my release is worse than it was when I shot everyday and I am now finding the charts a little bit stiff. Also people with amazing smooth releases can find the chart a bit stiff ( I mean *amazing*).

Stretch
 

Archeropteryx

New member
First I want to express my gratitude to all of you for your advice and suggestions. Maybe I‘ve found the reason, at least for the bad clearance:
The only thing I changed was the fingertab. I used the ”Axcel Contour Pro“ Brass model in L size for one year now. When I bought it, there was no XL size in stock here in Germany, which I thought it would fit better in my big hands. Some weeks ago I saw it in an online store and ordered it.

Yesterday I used a set of Avalon Classic 700 spine 32“ long arrows, (the Chinese fake x10s were also 32“ but 500 spine, but as I said, I shot them for more than a year without problems) and the result was the same: arrows badly scratched (but not broken), Shibuya arrow rest wire bent several times, wrap residue on the back of the rest. So I switched to the old (size L) fingertab and the problems were almost gone immediately.

I‘d never thought that the tab makes such a difference, the size XL felt comfortable too, but seems to change my draw hand position quite bad...

B68752C0-35A8-4F37-AA56-0FD4F2334C0A.jpeg

For the broken arrows issue maybe the „Portuguese Balsam Turpentine Oil“ I used for cleaning the adhesive residues is the culprit? As
 
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Archeropteryx

New member
Seems an odd choice to run close to the most expensive limbs and riser you can buy with cheapo arrows. Where did the arrows break - on the riser?In flight? In the target? In the wall beside the target?
Those arrows are not so cheap, about US$ 10 per shaft. And the arrows all broke in the foam target, not in the wall.
 

Stretch

Well-known member
They are cheap relative to your riser and limbs (and tab(s)). My guess is that you have either:

  • Completely warn out the shafts and the aluminium core is failing
  • Have some extremely bad nocking point/plunger/power stroke/bow alignment that is causing the arrow to hit the bow instead of the plunger
  • ...or all of the above
A tab can affect the dynamic spine a lot - the more leather you have wrapped around the string then typically (not always) the arrow will react stiffer. But react stiffer does not equal broken arrows in the target.

If pine based turpentine is dissolving your arrows I would recommend not buying more of those arrows but to be honest I wouldn’t use any chemicals other than those recommended by the manufacturer on my arrows.

Also, in my opinion, tabs like the Contour, the KSL etc are way too complicated unless you actually understand them. At your stage you would be better off shooting something much simpler - two bits of leather and a finger separator. These things will cost you lots of points if not set up right.

Stretch
 

Archeropteryx

New member
The story goes on... helpful thoughts are welcome. Is it possible that stabilizers make weaker arrows, which means the dynamic spine of an arrow increases with stabilizers and decreases without, like mentioned in this post:
Weak spine with stabilizer?

This would be an explation for my Avalon Classics (700 spine) work much better than the hybrid carbon/aluminium (500 spine) arrows.
 

KidCurry

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£1400 worth of bow and Avalon Classic arrows @£49 per doz is bonkers. A bit like running an F1 car on wheel barrow tyres.:) Measure your real draw length, measure the real draw weight, look up ACCs and buy a couple. I would probably buy one at spec and one a spine softer as I think the long length of bow might be softer on the arrow. Set button to mid tension. This would be my minimum starting point.
 

Steve1968

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You still haven't told us your height or correct arrow length.
Do you use a clicker?
Why are you using a 74" recurve bow?
 

Steve1968

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I assume from OP's original post that he was using the 74" bow for both recurve and barebow. There's so much we don't know about his set up and technique. For example, he could be shooting left handed but doing his tuning based on reading tuning guides which are generally written for right handed archers and don't always advise left handed shooters to do the opposite. So potentially he could be softening the button when he should be stiffening the button and vice versa and so on. Also the possibility that he is using the same string for recurve and barebow string walking, could possibly be using a brass crimp on nock point which could have moved position on the string. All these things could be causing clearance issues, which does sound like his problem. But without more info, we just cannot be sure what is going on.
 

Archeropteryx

New member
Sorry for not providing the important info. Here it is:
I’m right handed,
6 feet 1.5 inches tall,
my draw weight on fingers is 38lbs,
my draw length is 31 inches,
my arrows are 32 1/4 inches (shaft+nock pit),
I shoot with mediterranean grip both Olympic and Barebow (I don’t even know if it’s called barebow, just shooting intuitive without, sight and stabilzers but with button and clicker).
And someone asked why I’m using a 74” bow, my answer is: I tried it and fell in love immediately.
 
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Archeropteryx

New member
After testing and checking and breaking more arrows, not just the chinese A/C but Avalon Classics too, stripping vanes and wraps and bending arrowrest wires, I think I found the cause: As Stretch mentioned above, the leather makes a big difference. The leather of the new Axcel Contour Pro XL fingertab was much too long, as I found out watching Jake Kaminski‘s Youtube Video about trimming the fingertab.
Now everything seems to be fine.
 
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