Do you notice that your arrows porpoise or fishtail when you shoot? Possibly your nock point is in the wrong place on the string. Or maybe you only need to fine tune your rest…up, down, left, or right, so that with good form your arrows fly perfectly.
Paper tuning, shooting through paper from 5-6 feet away, and studying the rip it creates will give you the solution to your problem. The rip in the paper tells you how your arrow is flying.
Steps to Paper Tuning Your Bow
1. In our video, you can see a PVC Pipe Paper Tuning device with a roll of paper towards the bottom, held taut at the top with clamps. However, all you really need is paper, newspaper will do, as long as you can attach it to a frame of some sort to keep it taut when you shoot through it.
2. Stand approximately 5-6 feet away from the paper.
3. Draw your bow, and using good form prepare to shoot, your arrow level, not up, down or at an angle.
4. Shoot through the paper, making sure your bow hand placement is correct, hand relaxed, fingers hanging loose so as not to torque the bow, and release straight back using your rhomboid muscle.
5. Study the result, analyze, and tune accordingly.
IF your arrow is quite off, you may need to move your nocking point up or down, but if the bow has been tuned fairly well, you may only need to move your rest, assuming your timing isn’t off. The final result should show a perfect “bullet hole” in the middle with 3 equal slits emanating from the hole created by each fletch. FOR RIGHT & LEFT HANDED ARCHERS: If your arrow entry is point high, fletches low, move your rest down. If your arrow entry is point low, fletches high, move your rest up.
FOR RIGHT HANDED ARCHERS: If your arrow is point left, fletches right, move your rest in. If your arrow is point right, fletches left, move your rest out. (THIS WILL BE JUST THE OPPOSITE FOR LEFT HANDED ARCHERS)
It takes a little tinkering, but eventually you’ll find that PERFECT ARROW FLIGHT!! Happy shooting!