Hello All,

I was referred to this group with hopes that y'all might be able to help me with an arrow issue.

My old arrows shot great: Easton powerflights, 500 spine, full length, 145 grain points, 5 inch feathers.

But now I'm trying to shoot a different setup: Easton axis traditional, 400 spine, 125 grain point with a 75 grain inserts, 5 inch feathers.

The issue I am running into is the fact that my arrow wants to nose dive right out of the rest, I tried nocking at a few different locations and stiffening the spine of the arrow by cutting it down to 28" in 1" increments to see if it would work, but I'm still getting tail high through paper. Any advice would be appreciated.

Bear Montana Longbow @ 55lbs and 27" draw
3 fingers under    

Have you tried seeing how a bare shaft compares to your fletched arrows? I find it easier for me to tune that way. Paper has always been difficult for me. I shoot 400 axis out of my 55@ 27 recurves with 30" arrow, 100gr inserts and 200 gr points(600 total) I think your arrow is a little stiff.

I have not yet, but that is where I will be going next. I bought them prefletched so I was hoping not to have to cut any off but if it helps I will. Thanks for your input!

I shoot 29" 400 carbons with 250 grains up front out of my 50# and 55# Montanas.  I draw 28-28.5 inches.

Nock point is 5/8", 3 under.


Are you getting a bounce off the shelf from fletch contact?

Well...if you're shooting with your bow with a vertical hold shortening (or lengthening) your arrows will only affect right or left tears....also spine being to low or high will only give you left or right tears.

If you are getting tail high tears lower your nock height.
If you still get tail high tears after lowering the nock height below the rest height you may very well be experiencing bounce off the shelf like Snow Crow mentioned.

If that is the case then raise the nocking point a bit from the highest you've tested.

Vertical tears can almost always be attributed to nock height.

Make sure you're paper testing at about 6 foot....that's a good distance. If you're testing from way far back you'll almost always get a bit of a vertical tear.

How much of a high tail tear are you getting at 6 foot?

...BTW....trimming 1 inch at a time off carbons is way too big of steps. You can often notice changes by trimming 1/4" at a time.

Ok, so I tried moving nocking point down again, but it seems to intensify the phenomenon of mock high tear. I am now going to try to go up with it. I have some slow motion videos of the arrow in question if anyone would want to help, I could send to their phone. Thanks

So I Did what you guys said and actually went up just a tad and it fixed it, now I've just got the side to side from probably too stiff of a spine. It must have been what you guys were talking about "bouncing off the rest" because I had to move it up just a tad and it eliminated the nock high. I was trying to read the paper and watching slo mo videos but it never made sense why it was doing that. Thanks!

Welcome to Tradgang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJ6-HjPMTM&t=34s

Good Vid Roy