Broadhead tuning

Kris87

Senior Member
Broadhead tuning comes up a lot this time of the year, so I thought I'd write a few thoughts on it. First, there's nothing special about broadhead tuning, that doesn't really apply to tuning a bow in general. Its just that once a broadhead is used, and flies in one general direction away from your field points, that result can be used to tell you what you need to do to your bow to correct it. I write this because I believe the information posted on several sites, most notably the Easton site, is incorrect. A lot of tuners would agree, some may not. Some tuners also believe that a bow in tune can shoot broadheads to a different POI, and that may be true, but generally, I can get my field points and broadheads to shoot to the same POI. You will just have to form your on opinion if you agree/disagree. :D

Anyway, let's look at some scenarios you could see. I'm going to reference right handed shooters since they're most prevelant too. Let's say your field points are zero'd. You shoot a broadhead and it flies low. Left and right are good, just low. You have several options, easiest would be to raise the rest. You could also lower the nocking point. Keep in mind this will also raise the POI of your fp, but hopefully once you get to the sweet spot, the broadheads and fp will be on the same plane. If you really wanted to dive in deep, it could be cam sync, tiller, etc...but we'll keep it simple for now. Let's think about why a broadhead might fly low out of a bow. If you understand why, it will help you to know how to fix it. I like to tune for arrow flight coming immediately out of the bow. If you have a broadhead hitting lower than field points, then your arrow is coming out of the bow point low, tail high. This causes the head to plane lower than your field points, which have hardly any wind resistance. So you make the adjustments I mentioned above, which both lower the tail of the shaft, and raise the front. You are trying to minimize the amount of wind resistance that broadhead is going to encounter. Get it going straight, it encounters less resistance.

Next....left and right. Uh oh, this one can get bad. It can get very frustrating. Grip is a big part of it, cam design is a big part of it, spine, draw length, and obviously centershot of the rest. Lots, and lots of variables can make a broadhead shoot to the left and right. I'm going to keep this simple again, and just talk about the arrow rest. If anyone wants to talk about yoke tuning, cam design, then we're going to do another topic. OK, your arrow rest. Here's where I see the most misinformation. Your fp are zero'd. You shoot a broadhead and it misses right(most common for a right handed shooter). Most people think you move your rest to the left, or chase the field points. That's normally backwards(but not always). You move your rest towards your broadheads. Why you ask? Let's think about it again just like we did vertical. The broadhead is missing right, which means the arrow is coming out of the bow point right, or tail left. How do you fix a tail left tear on a right handed bow? Easy, you move the rest to the right. But wait, that's gonna make your broadheads miss even further right? Yep, but it will make your field points move right too. The goal is to get that arrow coming out of the bow straight, so the broadhead doesn't plane off axis. Don't forget, all this is corrected with your sights when they both hit together, and that's easy to fix. This is reversed when the broadhead is missing to the left. That would be a tail right situation out of the bow. You'd move the rest to the left. If any of you have two track bows, you might notice broadheads missing more to the left, than to the right, and why centershot on Elites and Obsessions are closer to 13/16" and 7/8". They generally tune better with the rest to the left.

I will say, if the way I prescribed above doesn't work, then move it the other way. I'm not saying that's what I'd do, but it might work. I know when I bareshaft tune my bows, and others bows, for straight arrow flight out of the bow, I always tune for the tail of the shaft. That's basic paper tuning 101. And I've yet to have any of my bows not shoot broadheads correctly when I tune for arrow flight that way.

If you're having issues with broadhead flight, and none of the basic tuning principles are helping, then you may have a more complicated problem. The things I've mentioned I'd try first, and generally you don't have to have a shop help you with. Hope this helps.
 

BOWROD

Senior Member
Thanks kris,,,good info that can be applied to any setup..!!!
 

100hunter

Senior Member
Thanks Kris. You da man. Got my fp and bh's shooting in the same hole. Glad you called me back, I was about to panic. Didn't have this problem with my Bear. Moved my centershot over and wha la.
 

Kris87

Senior Member
Thanks Kris. You da man. Got my fp and bh's shooting in the same hole. Glad you called me back, I was about to panic. Didn't have this problem with my Bear. Moved my centershot over and wha la.

Don't ya just love that feeling in your stomach you get when that happens? Field points are dead on, then boooooom, broadheads are going bananas. Glad you called brother, and glad it was an easy fix. :yeah:
 

APPierce0628

Senior Member
I am happy to say, I shot today and it seems my broad heads are dead on and my field points are as well. I will continue to shoot and compare because they were still finicky last year and I haven't messed with it since. I would shoot more with my broad heads if I had bought a decent broad head target (off topic). I will continue to shoot the next few days and see how it goes.

Andrew P.
 

Deerhunter12454

Senior Member
For some reason I can't get my whisker biscuit to move up. Left and right is perfect. But my broadheads shoot high out of my ready compared to my field points
 

Gaswamp

Senior Member
great read
 
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