this bow will NOT quiet down!

[oldfella1962]

Have any of you had a recurve that will just not quiet down? I posted a thread a couple of weeks ago about bare shaft tuning and between GOF advice and internet research (brace height, thickening side plate, etc) my arrow flight with the bow is great! It's a 58" Ben Pearson 1968? 43# bow and it's the one bow I can just about pick up in my sleep, shoot it and guarantee the arrow hits exactly where I want to every single time out to 15 yards and with serious snap! So the bow is tuned for the best arrow flight (very much the point no pun intended) but I can't quiet it down. I am using the same style of string silencers as my other recurve and longbow. I have tried positioning the silencers in different places along the string. I have felt to silence any string slap. My rest & side plate material are the exact material and design as my other bows. All bows are the same draw weight plus or minus two pounds, so the spine on the arrow is a match. I'm out of ideas!

I'm thinking about putting my camera in video mode on top of the bag target and testing all three of my bows to find out just how they sound from the distance of a target - because maybe it's just my imagination - you never know. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Dennis]

The way I set mine up is get the length of the string and I put my top string wool puff 1/4 of the string length from the top and 1/3 the string length from the bottom.i then take 4 strands of wool yarn and wrap it around my string from the loop to about 8-10" this usually works. I have had more luck with wool on the string instead of a pad on the bow limbs. After that it's a matter of playing with brace height to find the the quite spot.

 

[strothershwacker]

Take two of those cheap foam earplugs and put one in each ear?

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

A heavily waxed Dacron string
Proper brace height
Rubber cat whiskers
And a heavy arrow is all I’ve ever known to help one.

Might let another bow hunter listen to you shoot, a fellow can get stuff like that in his head sometimes.

 

[oldfella1962]

The way I set mine up is get the length of the string and I put my top string wool puff 1/4 of the string length from the top and 1/3 the string length from the bottom.i then take 4 strands of wool yarn and wrap it around my string from the loop to about 8-10" this usually works. I have had more luck with wool on the string instead of a pad on the bow limbs. After that it's a matter of playing with brace height to find the the quite spot.

I have pads on the bow limbs and also string silencers positioned at differing distances from the top and bottom limb tips. Like I said I adjusted my brace height too, but going for perfect arrow flight rather than the quietest brace height.

 

[oldfella1962]

So I set up my camera in video record mode next to my bag target to see how it sounds on the downrange end. It sounds like I'm trying to rattle in a buck using antlers! It's a smacking, scraping, clicking sound.

I have all of my shelf and all of my side plate covered in soft smooth material (felt) like I use on all my bows. So there is no wood-on-wood contact at any point. I adjusted my nocking point to see if my arrow is bouncing off the shelf or something. But like I said, arrow flight is accurate so I don't think that's the problem.

 

[Dennis]

Post your arrow specs

 

[Stump Shooter]

Sounds like arrow slap to me, definitely need to strip fletching off one arrow and see what happens if you have not done so, this will at least eliminate that possability.

 

[oldfella1962]

Sounds like arrow slap to me, definitely need to strip fletching off one arrow and see what happens if you have not done so, this will at least eliminate that possability.

Will do! I have a stripped arrow ready - I was using it to bare shaft tune a couple of weeks ago. But I never really thought about the sound comparison at the time. Now by "arrow slap" what exactly do you mean? Is the shaft or the fletching slapping or both? What part of the arrow is slapping and where? I've had quite a few trad bows and have never had this problem so I'm not sure exactly where my problem is. I really want to beat this problem because the bow is great except for being insanely loud.

Anyway arrow specs - cedar 3Rivers arrows 29" long spined for 40-45# with natural feather fletching.

 

[Stump Shooter]

The wood arrow slap I have experience with came from nock to high or to low mostly on a low nocking point. If the arrow shelf is flat find a small peice of leather and stick it under your felt on the shelf to give it a little rise. I like the velcro for my rest. Try shooting cock feather in an see if it helps any, this has also helped. Not sure how much weight is on front of your arrow which could make your arrow weaker causing it to hit the riser harder. This is just my opinion and hope it helps some, let us know,

 

[Silver Mallard]

Have you tried adjusting brace height through its recommended range?

 

[oldfella1962]

The wood arrow slap I have experience with came from nock to high or to low mostly on a low nocking point. If the arrow shelf is flat find a small peice of leather and stick it under your felt on the shelf to give it a little rise. I like the velcro for my rest. Try shooting cock feather in an see if it helps any, this has also helped. Not sure how much weight is on front of your arrow which could make your arrow weaker causing it to hit the riser harder. This is just my opinion and hope it helps some, let us know,

yes it's a flat shelf bow. I already knew about building up the shelf to make it a little more radiused - I've done this on other flat shelf bows I've had. I'm shooting 125 grain tips on the arrows. I've ran the brace height all the way up and down too.

Luckily I have another bow I can hunt with, but I would like to get this bow down to "a stadium roar" because once I took some videos I was amazed at how loud it is from the downrange perspective. Something isn't Kosher here and being a one-piece versus a takedown there aren't any loose areas that can rattle.

 

[peace and quiet]

Do you have felt to work against string slap on the tips? Longer brace height? heavier arrows?

I've even used limbsavers on my recurve...made a huge difference.

Good luck

 

[Dennis]

Are you shooting 3 under or split finger?
I had a bow that was way loud 3 under but was quiet shooting split I even had it retillered but it was no help

 

[Todd Cook]

If your release is pretty good I would suspect limb tiller/timing. Try this: raise your nock height a full half inch or so above where it is now. Then temporarily tape a piece of dowel or something to the shelf to build it up the same amount. See what happens.

 

[oldfella1962]

Are you shooting 3 under or split finger?
I had a bow that was way loud 3 under but was quiet shooting split I even had it retillered but it was no help

I shoot split, all my bows. I know this sounds paranoid but shooting three under freaks me out! I know the arrow isn't going to fall off the string and I'll end up dry firing the bow or anything, but something about the steep angle of the string going through the top of the nock makes it seem like the arrow is going to come off the string prematurely.

One thing I haven't thought about but it could be a factor: when I bought the bow it had a stick-on rest attached to the cutout area. The last time I saw one of those was in the 70's on target recurves. It would barely fit my thick wooden arrows but I'm sure it worked great for thinner aluminum arrows which were popular in the 70's.
So whoever had the bow originally didn't shoot from the shelf, so maybe it will shoot better with a much higher knocking point. I'm going to try out the temporary dowel method and see what that does.

 

[Dennis]

If that helps it was the tiller

 

[oldfella1962]

update - I ordered a stick-on Bear "Weather Rest" from Lancaster Archery. This will raise my arrow height quite a bit from it's original position on the shelf and (I would think but I'm not an expert by any stretch) the tiller of the bow too somewhat. I'm thinking shooting from the shelf is more "trad" and on my very radiused shelf longbow with a short riser it's the only option and I wouldn't change a thing with that bow.

But thinking back to when I learned archery all recurves whether target or hunting had a stick-on rest of some type - nobody shot off the shelf that I remember. Then again few people shot compounds they were trad but didn't even know it so they used what worked I guess!

Now I'm pumped up for my delivery to continue tweaking until I quiet that bow down!

 

[strothershwacker]

While we're on the subject, are take down bows typically louder than 1 peice bows?

 

[Todd Cook]

update - I ordered a stick-on Bear "Weather Rest" from Lancaster Archery. This will raise my arrow height quite a bit from it's original position on the shelf and (I would think but I'm not an expert by any stretch) the tiller of the bow too somewhat. I'm thinking shooting from the shelf is more "trad" and on my very radiused shelf longbow with a short riser it's the only option and I wouldn't change a thing with that bow.

But thinking back to when I learned archery all recurves whether target or hunting had a stick-on rest of some type - nobody shot off the shelf that I remember. Then again few people shot compounds they were trad but didn't even know it so they used what worked I guess!

Now I'm pumped up for my delivery to continue tweaking until I quiet that bow down!

If that bow came with an elevated rest originally I bet it will help a lot with the noise. You've moved your contact point(fingers) further down the string, putting more tension on the bottom limb.