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The mysterious paper tear...

Now I would generally caution compounders about paper tuning. Too many archers think it will show arrow spine/rest issues, but don't realise it will also show nasty bow hand habits which can obscure results. And a bad paper tear can still come from a bow that groups. So not the be all and end all of tuning.

But in HD video we could see a really nasty arrow flight that we couldn't tune out of the bow. So took it inside and shot through paper to see what we could see.  Tuned for bullet holes... Had it down to a 2cm tear, but could see a bit of variation in nock position... ie left, right and or high with no consistency. And every few arrows a 3inch horizontal, nock right tear that neither myself or Martin could repeat on purpose even massively torquing the bow in either direction. We filed half the cable guard out (don't do this at home folks, I am not recommending it as it is messing with factory spec and there's a high risk of breaking something or your self) and managed to improve the arrow flight and lessen the weird tear, but it was still at least 2 inches.

So we put it down to archer error and I started putting a lot of arrows through paper to see if we could tune me instead of the bow and get some consistency. 600 arrows (over a week) later and no improvement and no real idea where the shot came from. On Monday night I was feeling a little cramped in the draw and more than a little pissed off with the whole thing. So lengthened the D-loop a little in sheer desperation and low and behold...bullet holes. 36 arrows and not a single bad shot. So lesson learned. Paper tune is not totally useless... it can show you a thing or two... and total wow I never realised just how much bad draw length can queer the shot. And I gotta start listening to myself when I'm not comfy!

So Mr Damsbo has gone home :( and now we start planning for either Berlin or the F2F... not sure which yet. But the bow is at least tuned for paper and I'm slowly getting arrow count up again. Now maybe we can start worrying about score again :)

Posted by Erika Anear at 5:25 PM