Bare Shaft Tune Assistant
Shoot a couple of bare shafts with your fletched arrows at the same aim point, then tell this assistant where the bare shafts landed. It gives you the reading that pattern supports, what the miss can’t prove on its own, and the one change to make before the next end.
💡 Bare shaft tuning chart, the short version
Recurve, longbow or any bow shot with fingers (right-handed): bare shaft left of the fletched group reads stiff, right reads weak, high means the nocking point is low, low means it’s high.
Compound with a release: move the rest toward a bare shaft that lands left or right, and down for one that lands high, after checking cam timing. Spine is the last suspect.
Left-handed? Swap left and right. Read only a hit that repeats, fix height first, and change one thing per end. Use the assistant for your exact result.
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Quick Tools
Where did the bare shaft land?
Describe the hits as you see them from the shooting line. Left and right flip for left-handed archers, so set handedness first and the assistant mirrors the rules for you.
Pre-Sets
Four common results, loaded at once. Change anything afterward.
Pick one to see how the assistant reads it, or enter your own result below.
Useful? This one is free, and staying free. If it saved you a wasted afternoon at the bale, you can put a coffee toward the hosting.
Buy Me a Coffee🗣️ Got a bare-shaft result the assistant reads wrong? Post it with your setup and I’ll look at the rule.
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Handedness
Arrow rest
Distance
Bare shaft vs. the fletched group
Up or down
Left or right
How far out?
Did it repeat?
Test check
Fletched arrows group tight?
Bare shafts weighted and fitted like the fletched ones?
“Fitted” means the same point, nock and insert, with tape where the fletching was to make up its weight.
The picture
Not to scale. Viewed from the shooting line.
⚠ Before you trust this read
What this pattern is consistent with
What it can’t establish
Adjust in this order, one at a time
Retest
Guide
Reading a Bare Shaft Against Your Fletched Group
A bare shaft has nothing at the back to straighten it out, so any launch error the fletching would normally hide shows up as distance from the group. That makes it a sharper test than paper for some problems and a noisier one for others. Below is how I set the assistant’s rules, and where they stop.
How does a bare shaft test actually work?
Fletching is a steering system. It drags the tail back in line within the first few yards, which is why a fletched group can look fine even when the arrow leaves the bow nock-high or bending more than it should. Strip the fletching and that correction is gone. The bare shaft keeps whatever angle and flex it had at launch, and it lands away from the group in the direction of the error.
That’s the whole idea, and it’s also the main weakness. A bare shaft reports a bad release just as faithfully as a bad setup, which is why the assistant won’t hand you an adjustment until you tell it the pattern repeats.
How do I run a bare shaft test?
- Start from a sane setup. Nocking point and rest roughly set, and your fletched arrows already grouping. If they don’t, there’s nothing to compare against.
- Make matched bare shafts. Strip the fletching from two arrows (the ATA’s method uses one at first). Easton puts 1.75–2″ plastic vanes at about 9 grains and suggests tape where the fletching sat; keep the same point, insert and nock.
- Pick the right backstop. A firm foam target, not a soft bag (GOHUNT warns bags can kick arrows in random directions), with room around it. A badly mismatched bare shaft can land well off the group, and farther back that miss gets bigger. For how far a miss carries past the target, see where to practice archery.
- Shoot a mixed end at one aim point. Start around 10 yards. In its arrow tuning tips for target archers, Easton suggests at least two fletched and two bare shafts, two to four rounds, alternating which goes first, and no testing in wind. Shoot the bare shaft exactly like the others.
- Read only what repeats. Mark the holes each round. Fix height first, then left/right, one change at a time. The assistant above does the reading.
- Walk back. When the bare shaft lands with the group, move back 5 yards and repeat until it stops landing consistently. Then shoot broadheads.
Which way is stiff and which way is weak?
The finger-bow column below is the standard reading in the ATA’s recurve and longbow bare-shaft walkthrough, mirrored for left-handed archers. The same walkthrough settles nocking height before anything else, and the assistant follows that order. The loop shows the two columns side by side, since the same hit means different things on a finger bow and on a release-shot compound.
| Bare shaft lands (right-handed) | Finger-shot bow | Compound with a release | First move |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above the group | Nocking point low | Rest high relative to the nock, or cam timing | Fingers: raise the nocking point. Release: check timing, then lower the rest a hair. |
| Below the group | Nocking point high | Rest low relative to the nock; a little low is common on a blade rest | Fingers: lower the nocking point. Release: check timing, then raise the rest. |
| Left of the group | Stiff reaction | Rest position or cam lean | Fingers: add point weight or soften the plunger. Release: move the rest left. |
| Right of the group | Weak reaction | Rest position or cam lean | Fingers: lighter point or firmer plunger. Release: move the rest right. |
| In the group | Nothing to fix at this distance | Nothing to fix at this distance | Step back 5 yards and shoot it again. |
The compound column follows GOHUNT’s step-by-step compound tuning guide and EXO Mountain Gear’s comparison of paper, walk-back and bare-shaft tuning. Both move the rest toward a bare shaft that hits left or right, and down for one that hits high. EXO points out that the horizontal rule runs the reverse of paper-tuning logic. Mixing the two up is an easy way to move the rest the wrong way.
How much does each fix actually move the arrow?
A bare shaft gives you a direction, never a size. I wanted rough sizes for the fixes anyway, so I ran each lever through the effective-weight rules our recurve spine calculator and carbon spine calculator already use. They come from Easton’s charts: 25 grains of point is worth about 3 lb of bow weight, an inch of arrow about 5 lb, and on a recurve a pound of draw is a pound. One spine size spans roughly 7 to 15 lb in the same tables, depending on where you sit on the chart.
| Fix | Effective bow weight | Share of one spine size (7–15 lb) | Arrow acts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cut ¼″ | −1.25 lb | 8–18% | Stiffer |
| +2 lb draw (recurve) | +2 lb | 13–29% | Weaker |
| +25 gr point | +3 lb | 20–43% | Weaker |
| +50 gr point | +6 lb | 40–86% | Weaker |
| +100 gr point | +12 lb | 0.8–1.7 sizes | Weaker |
| Plunger tension | Not in the chart rules | — | Softer = weaker |
On a 30–40 lb recurve, those 25 grains move the chart’s spine target by about 30 points; on a 50–55 lb bow, closer to 12. That’s why the assistant puts point weight and the plunger first and a new spine last. Small levers are reversible and close small gaps. If two or three of them barely move the bare shaft, the gap is bigger than they can close, and a spine change is the honest next step. I can’t tell you how many inches of miss equal one spine size. That depends on the bow, the shaft and the distance, and I don’t have measured data for it.
Is bare shaft tuning worth doing on a compound with a release?
Partly. Gold Tip’s bare shaft tuning note recommends the method for any setup shot with a finger release. Archery coach Steve Ruis argues it tells a release shooter much less: a release-shot compound is far less sensitive to spine, so the bare shaft mostly reports nocking height and centershot. He also notes that a bare shaft hitting a little low is normal with a launcher rest.
Plenty of hunters skip it altogether. In a Rokslide thread on bare-shaft tuning, one poster called it “an optional intermediate step,” and several said the test that matters is broadheads landing with field points at hunting distance. EXO compares bare shafting with walk-back and French tuning, two other ways to find rest position. I built the assistant around that view: on a release-shot compound it treats a left or right miss as a rest or cam-lean question, names spine only after those levers are used up, and then at low confidence. When you’re ready for broadheads, the Broadhead Flight & Tuning Stability Checker shows how far apart the two groups should land.
The question comes up for a reason. This ArcheryTalk thread asks whether bare shafting is relevant for hunting, and the honest answer depends on how you release the string.
What distance should I bare shaft at?
Start close and walk back. The ATA method begins with one bare shaft and three fletched arrows at about 10 yards, moves to 15 once the bare shaft is consistently in the group, and keeps stepping back until it stops landing consistently. Easton’s target advice is the longest distance where you can keep most shots in the gold, which it says is often 30 meters. GOHUNT calls a clean result at 20 to 30 yards a good compound tune.
Archers disagree on this more than the published guides suggest; the TradTalk thread on bare-shaft distance is a good sample of the spread. So the assistant doesn’t pick one right number. It asks for distance, treats a 10-yard result as coarse, and tells you to confirm a clean read farther back.
Why do my bare shaft and paper tune disagree?
They measure different things. Paper catches the arrow a few feet out, while it’s still flexing. The bare shaft shows where the launch error ends up downrange. They also disagree when one arrow touches the bow and the other can’t: a bare shaft can’t show fletching contact, because there’s no fletching to hit the rest.
If your bare shaft reads weak but your fletched arrows go the other way, check clearance before you touch spine. Dust the rest, the shelf or strike plate, and the back of the shaft with foot powder, shoot a fletched arrow, and look for streaks. A recent TradTalk thread on nocking point height shows that split: a long shaft reading weak bare while the fletched arrows from the same setup went well left. Contact is the first thing I’d rule out there. For the paper side, the paper tuning guide covers the setup and the Paper Tune Root-Cause Diagnostic reads the tear.
What else throws off the read?
- Moving the sight to chase the bare shaft. The sight follows the tune. Re-zero it after rest moves, or the next group is off for a different reason.
- Cutting shafts first. It’s the one change you can’t undo, and the table above shows it’s also one of the smallest.
- Changing two things at once. If the bare shaft moves, you won’t know which change did it.
- Spinning nocks between rounds. Keep each bare shaft’s nock clocked the same way so the only thing changing is the setup. If you want to know how a bare shaft rotates in flight, the left vs. right helical guide covers clocking it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should the bare shaft hit exactly with the fletched group?
Close enough that it touches the group is the usual goal at short range. A perfect overlap isn't required: Steve Ruis notes that many right-handed recurve archers treat a bare shaft landing just low and left of the group as ideal, which reads as slightly stiff with a slightly high nocking point. What matters more is that the result repeats and holds as you step back.
How many bare shafts do I need?
The ATA's method starts with one bare shaft and three fletched arrows at about 10 yards. Easton's suggestion for target archers is at least two fletched and two bare shafts over two to four rounds, with the order mixed up. Two bare shafts is the better habit: one can't tell a setup pattern from one poor release.
Do I need to make up the weight of the fletching?
For a clean read, yes. Easton puts 1.75 to 2 inch plastic vanes at about 9 grains and suggests wrapping tape where the fletching was to replace it. The bare shafts should also carry the same point, insert and nock as the fletched arrows.
How much point weight does it take to fix a stiff bare shaft?
There's no fixed number, because the bare shaft shows direction, not size. As a scale: in Easton's chart rules each 25 grains of point is worth about 3 lb of bow weight, and one spine size spans roughly 7 to 15 lb, so a full size takes roughly 60 to 125 grains, about 80 for a typical 10 lb step. If 25 or 50 grains barely moves the bare shaft, the gap is probably bigger than point weight should cover.
If my bare shaft hits with the group, will my broadheads fly?
Not necessarily. A bare shaft in the group says launch is clean, but it can't check fletching clearance, and broadhead flight also depends on how straight each head sits on the shaft. Shoot your broadheads at distance next, and use the Broadhead Flight & Tuning Stability Checker to see what a given miss means.
Why does the assistant tell me to repeat before adjusting?
Because you told it the bare shaft lands in a different spot each round, or that the fletched arrows aren't grouping. Either way there's no stable pattern to adjust against yet, so the honest next step is a cleaner test, not a change to the bow.
Under the hood
How far can you trust this reading?
This is a decision table, not a physics model. Nothing is calculated from your bow’s numbers. The assistant maps the pattern you describe to the reading the published bare-shaft methods give, then lowers its confidence when the test itself is weak: one round, unmatched shafts, a short distance, or a release-shot compound where spine reads are unreliable. It can’t see your shot, so a miss caused by form will get the same reading as a miss caused by the bow. That’s why it asks whether the result repeats.
Where each rule came from Four entries — tap any one for the source
Finger-shot direction rules ATA / Archery 360, with Gold Tip’s adjustment list
Right-handed: left of the fletched group = stiff, right = weak, high = nocking point low, low = nocking point high, mirrored for left-handed archers. That’s the reading in the ATA’s bare-shaft method for recurves and longbows. The order of fixes (point weight, plunger or rest tension, draw weight, shaft length or spine) combines that walkthrough with Gold Tip’s list of stiff and weak corrections. I put reversible changes first and cutting last.
Compound-with-release rules GOHUNT and EXO for rest moves; Steve Ruis for the limits
Rest toward a left or right bare shaft, down for a high one, in 1/64–1/32″ steps, with cam timing checked before chasing a vertical miss. Both rules come from the compound tuning sequence GOHUNT publishes, and the step size from EXO’s group-tuning section. EXO’s note that a bare shaft stuck right after rest moves points to a weak shaft is used only as a last step, at low confidence, because Steve Ruis explains why release-shot compounds read spine poorly. His point about launcher rests is why a slightly low bare shaft with a blade rest isn’t treated as a fault.
When the assistant refuses to give an adjustment Two gates: a loose fletched group, or a bare shaft that won’t repeat
If the fletched arrows don’t group, there’s no reference point to read the bare shaft against. If the bare shaft lands somewhere different each round, any adjustment would be aimed at noise. In both cases the result is a retest plan instead of a fix. The test format (two fletched, two bare, two to four rounds, mixed order, matched weight) follows Easton’s bare-shaft advice for target archers.
How confidence is graded Good, Moderate, Low
It starts at Good. Shooting only one round drops it two levels. Unmatched bare shafts drop it one. A horizontal read on a release-shot compound drops it one, and so does a slightly low bare shaft on a blade rest, since that can be normal. A bare shaft touching the group is read as inside normal shot-to-shot error rather than as a direction. Those steps are my judgment calls, not published thresholds, and they’re here so you can disagree with them.
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