A few weeks ago, I posted about finding a bow shop near where I am working that seemed like the answer to all of my complaints about the shops near home. Sadly enough that enthusiasm turned in to full blown rage shortly after leaving the shop. Like a fool, I only shot one arrow at the shop after having my strings and cables replaced; a mistake I will never make again! The first shot I fired at home felt and sounded horrible. The second shot was more of the same and it left two fletchings fluttering to the ground at my feet. I knew something was amiss with the bow and not my fletching job after seeing the white smears all over the prongs on my QAD. It was at this point, I realized the cord connecting the rest with the cable on my bow was not served in. This was preventing the proper amount of tension from being placed on the QAD, which resulted in the rest not falling away, but rather being forced out of the way by my arrow. At this point, I was ready to beat some ass and it only got worse when I mounted the bow on my vise and started checking alignment. I have never in my life seen such a piss poor “tuning” job in my life! I was beyond frustrated and it got to the point where I laid in bed for nearly 3 hours a few nights ago stressing over my bow, my shooting (lack thereof) and how it would eventually screw me this season!!!
Fast forward to this afternoon and I’m sitting at the bow shop down the road from my office. I’ve shot here before, but never had any work done here. They are a PSE dealer and the original bow tech that worked there was the biggest PSE fan boy I have ever seen. It got to the point that I quit shooting there because I was so tired of hearing his shit every time I went there. The local Mathews dealer where I bought my boy is the more worthless bow shop I have ever been in, so I really only had this one option for correcting my issues in a timely manner. I walked in the door and the bow tech on duty asked how he could help me. I informed him that I had a bow that needed tuned and I was looking for perfection. He just laughed and said: “You’re in luck, I’m a perfectionist.” I was thinking “yeah right”, but got my bow out of the case and let him get to work.
After nearly 90 minutes of fooling with my bow in between phone calls and other customers, we headed to the indoor range to test things out. The first thing he did was place pool chalk on my capture bar and riser to make sure we had fletching clearance. The first three arrows out of the bow were simply to check clearance and flight; no real group to speak of, but no clearance or flight issues either. Good start! The next three arrows, I shot my 20, 30, and 40 yard pins at the same aiming point. Despite being a good 12” right and 12” high (20 yard pin), all three shots were in a straight line. Very nice! I made a left to right adjustment and shot the first real group that left two shafts touching and a third 2” left of that group. Ok, we are close. I made one more adjustment, swapped out apertures in my Tru-Peep, and went back to the range to buckle down for one final good group. It was dark at that end of the range, so I couldn’t see the grouping until we walked down there and man was I happy! All three arrows were in a group no bigger than a $.50 piece! The tech just smiled and looked at me: “Well dude, will that work?!?” I just laughed and thanked him!!!
Now for the shocking part of the trip… I made the switch from ST Axis arrows to the Flatlines this year to gain some speed and reduce pin gap. I was mindful of my KE when I built the new arrows and did so with last year’s numbers in mind. With a 30” draw and 28” Axis arrows weighing 430 grains, I was shooting 270 fps which equates to 70 foot pounds of KE. My new arrows are Flatline 340’s at 28.5” weighing 390 grains. Based on some math I had done, I was hoping to jump to 280, maybe 285. The first shot through the chrono with the Flatlines was 297. “No fucking way…” was what I said when that popped up and he just laughed. The next shot was 295. The next was 289. I shot a few more after that and decided the new arrows are flying 290 fps out of the XT, meaning I actually gained 3 foot pounds of KE despite dropping 40 grains!!! I would have never thought I would get those numbers out of my bow/arrow set up. And this is the same chrono that gave me my 265-270 fps numbers with the old arrows.
Needless to say, I am friggin’ stoked right now and can’t wait to get home to start conditioning myself to drive tacks this fall!!!
Fast forward to this afternoon and I’m sitting at the bow shop down the road from my office. I’ve shot here before, but never had any work done here. They are a PSE dealer and the original bow tech that worked there was the biggest PSE fan boy I have ever seen. It got to the point that I quit shooting there because I was so tired of hearing his shit every time I went there. The local Mathews dealer where I bought my boy is the more worthless bow shop I have ever been in, so I really only had this one option for correcting my issues in a timely manner. I walked in the door and the bow tech on duty asked how he could help me. I informed him that I had a bow that needed tuned and I was looking for perfection. He just laughed and said: “You’re in luck, I’m a perfectionist.” I was thinking “yeah right”, but got my bow out of the case and let him get to work.
After nearly 90 minutes of fooling with my bow in between phone calls and other customers, we headed to the indoor range to test things out. The first thing he did was place pool chalk on my capture bar and riser to make sure we had fletching clearance. The first three arrows out of the bow were simply to check clearance and flight; no real group to speak of, but no clearance or flight issues either. Good start! The next three arrows, I shot my 20, 30, and 40 yard pins at the same aiming point. Despite being a good 12” right and 12” high (20 yard pin), all three shots were in a straight line. Very nice! I made a left to right adjustment and shot the first real group that left two shafts touching and a third 2” left of that group. Ok, we are close. I made one more adjustment, swapped out apertures in my Tru-Peep, and went back to the range to buckle down for one final good group. It was dark at that end of the range, so I couldn’t see the grouping until we walked down there and man was I happy! All three arrows were in a group no bigger than a $.50 piece! The tech just smiled and looked at me: “Well dude, will that work?!?” I just laughed and thanked him!!!
Now for the shocking part of the trip… I made the switch from ST Axis arrows to the Flatlines this year to gain some speed and reduce pin gap. I was mindful of my KE when I built the new arrows and did so with last year’s numbers in mind. With a 30” draw and 28” Axis arrows weighing 430 grains, I was shooting 270 fps which equates to 70 foot pounds of KE. My new arrows are Flatline 340’s at 28.5” weighing 390 grains. Based on some math I had done, I was hoping to jump to 280, maybe 285. The first shot through the chrono with the Flatlines was 297. “No fucking way…” was what I said when that popped up and he just laughed. The next shot was 295. The next was 289. I shot a few more after that and decided the new arrows are flying 290 fps out of the XT, meaning I actually gained 3 foot pounds of KE despite dropping 40 grains!!! I would have never thought I would get those numbers out of my bow/arrow set up. And this is the same chrono that gave me my 265-270 fps numbers with the old arrows.
Needless to say, I am friggin’ stoked right now and can’t wait to get home to start conditioning myself to drive tacks this fall!!!