Derek Nourse

Hand placement
Hand placement on your bow is important – very important, in fact. Incorrect placement can result in arrows going off to one side, which might be interpreted as incorrect arrow spine. Hand placement must be the same for each shot. This might seem self evident, but it can plague one at some or other stage.
Hold the bow as if picking up a suitcase, so that the knuckles of the bow hand are more or less 45 degrees to the handle. The pressure of the bow must be along the base of the pad of the thumb and in line with the bone in the forearm.

For recurves with a pistol grip, it is easy to get the grip a little too far to the left or right, which tends to give left or right-shooting arrows. If this is the case, try tucking fingers 3, 4, and 5 against the riser, thus holding the bow only with thumb and forefinger. This has a stabilising effect and generally centres the bow in one’s hand, taking care of the difficulty.

Carbon arrows
Try this, it could make a difference. Carbon arrows are very popular, even amongst traditionalists, although this is unlikely to be the case with diehard traditionalists in the primitive-bow category. And this makes sense, as an all-wood bow really requires an all-wood arrow. In this brief article I am promoting wood. It really is a good arrow material. There are a number of factors to consider.
Weight: Carbons lack mass, so they usually require weight tubes or some form of insert and/or heavy points, or both, in order to have enough weight for hunting purposes. I am referring to a weight of 600 to 650 grains. Wooden shafts can be found in many weight categories, the wood type dictating what the shaft weight will be. For example, hardwoods such as ash will be heavier than soft woods such as cedar. But even cedar will be heavier than most carbon shafts, and will yield an arrow weight as mentioned above.

Tapering: Wooden shafts can be tapered very easily over the last nine inches of the nock end to a diameter of 5/16ths of an inch, which gives improved arrow flight. This can even transform an arrow that tended to be a bit too stiff for a bow, into a perfectly flying one. In fact, tapering the shaft in this way makes a superior arrow. Note that the more expensive carbon hunting shafts are also tapered in this way.

Broadhead suitability: There are vast arrays of glue-on broadheads available that have been proven effective, since they were the first types of head made for the first types of shafts – wood.
Strength: Carbons are stronger than wood, but they are also more expensive. A well-made wooden hunting arrow gives nothing away to a carbon hunting arrow over the typical distance at which game is shot. Check the accompanying picture of arrows in the warthog. It was nearly dark, the hog just visible, but certainly not the arrow once it had been shot. Shooting distance was 18 paces (yards). The bow was a T/D recurve. The first two arrows shot were tapered carbons. The third shot was a tapered wooden arrow. Each arrow had hit the hog – that was clearly audible. But where? Well, the picture shows the result, the wooden arrow ending between the carbons!

Give wood a try. You could be pleasantly surprised.

Types of wooden shafts available: cedar, spruce, larch, ash, laminated birch, hexpine, hickory, ramin. This list is not complete by any means, but it is enough to start with. In another article I’ll go through preparing a shaft. In the meantime, may your arrows, whatever their type, fly true!