Bare Shaft Tuning Your Compound Bow: Why It Matters, Benefits, and How to Do It Right

Bare shaft tuning, broadhead tuning compound bow

If you’re a dedicated archer or bowhunter, you’ve probably heard of bare shaft tuning. It’s a precision-tuning method that exposes the true flight of your arrows without the “help” of fletching. This process fine-tunes your bow so arrows fly perfectly straight—improving accuracy, penetration, and broadhead consistency. To be quit frank about it, when I have perfectly bare shaft tuned bow I can shoot almost any well-made broadhead and get “field point” accuracy.

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What Is Bare Shaft Tuning?

Bare shaft tuning is the process of shooting an arrow without fletching and comparing its point of impact to a fletched arrow. Without vanes to stabilize the arrow, the shot will immediately reveal flaws in your setup—whether that’s in arrow spine, rest alignment, nocking point, or imperfections in your shot sequence. When a bare shaft hits the target at the same location and angle as a fletched arrow, you’ve achieved perfect arrow flight.

 Let me preface this discussion with this… The bow is a machine you have to be as machine like as possible to get the consistency you are after, meaning if you have even slight deviations in your shot they will translate down range, and be even more exaggerated by having a broadhead vs field point.

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The Benefits of Bare Shaft Tuning

1. Perfect Broadhead Flight – Fixed-blade broadheads will group with field points.
2. Greater Accuracy – Cleaner arrow launch improves consistency across all distances.
3. Better Penetration – Straight-flying arrows transfer energy more efficiently.
4. Problem Detection – Reveals form flaws, spine mismatch, or bow timing issues.
5. Confidence in the Field – You’ll know your equipment is tuned to its highest potential.

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Why Bare Shaft Tuning Is Important

Fletching can mask tuning problems, especially at short distances. You might think your bow is shooting great—until you screw on a fixed-blade broadhead and it starts hitting off-center. Automatically you will want to blame the broadhead and say it doesn’t have field point accuracy yada yada yada…

Bare shaft tuning strips away that “mask,” allowing you to see and fix the root cause of flight inconsistencies. Think of it like this,  you can be hitting perfect bullseye with your field point and just be off a few thousands of and inch on your rest or cams and this can throw a larger broadhead with more surface area off significantly.

Example

Just this morning my cousin called me and sent me the photo bellow. Now this is broadhead tuning technically but it’s the same concept of bare shaft tuning the major difference is bare shaft is more precise and you will be able to shoot any braodhead and broadhead tuning is specific to the one you are shooting and you may still have some imperfections masked by fletching.  

Situation: He was getting at 50yards ( middle pin because I use my middle distance to braodhead tune and sight my windage) a pretty significant difference between his broad head and his field point. The broadhead was landing far to the left of his field point but same height. This tells you that either his cams need to be moved in the direction of the broadhead ( I this case left) or his rest needs to be moved in the direction of his field point ( in this case right). Since we are in the field without a press it was easier to just move the rest. We moved the rest on shot #1 4 clicks right  ( each click on Matthews MX sight is .0019 thousands of an inch) you can see significant change but not enough yet. We moved it 4 more clicks and now they were hitting together but slightly higher.  1 click down and we were in the bullseye.  Remember this process because it’s the same concept.

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Step-by-Step Guide: How to Bare Shaft Tune

1. Paper tune your bow I start by making sure my bow shoots a bullet hole through paper ( with me shooting it) at 7 feet and back out to 20 yards

2. Prepare Your Arrows

• Select at least two arrows identical in weight, length, and components.
• Remove fletching cleanly so there’s no glue residue. I like to add weight to back of bare shaft to closely match the weight of my fletching so I use a Goldtip collar that is about 13 grns and my fletching is about 19 grns ( not exact but close enough) many guys will put tape on the end I personally don’t like tape because it can build up enough to alter the aero dynamics
• Make sure field points are the same weight as your hunting setup.
• Make sure you shoot at the flattest target possible and the smallest dot you can see at the distance you are shooting.

A close-up of a fletched arrow next to a bare shaft, showing key components.

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2. Start Close

• Begin at 10 yards. But Ultimately you want to get a precise group at 15-20 yds ( more than 20 is pointless)
• Shoot a group of fletched arrows at a single aiming point.
• Mark the impact location.

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3. Shoot Bare Shaft

• Shoot one bare shaft at the same aiming point.
• Compare its impact to your fletched group.
• Repeat a couple times each time you make an adjustment one bare shaft first then one fletched

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4. Interpret the Results

If the point of impact on your bare shaft is left then the rest needs to move right or your cams need to move left. If the point is high the rest needs to be lowered or nock point needs to be raised up. In my opinion if you did a good job during the paper tune the fine tuning can all be done by the rest and you should be able to leave your cams and nock point alone. You can determine if you got the right starting point for your tune with your first couple of shots if the bare shaft is really far off from the fletched  ( more than 3” ) than you may want to work on the paper tune first.  

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5. Make Adjustments

• Move rest in tiny increments (.0019” at a time some rests don’t have this micro adjustment many have 1/64” and this can be a lot ). Always shoot after each adjustment so you can see if you are making the right moves and “walk it” into the flected arrow.
• Always count or notate your movements so they can be undone if necessary  
• Always do either windage or elevation first don’t try to correct both at same time I find getting up and down first is usually best then the left to right is easier
• Repeat until bare shafts group with fletched arrows.

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6. Step Back

• Once tuned at 10 yards, repeat at 15- 20 yards.
• Minor differences at longer ranges can reveal fine adjustments still needed.

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Pro Tips for Success

• Check cam timing before tuning—poor timing will ruin results.
• Use consistent grip and anchor point to avoid torque (be the machine).
• Make sure arrows match each other build the most perfect arrow you can afford

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Final Thoughts

Bare shaft tuning is one of the most valuable investments of time you can make in your archery setup. It is a sure fire way of getting the most accurate arrow flight . When your arrows leave the bow perfectly tuned, you eliminate variables—leaving only you, your bow, and your target in perfect alignment.