Archer's paradox/fletching contact?

[Gutshot]

I've seen and heard the recommended way of putting a small channel between your rest and side-plate and having your nocks rotated for a cock feather at 12 o'clock position to eliminate contact. Is this really even necessary given archer's paradox? I set my bows up this way and don't get any fletching wear on my inside feather. Either it works great or the fletching isn't coming in contact anyway. Any thoughts? :amen:

[James Wrenn]

A setup like you descibe helps if you are on the stiff side with your arrows.I do it something like that because sometimes when hunting I can not get a full draw and it can result in the arrow acting a little stiff.With an arrow on the weaker end of your spine range for the bow it does not matter how the feathers are laying. jmo

[Viper]

Gutshot -

There are two parts to an archer's paradox, timing (or frequency) and amplitude. The spine has to be chosen or tweaked so that the timing keeps the tail end of the arrow away from the riser, the amplitude is how far away it actaully gets. The stiffer the arrow, for a given bow, the slower the timing, (ie, thew tail can hit the riser), and the lower the amplitude, (ditto). Current thinking is that most folks want the arrow as close to center shot as possible, and still maintain enough of a paradox to prevent the the rig from being too unforgiving. Problem with spine, unless you really go nuts to find the perfect arrow, and then perfectly tweak it, "close enough" is usually close enough. So there's always a chance of some feather/riser contact, especially if you have a slight flub on the release, and that's the reason for the cut out. It's also the reason why elevated rests remove the need for it ;).

Viper out.

[Torsten]

The archers paradox exactly refers to me.

It is not the bows paradox.

I have loud days, quiet days and totally silent ones. Well, it makes no sense to blame the poor bow for all that.

I can get flimsy, bouncing arrows whenever wanted. The problem is me. There are a few 'hick-up' arrows but besides that it's me to blame.

Get your bow tuned and get ready the bow will not change from day to day as much as we.

Happy and almost noiseless hunting for you all

[thisbucks4u]

I havent read all the responses to this, so if I repeat somebody, sorry.

I have busted my hump tryin to make those channel rests. They look great. but I have not found any evidence to verify that with the proper arrow they make a difference.

[swampy]

I shoot cock in and have shot a 4" vane that way as well with a BH up front.It doesn,t seem ta hit for me.I haven,t tried this in a while and would most likely find it easier to spot a problem now than it was then.In any event from 20 yrds that vane fletched BH tipped arrow was within a few inchs or better every time unless ofcourse I threw it away LOL It,s pretty easy ta tell the differance of a thro away by the shooter and an errant arrow

[Lumis17]

Put some baby powder on your rest and carefully nock your arrow on it. After you shoot you should be able to see if you're having fletching contact or not.

[the other DWS]

Since each and every bow/arrow combo is unique it is hard to do much more than generalize. For most of us finger shooters each release can, and probably does, vary a bit so paradox is pretty variable too IMHO. Our choice of arrow combo simply makes it a bit more consistant---narrows the variables somewhat.
I shoot mostly metal risers and elevated rests on recurves, off the shelf on a very few and also on my longbows. I shoot cockfeather up and the fletch down and in is the one that wears first-----on all of them. Shooting more traditional--ie off the shelf--its more apparent than with an elevated rest, but even on my warfs I get some wear there. Since they are mostly full center shot and I can shot fairly stiff arrows I assume it is coming from contact witht the rest itself. On my shelf shooters I try to make some clearance---in any case it cant hurt anything. Refletching worn ones is no big deal.

[Gutshot]

What brought me to asking this question is because I didn't put the channel on my Howatt Hunter as I did on my Widow, and didn't notice any extra feather wear on the Hunter.

[Papabull]

When everything is set up right, the arrow fletch doesn't touch the riser even with cock-feather in. As you suspected, gutshot, the arrow flexes into the riser upon release and recoils the other way as it clears the string. With arrows improperly spined, they bounce of so far that the feather will slice the dickens out of your bow-hand's index finger if the arrow is "close to the hand".

This principle is one that Waree puts to good use in the design of his shelf-shooting WARF'ers. The "shelf" is built up and elevated to top off so the arrow actually bisects the plunger hole or at least where the plunger hole would be if there was one. It's got a very sharp radius, rounded at the top and only the width of the arrow shaft. With cock feather pointed down, the arrow, upon release leaves the shelf just like a rest with no possible feather contact with the shelf, which is where standard shelfs end up causing problems. They are too wide and the arrow doesn't kick out far enough to avoid clipping the shelf with a feather.

[the other DWS]

Robert, I am not disputing your statement about the way a shaft flexes upon release, I'm sure you have done a lot more shooting than I have and from the things I've heard and the few target photos I seen you're a whole lot better than I'll ever be. But . . . . . why?
I'm really interested in the "whys" of our sport. Why does the arrow flex toward the riser first? I know it is commonly accepted wisdom. Is it because of the roll off the fingertips (assuming a right handed shooter I guess)? Couldn't it be bowing up or down for that matter or some combination? Is the flex always consistant in direction. I've tried thinking through the mechanixcal process of a release and arrow launch but my grasp of physics and math leaves a lot to be desired. I'm assuming there are hi-speed photo studies of this. I'd love to learn more about it.

[Spike]

DWS check out this link to Beiter web site video. They have realplayer videos of highspeed film at each part of the process shooting olympic recurves arrow response.

http://www.wernerbeiter.com/english/produkte/videos.html

[the other DWS]

THANKS, that is exactly what I am wanting to see, now if I can figure out the downloads or how to order that vidio