It’s all a Matter of Inches

Have you ever had a bow that no matter what you did, it would never hold as steady or shoot as well as your favorite bow? It just never felt quite right. You’d set it up just like your favorite bow, but it just wouldn’t shoot the same. So before long, you’d get rid of the bow figuring that something with it just wasn’t right. You’d chalk it up to a bad bow design, bad cams, bad grip, or one of the many other reasons we’ve all used.

We’ve fought this same thing for years. We never could truly figure out why our buddy could shoot the bow great or ‘Joe Pro’ could win big tournaments with it and yet, we just couldn’t shoot it accurately. Well, we think we’ve found a key ingredient that’s been missing for some time. We’ve been checking it out for a while and feel pretty confident that there is more to draw length than inches.

Everybody knows that draw length is critical for setting up a bow. Each person has a draw length that is right for them, and once that’s determined, their bows need set to that specific draw. Seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Well, we thought so too. However, we’d overlooked and underestimated the value of a proper draw length. We have found it to be the biggest contributor to holding steady. We know now that most people probably have too long of a draw length (THE NEED FOR SPEED!!) and would hold and shoot much better if their draw length was shortened a bit. Shortening the draw length 1 inch roughly equates to 10 feet per second on the chronograph. Would you trade 10 feet per second to change your pie plate accuracy to softball size accuracy? We would, and we did.

In an effort to find the perfect draw length we started shortening our draw length a quarter of an inch at a time. (Using a bow with a shorter draw length along with an extra long string loop, makes it easier to play with draw length without having to retune the bow and arrows.) In the beginning, we were basically looking for that magic draw length that we could repeat more consistently. Then somebody noticed, or at least thought they noticed that they were holding steadier at a particular draw length. Sure enough, we all started looking for and found a draw length where we seemed to hold steadier. We would shoot several practice sessions at a given draw length and see if we were scoring better than the previous draw length. We continued shrinking our draw length a quarter inch at a time, and then shooting rounds for score. It seemed as if we were getting steadier and scoring higher with every adjustment until finally we would go too far. Too far meant, we started getting unsteady and our scores dropped. Some of us shortened our draw as much as 1 ½ inches to find the ultimate sweet spot. It took months of avid shooting and a lot of adjustments to do this, but every one of us are better shots because of it.

Also, in shortening the draw length we noticed some other benefits, our uphill, downhill, and awkward shots became much more accurate and controlled.

Our draw lengths now are so dialed in to that sweet spot, that some of us can tell instantly if the bows draw length has changed even as small as an 1/8”. You laugh, but it’s true. (He has proven it on numerous occasions.) Others have noticed very small changes in the bows draw length settings, and when they would adjust the draw length back to where it was supposed to be, they said their ability to hold steady was like night and day.

So you wonder what draw length has to do with the crappy bows? Well, originally we made some monumental mistakes in setting draw lengths. We obviously were very dialed in on our perspective draw lengths for one bow. But it seemed when we would try to set up another bow that we could never get it quite as sweet.

We would spend an enormous amount of time shooting the new bow, and would have problems the whole way. And, as mentioned before, it never felt quite right. We would spend months tinkering with this and that, check the bow’s draw length many times and finally we would decide that it must be something we were doing wrong. (It can’t be the bow because physically it checks out great.) So finally frustrated and depleted we would pick up the old tried and true bow that now has an inch of dust on it, and low and behold we can shoot. It’s not us!! It’s that poorly designed piece of crap that we thought was going to be the new and improved magic bow.

Or so we thought, until we found that even such a simple thing as draw length can get complicated.

An individuals draw length is not as straightforward as one would think. There are three factors we found that are huge when it comes to setting the bows draw length; the physical draw length, grip angle, and string angle.

Originally the physical draw length is the only thing we took into consideration when setting up the bow. We measured our physical draw from the “V” of the grip to where the release attached on at full draw. We would set the draw length of every bow we shot to be the same draw length that worked so well on our favorite bow. We would not allow more that a 1/16” of an inch variation. We spent so much time finding the magic draw length that we wanted the new bow to have it too.

However…

The grip angle we found could add or shorten the perceived draw length considerably. If we normally shot with a high wrist grip and the new bow has a low wrist grip, this would play a huge factor in what the bows draw length needed to be for it to hold steady. If we set the new bow to the same physical draw length as the old bow, they did not hold steady or feel even close to the same. The new bow had to have the draw length custom adjusted to get to the same steady holding and comfortable draw length of the old bow. (Custom adjusted means we shot a lot of arrows at different draw lengths to establish this bows optimum draw length.) We have actually had two bows set up for the same person and when they were both set to the sweet spot, there was as much as ¾ inch difference in physical draw length. Just because of the different grip angles.

Another thing we overlooked for the longest time was the effect of the string angle. Different axle-to-axle lengths create different string angles, which can cause us to anchor very differently leading to different head angles, shoulder alignments, and anchor points causing us to be uncomfortable and not holding steady.

For example, one of us shot in such a way that the string just touched the tip of his nose at full draw. He had two bows of the same brand and grip angle, but they had different axle to axle lengths. They were set to the same physical draw length. One bow shot awesome and was very comfortable, and held steady. The other bow felt like the draw was long, he just couldn’t hold steady with it. It wasn’t until he marked where the string touched his nose at full draw on each bow and then measured at full draw from the mark to the riser, that he realized they were different. The longer axle-to-axle bow at full draw, measured a ¼-inch further from riser than the mark on the string of the shorter axle-to-axle bow at full draw. This caused him to change anchor, head angle, and actually stretch out more to accommodate it. He was able to adapt, but lost some of his ability to hold steady on the target. But a little shortening of the bow’s physical draw length and a longer string loop made the bow magic.

String angle can affect you if you touch the string anywhere on your face, including your cheek. String angles also affect peep height and the distance the peep is from the eye. To get the same sight picture that we are use to, often requires an adjustment in the peep hole size.

The steps we now go through to match the draw length of a new bow to our old favorite bow are as follows. We compare the grip angles of the old and new bow, if they are not close we have to resort to shooting in our draw length making small adjustments and shooting scores with it (the hard way). However, if the grip angles are similar we will move on to looking at the string angles. We measure and mark where the string touches our face at full draw on both bows. Then we measure from the mark to the riser at full draw of the favorite bow and adjust the new bow draw until they match. Lastly, we will adjust D-loop length until it matches the physical draw length of our good bow. It is not uncommon for the D-loop on two different bows to be different lengths.

P.S. On a related note, over the years a lot of top archers have promoted tiller tuning as a way to help you to hold steady. In our testing we have found that one thing that tiller tuning does do, is it affects the angle of the riser. And we are very suspicious that the tiller adjustments people are making, is really just a way of micro-adjusting their draw lengths. After all, when you change riser angles, you change the grip angle, which we do know, affects draw length. For some people, as little as one eighth of an inch change in the perceived length of a bow can make a huge difference in shooting accuracy.

Good Shooting!