Here's a thing nobody tells you when you start shooting: a tuned bow is only tuned for the exact setup it was tuned with. Change one variable and you've technically got a different bow. Not a little different. Different enough that the arrow leaving the rest is flexing on a new schedule.
I watched a buddy fight his groups for three weeks last fall. Shot lights-out at 20, sprayed at 50. He'd swapped his 100-grain field points for 125s to match his broadhead weight — smart move — and then never re-tuned. That 25 grains weakened his dynamic spine by roughly a full step. His clean bullet hole from August was gone and he didn't know to go looking for it.
So this is the reset. The order I run every single time I touch anything on a bow. It's not eleven steps because eleven is a magic number. It's eleven because that's how many things can drift, and the sequence matters — you don't paper tune before you've squared your rest, or you're just tuning to a mistake.
The order, and why it's the order
Start at the bow, work out to the arrow, finish at distance. Every step assumes the one before it is locked.
1. Cam timing. Before anything else. If your cams aren't hitting the stops together, nothing downstream stays put. This is the step everybody skips and the reason most "mystery" tuning problems exist. If you shoot clean up close and open up far, look here first.
2. Center shot. Get your rest laterally where it belongs — for most setups that's arrow running through the center of the Berger hole and roughly down the string when you sight down it. This is your starting reference, not your final answer, but you need a real reference.
3. Nocking point / d-loop height. Square to the string, then set your tiller-appropriate height. A sixteenth of an inch here shows up as a vertical tear you'll chase forever if you skip it.
4. Tiller. Thirty-second check. Measure limb pocket to string on both limbs. If they don't match your spec, your nocking point reference just moved. This is the step nobody does and it's free.
5. Draw weight and draw length confirmed. Actually put it on a scale. "It says 70" is not the same as 70. Your dynamic spine math runs on the real number, and half the setups I check are two or three pounds off from the sticker.
6. Arrow spine re-checked against the NEW setup. This is the step my buddy missed. New point weight, new draw length, new insert, longer or shorter cut — any of those changes what spine you actually need. Run the current numbers before you throw a broadhead at a target and blame your form.
Now, and only now, the arrow work
7. Bareshaft at 20. Fletched and bareshaft grouping together at close range. If your bareshaft is landing left of your fletched arrows, you're stiff or your center shot's off. Right, you're weak. Micro your rest — small moves, an eighth-turn at a time.
8. Paper tune to confirm, not to discover. By the time you're at paper, you should already be close. Paper is where you verify the bullet hole, not where you go fishing. A lot of guys start at paper and wonder why they can chase a tear around in circles — because they skipped one through six.
9. Walk-back or French tune. Vertical line, 20 out to 40 or 50. This is where a center-shot error that hides at 20 finally shows itself. If your groups march left as they get farther, your rest needs to come right. Small moves.
10. Bareshaft at distance. The real test. I push bareshafts to 60 and 70 yards, and a shaft that flew clean at 20 will tell the truth out there. This is where you separate "looks tuned" from "is tuned." If your bareshaft is still landing with your fletched group at 70, you're done with the arrow.
11. Broadheads to field points. The final exam. If your fixed heads hit with your field points at 40, the whole chain held. If they don't, you don't start over — you back up to the last step that was solid, usually center shot, and micro from there.
The part people get wrong
You don't have to do all eleven every time. You have to do every step downstream of what you changed. Swapped point weight? Start at step 6 and run out. New string? Back to step 1, because your timing and your peep both just moved. New rest? Step 2 and everything after. The trick is knowing that a change never stays local — it ripples down the chain, and you re-verify from the change to the end.
That's the whole discipline. Not doing more work. Doing the right work in the right order so you're never tuning on top of an error you already made.
The math part — did that new 125-grain point actually push you off spine, and by how much — is the piece you can't eyeball. That's exactly what I built the spine and dynamic-spine tools in The Forge to answer. Punch in your current setup before you shoot a single arrow, and you'll know whether step 6 is a formality or the reason your groups fell apart. Run your numbers, then go verify them on paper.