Field Notes
Notes from the bench and the field. What actually held up, what turned out to be wrong, and why.
10 July
The 90-Minute Full Tune: My Bench Workflow
A real tune takes 90 minutes, and most of it isn't shooting. Here's my bench sequence with the clock running, so you can steal it.
6 July
Re-Tuning After You Change Anything: The 11-Step Reset
Swap a rest, a peep, a point weight — anything — and your tune moved with it. Here's the order I re-check every time so I'm not chasing a ghost at 40 yards.
5 July
The Truth About Microdiameter Shafts
Skinny shafts drift less and punch deeper — but the tradeoffs nobody mentions are real. Here's when 4mm is worth it and when you're paying for nothing.
2 July
Wraps: The Cheapest Tuning Aid You're Not Using
A $12 pack of arrow wraps buys you repeatable fletching, a built-in nock index, and a little rear weight that stiffens your spine. Most guys skip them to save four grains. That's backwards.
28 June
Cable-Driven Rest Setup: The Trap Most Shops Fall Into
Cable-driven rests are great until the cord's tied wrong. Most shops time the rise and ignore the part that actually wrecks your groups.
27 June
What 100 Recovered Arrows Taught Me About Shot Angles
I started keeping every arrow I pulled out of an animal. A hundred of them later, the lesson wasn't about broadheads or FOC — it was about angles, and how badly we lie to...
26 June
How to Read a Spine Chart (And When to Ignore It)
A spine chart is a starting point, not an answer. Here's how to read one — and the four times the chart is flat wrong.
25 June
The Most Overlooked Tuning Tool: Your Phone Camera
You're carrying a 240fps high-speed camera in your pocket. It catches the nock kick, the rest contact, and the cam lean your eyes never will — and most archers never point it at their...
25 June
Shooting Through Your Pegboard: A 5-Minute Tune Verification
A $12 sheet of pegboard and one arrow will tell you in five minutes whether your bow is still tuned. No paper, no draw board, no guessing.
22 June
The Vane Length Trade-Off Most Hunters Get Wrong
Everybody runs 2" Blazers because the pros do. Half of them are shooting fixed heads at quartering elk and wondering why their arrow won't steer. Vane length isn't a fashion choice — it's a...
19 June
Why Your Bow Won't Stay Tuned (And What to Do About It)
You tuned it in July. By October it's tearing left and you swear you didn't touch a thing. You didn't have to. Here's what actually moved.
17 June
Buck Fever Is a Symptom, Not a Disease
Everybody treats buck fever like a curse you're born with. It's not. It's the predictable output of an undertrained nervous system meeting a moment it's never rehearsed.
15 June
How to Spot a Bad Pro-Shop Tune
You paid for a tune and shot a bullet hole through paper. That doesn't mean your bow is tuned. Here's how to tell the difference.
14 June
The Quartering Shot Math Nobody Does
Everybody knows quartering-away is the money shot. Almost nobody knows where to actually aim — and the closer the angle, the more wrong the crease becomes.
13 June
Why Your Bow Is Slower Than the Box Says — and Why That's Fine
Your bow won't hit its IBO number. Neither will mine. Here's what that sticker speed is actually for, where the speed really goes, and why The Forge shows you both the rated number and...
13 June
Spine Runs on IBO, Not Your Chronograph — Here's Why
Your measured arrow speed is the most honest number you own — for kinetic energy and trajectory. For spine, it's the wrong number, and feeding it in points the verdict backwards. Here's the actual...
13 June
Brass Inserts Aren't Magic
Brass inserts don't add penetration. They add weight — and whether that weight helps you depends on three things almost nobody checks.
12 June
Limb-Driven Rests: When the Timing Is Right
Cable-driven rests fail quietly and ruin your tune an eighth of an inch at a time. Here's why most hunters should be shooting limb-driven, and the two cases where they shouldn't.
11 June
D-Loop Length: 1/16" Off Will Cost You Groups
Your D-loop is the last half inch of your draw length, and almost nobody measures it. Here's why a sixteenth of an inch matters and how to tie the same loop every time.
7 June
Your Center Shot Isn't Where You Think It Is
Measuring center shot with a ruler gets you in the parking lot. It doesn't get you to the door. Here's why your arrow almost never wants to sit where the manual says.
4 June
Thirty-Five Down a Canyon — The Red Stag That Made the Shot-Scenario Matrix
A 700-pound red stag, quartering away at 35 yards, 30 degrees downhill. Hoyt RX9 Ultra at 81 lb. 460 grain arrow with a 100 gr BEAST titanium mechanical. Full pen + offside joint shatter....
4 June
Tiller — The 30-Second Check Nobody Does
Your limb bolts drift, your tiller shifts, and your bow quietly stops being the bow you tuned. Here's the 30-second tape-measure check that catches it.
4 June
Three Feet at Sixty Yards — The Day a Cracked Limb Taught Me About Tune
Most archers read a 36-inch miss at 60 yards and assume the shooter pulled left. The math says otherwise. This is the hunt that built the v140 yaw→drift coupling — and the bareshaft-tune signal...
3 June
My 500-Grain Eland — What Ashby Missed
Two years ago I almost lost an eland to a build the spec sheet said should have passed through a brick wall. The animal lived; the build didn't. This is the hunt that built...