Why broadheads shoot low

Your bow is out of tune and your arrows don't spin true. Changing the weight of you field tips won't change anything other than the weight. See a pro or sight your bow to meet your broadheads.

Good luck. Thanks guys, I did sight it with the broadheads, and was going to try grain field points to see if they hit close to the broadhead, l did take it to a pro but we only shot it at 20 yds and it is accurate at those ranges I guess due to speed. Addicted Senior Member Feb 11, Raise your rest or lower the nock.

If your bow is setup properly, you should put your arrow on the rest and hold the bow out and look at it. The arrow typically should be parallel to the stabilizer. Yours is probably slightly sagging low at the tip. If so correct this by raising the rest. Do not be concerned about your sights at this point.

You can readjust them later. Once you have your field points and your broad heads hitting in the same spot readjust your sights for yardage.

Shooting heavier field points is a bandaid and not recommended. For the best overall performance, an aggressive helical orientation that allows proper rest clearance will offer maximum control and forgiveness.

A lot of bowhunters go for extra speed by reducing arrow weight. That's OK, within reason, but don't save weight by cutting back on the size of your fletch. Arrows with field points can get by with very little fletch guidance.

The same is not true in regard to broadheads. You need a lot of fletch to counteract any attempt by the broadhead to steer your arrow from the front of the shaft. The general recommendation is that release shooters use five-inch vanes or four- or five-inch feathers. I've found you can sometimes get away with four-inch vanes and three-inch feathers on arrows weighing less than grains, but it never hurts to have a little extra guidance. You should also consider that you might need extra guidance on lighter shafts because they're going to be launched from your bow at a higher velocity.

Feathers, by the way, do offer more guidance than equivalently sized vanes. This is because their rougher surface offers more wind resistance. Traditional shooters should almost always go with five-inch feathers or possibly a four-inch, four-fletch combination. Finger shooters need all the help they can get to counter the initial wobble of a finger-released arrow, and shooting off the shelf requires a fletch that collapses when it hits the shelf.

Compound shooters who have a finger release are also probably better off using feathers. Whether you're using shooting fingers or a release, you should have a helical setting on your fletch. You never want a perfectly straight fletch when shooting broadheads. Helical fletching does a much better job of stabilization. A helical fletch causes the arrow to spin like a well-thrown football.

This moderates any attempt by the broadhead to steer the arrow. Bowhunters who use small-diameter carbon shafts may have trouble with their fletching clearing the arrow rest when using a helical orientation. In this case, the best choice is to select a straight offset of about one to three degrees.

Incidentally, this is how most arrows prefletched by the manufacturer are oriented. Feathers are initially faster and only start losing speed once you're well past typical hunting ranges 50 yards. Helical settings on vanes cause almost no loss of speed at hunting ranges.

So, err on the big side if you're uncertain about what fletch to use. If you find your FOC is too low, consider using feathers and a lighter-weight nock. If there's one variable of broadhead flight that's often overlooked, it's the arrow's front-of-center balance point, or FOC. In practical terms, FOC determines how much leverage the fletching has to correct the arrow's flight. The farther forward the balance point is from the center of the arrow--the FOC point--the longer the lever the fletching has to work with and the easier its job.

The general recommendation for FOC is 12 to 15 percent for broadhead-tipped arrows. This compares to a recommendation of eight to 11 percent for field points for pure target applications. The difference in suggested FOC is due, in part, to the longer length of a broadhead. It's also due, in part, to field points not having the ability to steer an arrow like a broadhead can. Finger shooters, and those shooting shafts less than 26 inches in length, should probably look for a higher FOC.

This is because shorter arrows are inherently less stable, and finger shooters, once again, need a little extra help to correct the normal arrow wobble upon release.

Note that it's possible to shoot very accurate groups with field points with less than eight percent FOC, but again, field points are more forgiving than broadheads. Just as with fletch size, it's better to err on the large side with FOC.

You don't want to go overboard, though past 18 percent. Too much FOC makes your arrows point-heavy and less aerodynamic downrange. How do you figure out your arrow's FOC?

There are many front-of-center calculator sources online that will do the job for you, but it's easy enough to do the math yourself. Here's how I do it, and since I'm no math wizard, it's pretty simple. ABP is the distance to the arrow's balance point from the nock of the arrow, and TAL is the total arrow length. This formula is different than the one recommended by the AMO. John Dudley has a great YouTube video on how to broadhead tune.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Great, thanks! GregB Senior Member. Joined Aug 5, Messages Location Idaho. I had the same problem with Rampage 30 spine. I moved my rest but my field points still hit higher than my broadheads. So I have my breadheads hitting center and I just have to remember my fieldpoints will hit high.

Joined Jun 16, Messages Location Montana. Everytime my field points move as much as my broadheads its because I moved th rest too far.

When I back it off in tiny increments they come together. Thunder head Senior Member. Joined Jul 13, Messages Location Georgia. I would paper test the field points first. If they paper test well, that will tell you its broadhead related. The only time I have seen this, we paper tuned the bow. Issue went away after that. Paper tune is a good start but by the time a guy does a walk back tune and then a broadhead tune the paper tune has changed anyway.

Boreal Senior Member. First do a walk-back tune with your field points. That will tell you if your rest is truly centered. Look up walk-back tuning or "french tuning" videos to see what adjustments might need to be made. It may be that fixing that will also address your shots being high or low. Once that is set, shoot a field point, then a broadhead from the same place, aiming at the same spot. In other words, if your broadhead is lower than your field point, adjust your rest upwards.

Only work one axis at a time because fixing one may fix both. Good luck!