Why Broadhead Tuning Your Bow is So Important

I learned an extremely valuable lesson last year when it came to tuning my bow, accuracy and getting ready for the season. More so than any previous year, I focused more on my archery prep by trying to improve my accuracy and confidence at longer ranges. I took a class with No Limits Archery and Alpha Bowhunting, and I spent way more time on the range. I even upgraded key pieces of my bow - new sight, new string as well and a larger stabilizer. Heading into the archery elk season, I had never been more confident in my shooting ability at longer ranges. Then it all came crashing down with my first 3 arrows at 30 yards when I went to a broadhead tuning event. 

I had heard of broadhead tuning before but had never really considered it. Didn’t really understand why, but boy was it a humbling experience the first time. I quickly learned that shooting a broadhead exacerbates anything that’s off with the tuning of your bow and arrow flight. Where I thought my bow was shooting great with field tips, as soon as I started shooting with broadheads, everything was down and to the left. All my confidence went down the toilet in my bow because I just couldn’t get my groups to consistently land where I wanted them to. See my first three arrows below at the range shooting broadheads.

This was my first group at 30 yards with broadheads at my first broadhead tuning event. Immediately was hitting the panic button.

Note I was shooting Montec G5 broadheads. This is not a post about the most accurate broadheads or fixed vs mechanical. For my bow and the arrows, shooting Montecs was not the issue. 

This sent me down a rabbit hole with the helpful folks at No Limits to try and tune my current bow. In most cases with newer bows, it’s just a few quick adjustments, but with my older bow, we were having to make adjustments to my rest that were way outside of the specifications for that bow. Something was off with my bow, and it wasn’t until I started shooting broadheads that it exposed those flaws. 

I was planning to upgrade my bow at some point in the future, and given that we tried everything we could to tune my existing bow, this fast-forwarded those plans greatly. When we were talking through options at the shop, they basically said that given that we’ve tried everything without fully stripping the bow down, the age of your current bow and how close we are to the season, the quickest path to getting you back on track is a new bow. So I bit the bullet and got a new bow. The last thing you want to be doing right before the season. I was that guy. Even more frustrating since I had put in the time in the off-season to be better prepared to hopefully avoid this situation. But the guys were right, after a few sessions at the range with the new bow, my confidence was fully restored in my shot, and I was loving shooting a brand new bow.

Next broadhead event with the new bow in-hand. More work to do still but feeling better.

All this to say, I learned an extremely valuable lesson last season on the importance of broadhead tuning. I had no idea of some of the issues my old bow had because it was shooting great with field tips. However, shooting with broadheads exposed the issues with my old bow immediately. That’s why getting some broadheads downrange before the season is so important to ensure your bow is tuned to those broadheads and those arrows are going where you want them to. This helps to remove any doubt and further build that confidence behind your shot for when game-time comes during the season.

This is at 70 yards with my new bow. I was loving shooting this thing and so glad I made the switch before the season.