Plungers: Educate Me

[Jim Casto Jr]

Nursing this elbow has given me some time to try some "new" things. I've been fooling around with plungers some. It sure is interesting to watch arrows go from right to left, or left to right on the target as you increase and decrease tension on the spring... so... it got me to thinking......

Is there an optimum tension vs spine. What I mean is... you can take a very weak arrow, tighten tension and get the arrow to fly well, and you can take a stiff arrow, reduce tension on the spring and get it to fly well too. But... is there a preference? Does it matter?

[Yohon]

I've looked at it Jim as "there is more than one way to skin a cat".....that plunger gives you ALOT more options on arrow selection.....or in other words, pick the arrow you want and use the plunger to tune it to shoot out of the bow. I'm always amazed at what can be done by switching out different springs too.......the simplicity of traditional archery

[Stykshooter]

I shoot Titans with plungers and elevated rests. A plunger is a great way to achieve absolutely perfect arrow flight, if you have some idea of what you are doing. As Yohon said, it gives you the option of tuning a bow to a particular arrow instead of having to do it the other way around. I have seen more than a few guys sell a bow and bad mouth it, just because they didn't understand the dynamics of a plunger. It frustrates me to watch them monkey around with it. One of the most frustrating things I get caught up in is to help a guy set up his rest and plunger. I mean we will get him to the point where he is grouping bare shafts at 20 yards. I will see him out at the club the following week and his arrows are porposing and flying sideways. When I dare ask what has happened, the response is that they couldn't leave it alone and decided to tune it better or something.

I had a couple of your West Virginia brethren drive all the way over here one winter and spend the day with me in our indoor range just so I could help them set up their plunger. When they left, you could not ask for better arrow flight. Not a wiggle and nice tight groups in the bulls eye. I ran into them a couple of months later and they were back to shooting conventional bows off of the shelf. I asked them if they had problems with their ILF rigs and they told me they couldn't ever get them tuned up to shoot a good arrow????

The best advice I can give you is decide the arrow you want to shoot, get it set up and tuned and then throw your damn wrenches away!!!

[Stykshooter]

By the way, I like to start with a too light spring and tighten it up until I get the arrow flight I want. When I start out too heavy and try to lighten it down, it is too hard to know when you have backed the setting out until it is not in 100% contact with the spring any more.

[BEN MAHER]

this is cool stuff ...

I have a love hate affair with plungers

[marc]

As Hank says, plungers are for toilets!!!

They are great for shooting anything you want out of a bow. I was shooting a .400 spine at 44#'s because that was the arrow I wanted to shoot! Can't do that as easily with a wood bow.

[Belicoso]

What´s your fav. plunger?
Thanks

[marc]

my fav is the Spig click button but it is way too long to hunt with.

[Festivus]

What type of tendonitis do you have Jim? Golfers or Tennis elbow?

If it is in your elbow I found this excercise that has worked for me, practically cleared up my lingering tendonitis in my left elbow and my right elbow is about 75% fixed. Check it out on youtube here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsKGbqA9aNo

That is for tennis elbow. Here is one for golfer's elbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtR8fYEUnXI

You can buy the thera band flex bar on ebay. Best 20 bucks I've spent in a long time. I got the blue one, it is pretty stout. The women were using the red bar which seems easy. I'm thinking get the green one. My left arm is weaker so had a little bit of trouble handling the blue bar but it caught up.

Sorry to hijack the thread but this is supposed to be better than steroid or glucocorticoid shots.

[Festivus]

Back to the discussion.

The 3 rivers shorty das plunger is literally a sawed version of the $11 cartel supra plunger you can buy from lancaster. Just unscrew the big adjustment knob off of the end and saw the threaded barrel off enough to get about 1 3/4" total overall length with the adjustment knob back on. Not the best but a cheap way of experimenting with one.

The Shibuya gets high ratings from the target crowd. About $30, not too bad. Will need to probably saw it down for hunting.