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Nocks

Creamer

Active Member
1,589
81
Athens
I had something interesting happen over the weekend. When I ordered my feathers to fletch a few arrows, I picked up a pack of Bohning "standard" white nocks. The Vintages I am shooting came with like a translucent orange nock. They were ok, I just always like shooting solid white. They are more visible to me. So, I swapped the Bohning's in on my trad vane arrows and on the shafts I did up in feathers. I went out to shoot the feathered shafts and noticed my arrow flight wasn't great, which made no sense. To the naked eye, they seemed to be corkscrewing a bit. I went inside and grabbed one of the trad vane arrows...similar result. And those arrows were flying like lasers the days before. The Bohning nocks seemed a little tighter on the string, for sure, when I'd nock an arrow. So, I popped one of them off and reinstalled the Black Eagle nock, and boom...lasers again. I really didn't think the tightness of the nock would affect arrow flight like that, and that seemed to be the culprit. I went back and reinstalled the BE's in all of them, and both feathers and vanes are flying great again. So now I guess I'll have to buy a pack of BE's solid white nocks if I want solid white. :confused:
 

Quantum673

Black Hat Cajun
Supporting Member
Can you open the nock up slightly. I had a batch of nocks that were a little loose on the string so I heated a cup of water and dipped the nock in a few seconds to soften the plastic then squeezed them together a touch. Worked great. Would think you could do the same and open them a touch.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert and generally only know enough to screw something up.
 

brock ratcliff

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
24,840
247
Nock fit can indeed make a huge difference. I’ve often changed string serving size to get the right fit for various nocks. There doesn’t seem to be a standard to follow. String material, strand counts, all variable. Seems to me the old advice of snaps on, pops off with a slight flick, is about right... albeit very vague.
 

Sgt Fury

Sgt. Spellchecker
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I’ve got about 6 dozen or so....I can send you three dozen if you can use them. PM me your address and I’ll send them out.
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,082
223
Ohio
Yep, nock fit can make a big difference... especially on an arrow coming out of a trad bow. IMO the higher exit velocity from a compound makes the difference less noticeable, or not even at all. Change nocks or try taking some sand paper to the inside of the nock to widen it a fraction. Or like Brock said, you can change the serving size... but that will of course make your other nocks fit too loose by the sounds of it.
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,722
177
Ohio
tight nocks can cause real issues, and the lighter the draw weight, the more noticeable the effect of overly tight nocks will be. I don't own a carbon arrow, so I can only speak to glue on plastic nocks. I use Bohning Classics and if I get one or several that are too tight, I just spread them open a tad. works in reverse if they won't snap onto the string. this works just fine unless your string is just plain too fat for the nocks you want to use.
 

Creamer

Active Member
1,589
81
Athens
I assumed that because he was using trad arrows that he needed glue on nocks. I also have the snap in kind...different sizes though because some were for easton aluminum, some for ACC’s and some for carbon arrows. If he sends me a pic, I probably have it.

Yep I'm using standard 5/16" press fit nocks.