Arrow Ballistics Study | 2026

PSA: Square Your Arrows

Don't skip squaring your arrows. Seriously.
Tristan Litke headshot

May 13, 2026

Tristan Litke

Founder, Precision Cut Archery

Overview

Squaring the nock end of an arrow is one of those things everyone agrees on but nobody gets excited about. I'm guessing a lot of shops and arrow builders don't bother. We were curious how much it actually changes the groups, so we did a quick non-scientific side quest between test sets.

Same standard-speed build as the rest of the 2026 vane study: shooting machine, Hoyt AX3 33, 28″ draw length, 70# draw weight, ~290 fps, bow tuned to a bullet hole at 15 ft. We cut a fresh set of arrows on the arrow saw the way most builders would, shot a group, squared the nock end, and shot another group with the same arrows.

No measurements, no confidence intervals, no data file. Just two photos of two groups: same build, same machine, same target, same bow. The only thing that changed between them is whether the nock end was squared.

Arrow group on a paper target before squaring the nock end of the arrows
Before squaring
Arrow group on the same target after squaring the nock end of the arrows
After squaring
Tristan Litke headshot

Written by

Tristan Litke

Founder, Precision Cut Archery

Tristan Litke is the founder of Precision Cut Archery, a bowhunter, and a software engineer. For the 2026 Arrow Ballistics Study, he and his team led experiment design, data collection, analysis, and development of the website you're reading right now.

© 2026 Precision Cut Archery. Except where otherwise noted, content and data are licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. Non-commercial use is permitted with attribution and a link back to this site. For commercial permissions or inquiries, contact [email protected].
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