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.
