Archery Plunger - Adjustable Center Shot and Tune | Archery Basics Explained

I have had countless questions lately as to what a plunger, this thing right here, or a burger button does. So like I said, I've had a lot of questions lately asking me what a plunger does and what it is. Mostly, the questions don't actually come in the form of questions other than I still have no idea what a plunger does, and that's basically what people have been commenting lately on lots of videos. The plunger, right here, also known as a burger button, it was invented by some guy named Burger, and that's why it's called a burger button as well in some circles. But basically, a plunger does a couple of different things, mainly two things. That is controlling your center shot. It also controls the tune of the arrow or the flight of the arrow by adjusting the tension of the spring here on this stem, which allows it to move in when you let go and shoot the arrow. Traditional style bows, such as this, has a solid shelf that is cut to center and is non-adjustable. Some of the more advanced trad bows out there, you can actually adjust the plate that the side of the arrow rests against to adjust your center shot, but there's nothing that gives. No bend, no squish, no nothing. So, the plunger is just a little bit more of a modern tool for a little bit more modern risers, modern bows, to make the arrow flight much better, and it will make things a lot more forgiving. Forgiveness can be described as when you make a bad shot, how far from the center does the arrow go? A more forgiving bow, the arrow will not go so far from the center, and a less forgiving bow, the arrow will go way off the target, potentially. So, on a plunger, you have the ability to adjust the center shot. That is the depth of how far the stem protrudes out past the face of the riser here, and you use a thumb screw or some sort of locking mechanism here, like that, that has a set screw built in that you loosen, adjust this to adjust the center shot in or out, tighten it back down, and then it doesn't move. So, every time you take the plunger out of your bow, if you choose to do so, like I do when I travel, when you screw it back in, that lock system is all set, so the center shot is always exactly where it needs to be every single time. As you go through different arrow thicknesses, you will have to adjust the center shot. Things that you can use to help adjust and set your center shot would be things such as this. These are biter blocks, that's what they're referred to, or limb alignment blocks. You would snap these on your limbs, right near the riser at the ends, line the string up in the center of these two lines, and then look and see where your arrow is. You can adjust your center shot in or out, depending on what you're looking for, but in general, down the center, maybe slightly offset to the outside, meaning if you're shooting right-handed, towards the left is sufficient. How much is just a teeny tiny amount? You don't want the whole arrow outside the center line, just barely past the center itself, if at all. Generally speaking, I find that most bows shoot best with the arrow just down the center, with the exception of shooting ACE and X10 arrows from Easton. Those are barreled, and you'd want to set your center shot slightly outside the center. If you want to know some more about tuning, I'll recommend this book here that I wrote. It's called Tuning for Performance. I'll have links in the description below and a card at the top up there, to my website, jkiminski.com, where you can grab one of these books. It's also available on Amazon. I ship worldwide. Outside of adjusting your center shot on your plunger here, there's another adjustment, and that is for spring tension. How hard it is to push this plunger stem in, the plunger tip, and that does various different things, including affecting the tune of your arrows. How it affects your tune is fairly straightforward. If your arrows are acting weak, meaning the bear shafts are hitting to the right, compared to your flat shafts, you would increase plunger tension to stiffen those arrows up. The opposite is also true. If your arrows are slightly too stiff, hitting to the left, the bear shafts, of your flat shafts, then you would back the plunger tension down to move the arrows into tune. I prefer to adjust the tiller bolts, the limb bolts, to adjust the bow weight to get my tune close, and then fine-tune with the plunger's tension to make things work as best as possible. I will also change the tension of the plunger even though my arrows are tuned perfectly when I'm shooting at far distances, because I can adjust the group size, essentially, by playing with the plunger tension. This tension on this plunger here is adjustable through micro-adjustable clicks. Each click is a change of plunger tension. I just did four clicks. Actually, five clicks. So not only is a micro-adjustable plunger a good idea because it's easy to say, I'm going to change, say, three clicks and see how it affects my groups downrange. If they get any better, I could add three more until my groups no longer get any better. Because plunger tension affects the tune, I always can put it back, and that's another benefit to this micro-adjustable system because there is also numbers on the side of the plunger here, and then I can find where the line is and note that it is on the number three. So if I make any adjustments and the bow's just not getting any better, I can put it back to the plunger tension setting number three and know I'm exactly where I was before. There's also changes that you can make internally where you change out the plunger spring itself. Say if you've maxed out the plunger tension and you need it to be a little stiffer for whatever reason, you can put in potentially a heavy spring or a light spring if your plunger is too stiff. One thing to really pay attention to that happens all the time when archers come to me for coaching or tuning setup, they'll have their plunger tension set so light that once they put their clicker on the arrow, the actual arrow will push the plunger stem in because the clicker is actually stronger than the plunger stem. That's a dead giveaway that you have a problem. It should not be set so light that you could blow on it and it would move in. You want enough tension against it to at least hold the plunger stem all the way out against its stop so the center shot is consistent and at minimum have enough tension so that the clicker does not push the arrow in. Those are two good ideas to make sure you pay attention to. I've also seen it where archers will bring me their plungers very, very stiff, almost rock solid because they have an arrow spine that is actually too weak. The arrows are hitting so far weak that they're adjusting their plunger tension up to try to compensate. So you want a rough range and it's hard for me to recommend because I don't have a way of quantifying yet. I want to be able to tell you what type of plunger tension you should be using. But in general, a medium spring in the middle setting is gonna be fine. Meaning the tension of the spring that came in the plunger almost always is the medium setting. Whatever that means, it's different between each manufacturer. But somewhere in the middle setting with the medium plunger spring is gonna put you right in that ballpark where it's gonna be fine. So it's not really anything that's like black magic or anything. A plunger sets your center shot and then the adjustment of the spring tension helps keep your arrows in tune and makes your arrow flight better. It's something that you can play with but you should pay attention to and make sure that you don't go too crazy, meaning too weak or too crazy and go too stiff. Just somewhere in the middle is gonna be fine. If you liked Archery Basics Explained, please comment below and let me know some other topics you want me to cover. I want to make sure I'm producing relevant content to all archers out there. And some of my best videos have come from suggestions down below in the comment section and letting me know, hey, this is something I struggle with, this is a question I have, please help me. I don't know how to fix this. 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