How much increased accuracy will you see from changing to a nocking loop? My teachings are that you always ask this question, with the word “guarantee” included, of anyone who recommends that you make any change, and then ask yourself if you think it will be worth the effort.
In my experience the results could well be that you shoot worse, rather than better, after making ANY CHANGE due to other circumstances and you might never really know if someone’s suggestion helped or not.
Particularly with a short axle-to-axle length bow model, a nocking loop, as pictured above–stands to serve you well and I’d certainly give it a try. I’ve been doing it for years. And since bows have become shorter and shorter it has more of a place in our archery lives than ever before.
Adding a small amount of weight permanently to the string is no different than adding the same amount to your arrow. Big deal if it costs one foot per second, that won’t change your accuracy level any but if it’ll keep you up nights. Just add a quarter turn to each limb bolt and you’ll get it back.
But the dozen or so other benefits it can bring you stand to save you alot of lost points or ruined hunting trips. Not having to remember to re-snap your arrow back on the string before re-drawing after a let-down would alone have saved me many costly mistakes over the years.
As some accomplished shooters still compete without the nocking loop, I speculate that some are reluctant to make any change when they are already posting near perfect scores (to say nothing of the natural resistance to all change.
No “guarantee” comes with changing something you see. As I say so often, it’s not the items that you buy over the counter that cause you to shoot well, or not-so-well, it’s how well you make use of them?. . . .Bob Ragsdale
