On a new bow the practical order is this: brace height first, then tiller, then the nocking point, then the arrow rest, pressure button and centreshot, and the sight marks last. Each adjustment rests on the ones before it: change the brace height after marking the sight and the marks have to be redone. None of these settings asks for an exact number found at the first attempt. The starting values come from the manufacturer's manual and from the club instructor, and the aim for the first few months is a bow that is set up sensibly and the same every time, not a perfect one.
Research has little to say about almost all of these adjustments. Brace height and tiller rest on manufacturers' guidance and coaches' experience; for the nocking point and the centreshot there are mathematical models of the bow, not tests with archers shooting; for the sight there is one study of groups at major competitions. For each item I say what is done on the range and where it comes from.
Before you start
The first few times, the instructor makes the adjustments or checks them, so watch what they measure. Two habits matter from day one. The first is to write every measurement on a bow sheet, with the date. The second is to change one thing at a time, otherwise you cannot tell which change moved the arrows. A recurve is strung and unstrung with a bow stringer, the cord with a pocket at each end that slips over the limb tips: bending the bow any other way, against your leg or foot, can twist a limb.
Brace height
Brace height is the distance between the string at rest and the deepest point of the grip, measured at right angles to the string with a bow square. It is set by twisting the string: unstring the bow, slip one loop off the limb tip, add or remove a few twists and string it again. More twists shorten the string and raise the brace height; fewer twists lower it.
The manufacturer gives the starting value as a band of a few millimetres that depends on the length of the bow. Coaches look within that band for the point where the bow is quietest and the group tightest; a beginner only needs to stay inside it and check the measurement each time the bow is strung, because a new string settles in over the first few days and the brace height drops a little. No study in the registry has measured the effect of brace height on the group: what is said about it comes from manufacturers and coaches, as I explain in the article on bow tuning.
Tiller
Tiller compares the two limbs. Measure the distance between the string and the base of the upper limb, where it meets the riser, again at right angles to the string; then take the same measurement at the bottom, and the difference between the two is the tiller. On a recurve it is usually kept positive, with the upper limb slightly further from the string, because the bow hand pushes below the arrow and the fingers draw around the nocking point, so the two limbs do not work under the same conditions.
Tiller is changed with the limb bolts, which also change the draw weight. On a new bow it makes sense to keep the manufacturer's value and check that it stays there each time the bow is assembled. If you and your instructor decide to change the draw weight with the bolts, turn both by the same amount so the tiller stays roughly where it was, never going beyond the limits in the manual; how much draw weight to choose is in a separate guide on choosing draw weight. After any change to the tiller, check the nocking point again, because it moves with it. Research has no measurements on tiller either: it is a matter for manuals and coaches.
The nocking point
The nocking point is the spot on the string where the nock clips on, and it is marked with one or two locators, small brass rings crimped onto the string or short wraps of thread. It is measured with a bow square clipped to the string and resting on the arrow rest: the nocking point sits a little above the right angle, and the starting distance comes from the manual or the instructor. It comes after brace height and tiller because both move the string relative to the rest.
Clubs often say it must be set to the millimetre. In the registry that claim is contradicted, with a limit that needs stating: the only work that has calculated how much the height matters is a model of a single recurve, checked with a shooting machine. In that model a millimetre either way changes little in how the arrow leaves the bow, while an error of a centimetre shows straight away in the paper tear; nobody, though, has tried different heights with archers shooting. A beginner only needs to mark the point carefully, check it with the bow square and leave the fine adjustments to tuning.
Arrow rest, pressure button and centreshot
The arrow rest is the support the arrow sits on; the pressure button, which many people call the plunger, is the small spring-loaded piston that presses on it from the side. The rest is fitted at the height where the tip of the button meets the centre of the shaft. Centreshot is the sideways position of the arrow relative to the string: looking at the bow from behind, with the string lined up through the centre of the limbs, screw the button in or out until the arrow point sits just outside the line of the string, to the left for a right-handed archer and to the right for a left-handed one. The button spring is left at a medium stiffness, the one your instructor suggests, because it is refined later by shooting.
In the registry the claim that centreshot and button stiffness work within a range, rather than at a single value, is transferred: it comes from a model of the recurve in the lateral plane, checked against photographs and a shooting machine, in which the settings offset one another and several combinations give good flight. Nobody has changed centreshot and button in steps while measuring the groups of archers shooting, so how wide that range is on the target remains unknown.
Sight marks
The sight is set last, because every change made before it moves the impacts. Start close, at the distance used on the beginners' course, with a rule learnt on the first day: the sight follows the arrows. If the group is high, move the sight pin up; if it is left, move it left. Correct on a group, not a single arrow, because one stray arrow may come from the shot rather than the sight. Once the group is centred, mark the position on the sight scale with the distance next to it, and move on to the next distance.
The marks hold for that set-up: if the brace height, nocking point, arrows or draw weight change, they need checking again. In the registry it is reported that at major competitions many archers lose points to an off-centre group: about three points a head on average, on the targets of a World Cup and a World Championships, with the limit that nobody measured the sight settings, so an off-centre group can be explained by the sight or by the archer. To see where your own group lands you need to record your arrows, and the plotting sheet is made for that; if your arrows keep going the same way, I have set out the possible causes in the article on high, low, left and right.
Barebow has no sight: distance is handled with the point of aim and, if you wish, with string walking and face walking, which the rules permit.
What the rules say
Anyone who competes has to set up the bow within the rules of their division. For the recurve, the World Archery target archery rulebook, in the version of 15 August 2026, allows one or two nocking point locators on the string and a single lip or nose mark; it allows an adjustable pressure button, pressure point or arrow plate, provided they are not electric or electronic and give no aid in aiming, with the pressure point no further back than 4 centimetres from the pivot point of the grip; and it allows a single sight, with no prism, lens or level and a single sighting point, adjustable for elevation and windage, on which a scale or tape with distance markings may be mounted. The same rulebook bans apps that help with sight adjustments anywhere on the field, behind the shooting line included; a phone is still allowed in front of the waiting line for plotting arrow impacts as you would on paper.
Barebow rules are stricter: no sight and no stabilisers, no mark on the bow that could be used for aiming, no lip or nose mark or other attachment on the string, no draw check, and the button's pressure point no further back than 2 centimetres from the pivot point. National federations publish their own rulebooks, with the current text on each federation's website; in Italy, FITARCO's has the same rules on these points.
After the first adjustments
Once the bow is set up like this, it is worth shooting it for weeks without touching it: in the first months it is mainly the shot that changes. Tuning proper, with paper tuning, bare shafts and walk-back tuning, makes sense when the shot repeats well enough to produce readable groups; the steps are in the article on bow tuning, and how to read arrow flight is in the one on fishtailing and porpoising. That tuning with a structured method raises the score is reported, and there are two studies. In the first, of twenty-four Indonesian club archers, no group left the bow as it was; the second, from 2026 and on the compound, had a control group, but the archers who never touched their bows improved too. Scores went up after tuning, then, with no telling how much was down to the bow and how much to the extra arrows shot. The first of the two studies is also the only comparison of walk-back and paper tuning, also reported.