Illuminated Nock Performance

[tracker]

With jayb22 and pottymouth providing those excellent tests of illuminated nocks (thanks guys!) it got me to wondering about the difference in their performance from regular nocks. I searched other threads & responses but there doesn't seem to be any info for me to make a decision. The above mentioned members answered questions about one brand over another in different scenarios but what about tuning?

Does anyone have any actual hard evidence of how they shoot compared to regular nocks. Not looking for, "I heard..." or "foc should be off so...", or "I shot one once and..." or especially "why would you use one of those...".

Has anyone with more skill or time than me actually checked this out?

I think they are kinda fun to shoot, though never used them to hunt with. I wouldn't mind trying them on an animal one day.

[Heckler]

My understanding of illuminated nocks is that they are specifically designed for use in hunting situations. They allow the eyes to follow the flightpath of the arrow thereby ensuring the hunter sees exactly where the arrow impacted. They are made to hunt with.

From my experience specifically I have only used the Lumenok brand, and I did not find that they negatively effected arrow flight at all. I did say in my last post that I was not overly impressed with them though. My reason for saying this is because on one particular shot I took at a whitetail doe last season, I misjudged the distance and put the arrow over her back. The arrow then hit a small tree and the Lumenok flew right off the arrow. Because of that it took me quite a while to find and recover my arrow. I got my arrow back but never did find the Lumenok. After that, I took the Lumenoks off and put my old Beiters back on.

I understand that the impact of the arrow hitting the tree caused a significant amount of vibration which is what caused the Lumenok to dislodge, and I don't think this would ever happen upon impacting an animal. However, I still felt that the nock should have stayed in place - maybe that is normal, but I don't think so.

[jayb22]

The one benefit that I never mentioned about the firenock over the knocturnal or the Carbon express nock is that the Firenock has a circuit board that sensors the motion of the arrow getting shot and lights the nock. They other two nocks require a switch to be triggered. With the carbon express nock you have to pull the nock out almost a quarter inch to shoot it, as the arrow is released the knock gets put back into where it should be and turns the nock on. With this, I have read on other forums that you can get "flyers" from the nock movement. The noctkturnal isn't as bad as there is a little pin type thing that sticks up in the opening of your nock which gets pushed down into the nock to turn the nock on. This isn't nearly as bad as the carbon express nock, I have also heard of these nocks causing some inconsistencies. I never had that in my report since I never tested the nocks over ten yards as I did all the testing in my basement. These flyers and issues with the nocks seem to have been noticed around 40 yards.

[t/c 25-06]

i've shot easton tracer and nock turnal and with both of them i had to adjust my sights cause they shot a little lower. But the nock turnals have been great so far, i tuned my broad heads to my arrow with regular nocks and when i switched to lighted nocks there was no difference other than hitting a little low.

[twoshots]

Has any one have any issues with the battery pack traveling down the arrow on impact and hitting the tip insert.

[abrigger]

Not a lick of difference shooting luminox vs regular nocks. They shoot exactly the same to 50 years in my rig and they sure are pretty

[timberline]

I just bought some nocturnals and found they also group a little lower and to the left of my field points,i can see maybe a bit lower but to the left whats with that?anyway do like em i just adjusted my sights to compensate,they group good with no flyers