Archery Bow Stabilizers and stabilization

Bows are simple mechanical objects in principle but designing them for archers makes life surprisingly complicated. 

Archers cannot shoot the arrow through thecentre of pressure (at least, not without injury), so the arrow leaves the bow above
the grip, and the bow is consequently slightly out of balance when shot. The riser is
cut away on one side, so stresses in the riser are asymmetric, and vibrations
complex and difficult to control. The archer’s ‘grip’ on the bow is hard to centre and
reproduce, introducing variable torque. Muscles are best in motion, and perfect
stability of aim is not humanly attainable. Different archers have different
preferences for bow behaviour before, during and after the shot. All these things
lead to a large range of bow movements, many of which are incidental to, or
interfere with, the arrow reaching the target. So bowyers and archers have gone
looking for ways to control bow movement.
Relatively early in modern bow design, it became clear that many movements could
be controlled by adjusting the overall weight and the distribution of weight in the bow
riser. This led by easy stages through ‘points’, lead or mercury inserts and ‘busbars’
to short, weighted metal rods replacing ‘points’, longer rods replacing short
rods, centre-mounted ‘long rods’, counterbalances and V-bars, TFC’s, internally
damped rods and oil-filled dampers to the range of stabilisers and attachments now
available. The problem facing the archer is to sort through all the options to get good
control of the bow.
That does not mean that stabiliser systems are a necessary first resort. On the
contrary, though they can undoubtedly reduce the effect of poor technique,
stabilisation is no substitute for good technique. If bow behaviour is seriously
and consistently faulty, the cause should be removed as far as possible before
turning to stabilisation. For example, stabilisers can reduce the effect of torque, but it
is a great deal better to adjust style or grip to avoid torque in the first place.
This note is intended to show how particular stabilisers and attachments control
different types of bow motion, and how their effect can be adjusted to suit the
archer’s needs.