doesnt sound like overuse to me. the finish peeling (is this what you are describing?) probaby has to do with the finish and nothing to do with the mechanical integrety of the limbs. that being said, if they were expensive and your not abusing them i would want new ones..

how did the other 2 bows break? what kind of bows? even beginner level ilf limbs are designed to be shot and shot and shot. i know i have seen cases where people either are over tightening or backing limb bolts out too much and causing some kind of binding that can definitely break limbs.

shooting a bow with good or bad form probably has nothing to do with anything. ..good thing too! lol

 

I too am curious to the "average" bow life. I have had 2 bow failures in almost 20 years of shooting, both of which were under warranty. Both of which were from the same company.

A little more info I always shoot B-50 and at the time of the failure I was shooting just over 10 GPP on both bows.

 

In the case of the bow with the carbon limbs, it did appear to be more the finish than the actual limb material. So it wasn't a catastrophic failure.

The other bows were a PSE Sequoia and Blackhawk. They both broke during the warranty period and the company was great about replacing them.

The Blackhawk split in the riser between two of the layers of wood. The Sequoia had 1 limb split in the same way, and the replacement split in the riser.

I had moved to the carbon limbed bow hoping for a level of invincibility. So I was a bit surprised with what happened today.

I'm really encouraged by what you guys are saying though. Two failures in 20 years and both during the warranty period makes me think I've just had a run of bad luck. I'm also glad to hear that I'm not overusing the bows at all.

 

Weird, don't know quite what to figure. Imhave a das with a set of winex limbs that is shot 150-200 times every other day formthe past twp years. Still going.

Got a widow made in 1975 that gets about 50 shots a week, still going.

Got a 1973 widow that gets the same treatment, still going.

Also have a 1968 bear kodiak, and 2001 widow that gets worked out pretty regular.

In fact I have never had a bow failure while shooting. Probably just lucky

 

how bout your draw length and weight of the limbs AT your draw length? arrow weight/gpp comes into play too. just some more stuff to consider..

 

I will say of my two failures neither were catastrophic both delaminated the belly glass on the upper limb. One was a martin stick longbow this one failed after about a year. The second was a martin savannah, this one was after ~200 shots. I draw 29" so a I may have been stressing these too hard, exp. the stick.

 

Everwood - They took that into account when they setup the arrows. I've got a 29" draw, and made sure they knew that, and the bow at that draw length is 52lbs which they measured.

GraySquirrel - Thanks - My guess is it's just a bit of bad luck. It's good to hear someone else with an identical setup who hasn't had issues.

 

I might add, on all my bows I use as long a set of limbs as I can get and my draw is 27.5 inches. Probably never really stress the limbs way out. And 7 grains per pound is about as light as I ever go on the ilf stuff, much heavier on the older bows.

 

A good carbon limb should withstand even a long draw length for many years...like my 32 1/2 incher. There can be a number of defects, such as insufficient resin in the liminate, that could cause a bow to fail. It seems like low cost club bows never fail; high end stuff is designed to optimize performance and often requires that designs push the materials and manufacturing methods to the limit. The important thing is that the companies stood behind their products.

 

Just curious.... What is the gr/lb number on the arrow. I've been shooting for over 50yrs. I own old bows and new bows and not had a problem.... ever... with a bow (I shoot mostly TD recurves and a few longbows). IMO, a way to hasten a potential problem is to shoot an arrow that's too lite.

tom

 

The first thing that comes to mind is that your arrows may be too light. That would do it. Other than that it may be bad luck. i've got a Groves recurve I got back in the 60's. I've refinished the limbs at least twice and it is strung up in my basement right now. My wife's first recurve was a Red Wing Hunter that has to be 30 years old. Looks and shoots like brand new. The only bows I had a problem with since I have been shooting (since the 50's) was five limb failures on the original Asbell BigHorn recurves. I figured they were doing something wrong.

 

If a bow fails at the glue joints, then it doesn't matter whether it's carbon or another wood. It could be a bad glue batch...a void in the glue line itself, or other malady. I've only broken one bow in nearly fifty years of shooting, and I shoot thousands of arrows per year. That one was a Browning Explorer that delaminated at the fadeout.

As for life, I have a rawhide backed lemonwood from the 1940's that is traveling the continent, and has been for 6 years now; a new shooter each month. Last month a fellow took a nice feral hog with it and it just keeps on ticking. I think more bows blow up because of improper storage/care over the years, or bad glue joints than any other reasons. Keep in mind Samick, who makes many offbrand bows, and literally builds hundreds of thousands of bows, so you are bound to find more of them breaking because there are so many out there.