I had a nephew dry fire my bow it was a axcident. The string to came off the limb but nothing else looks wrong. My question is how do you tell if the limbs are fine and other than eye balling it. I am taking it in to my pro shop but what else should be aware of. I have been shooting for 25 years and this was a first. I think my nephew was promptly educated and so was I for letting him pull it back in the first place

I take it that we are talking about a recurve or long bow. As you say the string came off the limb. The first thing I would do is look over the bow well. Second thing I would do is flex it lightly at first to see if it shows any signs of cracks or hear any odd sounds. Then I would re-string the bow and take a few draws with it listening for any sounds. If all checks good I would knock an arrow and let one fly. A one time dry fire on a well made bow isn't going to do much to it. It could but in my experiances it hasn't hurt them.

No it was a compound? I looked it over i know that you can explode limbs ect that never happened. Its at the shop being looked over. I may have gotten lucky this time?

I know at least a few of the bigger bow companies now dry fire their bows quite a few times during the r&d and testing of their bows.

Not advocating dry firing of bows but I think bows are built much better than 10-20 years ago. IMO

As long as the shop give sthe ok should be fine.

ribka has it nailed.

I have only seen it done twice....by my nephew. The first one didn't do anything (older bow). The second bow he dry fired had all kinds of issues after he let it rip by accident. The string/cable derailed, the limb split and the string/cable was shreaded (PSE Vengance). He got a $170 wake up call for the reparis. He had just purchased the bow new, pulled it back and accidentally hit the trigger. Scared the poop out of me...and him! Flinch

Flinch My buddy wanted to get video of a specific deer he planned to kill. So he ask me if I would video for him. Anyways he is in his stand and I have my stand in a tree behind him and slightly to the left of him. Deer comes in on the trail about 27 yards from him. almost on a head on angle to his stand. The trail curls to the left right at about 15 yards from his stand. Deer makes the curl in the trail stops and starts eating acorns. My buddy draws as the deer lifts his head. Deer takes three steps my buddy tracks him and at this point it is about a 10 yard shot with a steep downward anglemaybe 48 degrees or more. Somehow the arrow was knocked of his string. Niether he nor I see or hear it hit the ground under him. He releases and holy chit talk about a comedy show?????? His bow basically blew the string of the cams scaring the chit out of both of us. Deer ran about 10 yards into a Mountain Lural patch standing there looking to see what in the hell just happened. My buddy has no way to re-string the bow to get a second shot. I tell him use my bow and hand it to him. Deer turns back toward us walks right back to were my buddy thought he was making the first shot. He knocks an arrow draws and takes aim, he punched the trigger so bad it was the only reason he hit the deer. We laughted or azzes off in the woods gutting and dragging it out. Only to watch the video and see just how funny it really was. Watching him make the second shot with my bow and how bad he punched the trigger was TFF! Biggest deer he has killed anywhere with any weapon, and taken on state land in CT scored 174. Everytime I am at his house I laugh walking into his reloading room where it is mounted on the wall.

Well I am relieved no PROBLEMS it shoots fine whew!!

MontanacreekHunter good story!!

wish you could download that video here montana

I would but he has it and he isn't letting go of it.

was your buddy born rich and handsome with a bi uh, never mind

no he is a landscaper but like other landscapers in our area he is not making the money he once did. It is hard to under bid a guy running a crew of mexicans. He is a working class guy that loves to hunt.

I believe damage can show itself later on. My bow was dry fired when I first got it. The cable had some broken strands that I didn't even notice until it started shooting goofy. BUT...about a month later a crack appeared in the limb. I think it can take some use for the problems to show up. Mine cracked at the top near the wheel. Had to get a new limb, and new buss cable...

It sure can, its never a good thing to do. In my experiance though I have not seen damage from a onetime dry fire in modern bows from the big two (Hoyt and Mathews) and I have not seen it happen on a bowtech. I will say I heard of a guy blowing the limbs up on a Bowtech but I don't know of the whole story and it wasn't from dry firing.

I think most of the damage will be in the form of bent mods, cam lean, etc.
You can often see if by a close inspection.

It sounds like you got lucky this time.

I will NEVER understand why people want to try to draw a bow back just because they see it. It's almost liek they want to see IF they can draw it back. So many times the bow is dry fired when they do it. Just plain dumb if you do it or let it be done, IMO.

Great story! I can't believe a buck of that caliber hung around.

I took the same nephew that dry fired his bow, on his first elk hunt. The unit is a spike or cow unit. I called in a cow to 10 yards. He draws back on her, but is shaking so bad the arrow falls off the rest and is laying on his arm. I am standing next to him, trying to coach him. I reach over and put the arrow back on the two prong rest. He is shaking out of control and it falls off again. I told him to relax, but I was starting to snicker and giggle. The cow had us pinned and I started laughing louder. I put the arrow back on the rest again and it promptly started bouncing, making that "tink tink tink" noise as it rattled around on the rest, then fell of the rest again. I put it back on, but by then we were both laughing so hard that he couldn't have hit the side of the mountain. The cow walked off, looking back at us with the look on her face, "What a couple of idiots". The things that happen on archery hunts can't be matched in any other sport...LOL Flinch

Modern Bow should be able to stand a one time Dry fire without damage most of the time. I think the bow would have the most damage if set at max poundage. I have seen older bows destroy cables and break limbs after being being dry fired one time. I would check the limb after a day or two when you resume shooting because sometime crack in the limbs are slow to show up after the abuse. My opinion i bet it didn't hurt it.

Run a Q-Tip along the limbs, small cracks in the limbs, if any, will snag on the cotton, and show themselves.

Brent

I once dry fired my Mathews outback by mistake.

Took it to the shop and he pull the string off and removed the axles to make sure they were straight and then checked out the limbs and every thing was ok.
The string also jumped off the cam and wheel.

I dry fired my BowTech one time and no issue.

Thanks guys I will take all the suggestions on checking it out. I will pick it up tomorrow and report back the shop said no problem but I will check it over and keep an eye on it. The bow is only a year old.

Bad experience with bow that exploded. Long story short : summer time at the bow club late 70's. Can't remember make and model of bow. My buddy is up to bat at target #17. He draws back, aims and then releases. His arrow hits the ground near his feet and the he colapses to the ground. Old style cable with big chunk of lead on the end where the string attaches. The lead part of the cable sliced his left arm in the crook of the elbow and continued down his arm and wrapped around his wrist. Blood squirting every where.

I called for an ambulance and fire dept but nobody showed. Another archer at the club held my friend in the passenger seat with a rope wrapped around my friends arm. People called the police because a maniac was driving at a high rate of speed flashing headlights and blowing the horn like get out of my way. 15 minutes later at the emergency room my full size blazer was surrounded by 10 police cars. They got my plate number. They didn't give me a ticket or arrest me but told me it wasn't cool what I'd had done. They did say that I saved my friends life that day. He would've bled out for sure. My friend endured 4.5 hours of surgery. Scary stuff ! Bow exploded !

Ken