Damaged limbs, is it safe to shoot?

[Neckbone]

Crazy story. I routinely walk out to my street to shoot my bow down the side of my house. Quiet neighborhood road. Always looking left and right before I do so. Well, the lady in the house across the street backed out of her driveway and into the road, and into me, and knocked me 6-8 feet from where I was standing getting ready to shoot. Miraculously I sustained no injury to speak of, but my bow sure did (2 months away from my archery elk hunt)

The lateral sight adjustment knob is stripped and the sight is scratched up. Front stabilizer got knocked out. Limbs scratched up. Pictured here. Going to take it to a shop Saturday and have them pull it back on a machine or at least inspect it. What do you guys think?

 

[Trr15]

That looks pretty gnarly. I wouldn’t be comfortable shooting it.

 

[realunlucky]

Damn!
Glad your OK and not hurt. If it looks alright on the draw board, I'd shoot a bunch arrows though it checking it often with a cotton ball. Edge chipping is fairly common but I've never seen anywhere near that kind of substantial road rash.

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

 

[wapitibob]

sand it (you want a nice radius), super glue it, shoot it
Don’t pull it till you’ve sanded the edge.

 

[Fowl Play]

I had similar damage on my bow last year. I sanded it, super glued it, shot it a bunch. I could never get the “what if’s” out of my head. I wound up replacing the limbs just for peace of mind. Deciding factor was I would have never forgiven myself if I had a failure during a hunt after all the work that goes into getting there and in range.

 

[Jellymon1]

I was shooting at 100yds on a runway once and a damn plane decided to land right in the middle of it! People these days…..

 

[mighteywhitehunter]

I just wrapped mine with floss and kept hunting. I took a spill down some lava rocks and dinged the bottom limb.... but I was actually hunting 10+ hrs from home. If that happened to me, in my driveway, I would just get new limbs. No reason to take a chance 2 months away from a hunt.

Maybe sand and cover with a flexible 2 part epoxy? Flexcoat is what I have used for years on fishing rods IF you can't afford new limbs.

Did your neighbor happen to have a "Kale Yeah" sticker or PETA sticker on her car?

 

[Back_country_blacktail]

I dropped my bow on a backcountry hunt and took a nice chip out and shot with that for a few years! But, sounds like this lady should be getting you a new bow!

 

[kcm2]

Replace the limbs. No point in pulling back and worrying about rapid disassembly when you have an elk in sight.

 

[roosiebull]

Crazy story. I routinely walk out to my street to shoot my bow down the side of my house. Quiet neighborhood road. Always looking left and right before I do so. Well, the lady in the house across the street backed out of her driveway and into the road, and into me, and knocked me 6-8 feet from where I was standing getting ready to shoot. Miraculously I sustained no injury to speak of, but my bow sure did (2 months away from my archery elk hunt)

The lateral sight adjustment knob is stripped and the sight is scratched up. Front stabilizer got knocked out. Limbs scratched up. Pictured here. Going to take it to a shop Saturday and have them pull it back on a machine or at least inspect it. What do you guys think?

I would get limbs on the way, but sand it down and shoot until they show up.

Ultimately it’s up to you, none of us know how much damage was actually done to the limbs, so it’s easy for us to say.

I ran my bow over with my pickup once, and all of the accessories were demo’d and the bow was a little barked up, and I replaced all of the accessories and kept shooting it.

That was probably 2012-ish and my father in law is still shooting that bow. He wanted to make sure that it wasn’t compromised in any way so he dry fired it a couple times just to make sure it was still solid, and apparently it was

 

[LostArra]

I just wrapped mine with floss and kept hunting. I took a spill down some lava rocks and dinged the bottom limb.... b

After repairing some raised splinters on wood selfbows I would suggest substituting Power Pro fishing line (dyeema) and super glue for emergency/temporary repairs over floss. I realize you might not have it on a hunt but it's something to consider. Plus you can floss your teeth with Power Pro

 

[Neckbone]

Thanks for all the advice. Bow shop said the limbs are not unsafe so I will probably sand it down a bit and give it the Krylon touch then set it up for my wife.

So what does one do? Picks up a Hoyt Alpha X on sale for $950! BOOM, problem solved. What a difference in the way the new Hoyt shoots.. Amazing.

Moral of the story: Go play in traffic kids