A BLESSING IN DISGUISE…
First, I thank you for sharing your experience with everyone. Sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself and talk to your fellow archers to realize something amazing will come out of this. Let’s put it like this…ARCHERY IS A LIFELONG RELATIONSHIP, BOW SHOPS ARE HIGH SCHOOL FLINGS.
Let me explain my logic and tell you a “success” story.
I come from a family of rifle hunters. My dad grew up in East Los Angeles and after he got out of the Marines he went to the University of Idaho. California…he’ll never go back. He took up a new passion for hunting while in college and ultimately enjoyed sharing his love for the outdoors with me and my siblings. After the first 6 years of notching almost every tag I was talked into trying archery. In which I did. I was 20 at the time and if you asked me what a peep sight was I probably would of pointed to the Berger hole. So I bought my first bow off of eBay, a used Diamond Justice with entry level accessory’s. Decided to take it into my local bow shop. Which is now, I guess you can say, the “home” base of the YouTube channel Elkshape. I won’t say any names but as soon as I walked in there was blood in the water.
I asked the guy who was helping me what I need as far as bow ready equipment. This only confirmed his thought of me right when I walked in the door. Which was dollar signs. He told me I need a new string and cable set. Which was true but never did he ask to take my draw length or peep sight height. He kept everything the same measurements as what the previous owner had fit for him. Upon that I was taken advantage of. Getting talked into buying really nice arrows for a beginner as well as all the charges for cutting and fletching the arrows which a few vanes went flying off on the first shot. Ohhhh I also needed the shuttle T broad heads, about 3 packs he explained. Not a bad head flight wise but they were fragile looking back to all the replacement blades I had to buy and the ferrules I’ve thrown away. After my bow and arrows were ready to be picked up and gaining a lot of wallet space i get home and pull m bow back. It was a joke. I thought to myself “I thought you look through the peep hole and align the sight ring? But I guess you line up string on the side of the peep perpendicular to the pins?” Yes my peep was at a 90 degree turn at full draw. After researching on my own about shooting and aiming a bow, I was just to embarrassed to walk back in that shop and say fix this, oh and these fletchings that just fell off on the first shot, or lengthen my draw length because this feels awkward having to bend my grip hand arm so much. At the time and a little while after I noticed and felt I was betrayed, used, and taken advantage of. Betrayed as in I felt like I just met a new best friend who was going to do me right as a new archer. Used as in swindled into buying everything he recommended. And taken advantage of from him knowing all the bs he fed me I would agree with because hey I am at a “Bow shop”.

Hey sounds like a high school fling.
I’ll keep this part short…
THE POSITIVE of this whole situation and what I hope for you is that you will take my advice and most of the other seasoned members here mentioning for you to learn and teach yourself the other side of being an archer. Invest time into archery and I’m not talking about practicing in the back yard but learning how to do simple things like tying a d-loop knot or serving in a peep. Then let it take you where you want to go after that like changing your strings which can be tedious at times with tuning and getting all your specs as close as possible. Make some mistakes so you can learn! Lastly, this whole archery thing has cost me a lot of money, as most of all the DIY Guys here will say from buying your first spool of serving or spending a paycheck on a press. But I will tell you the relationships and friendships I’ve created through obtaining, practicing, and helping people in this other side of archery is by far the most rewarding experience.

Archery is a lifelong relationship.
And guess what?
Much like your visit to the bow shop…
It came from an un(fortunate) experience in the past, so pick one.

