I agree with the recommendations made above. However, in a broader sense, it has been my experience that if i shoot a bow long enough, I will eventually have a dry fire, either from a nock where a crack went unnoticed and later broke under the stress of being shot, or from a nock that slipped out of the string at full draw. There are a couple of things that can help prevent an unwelcome surprise from turning into a disaster.
Inquire about a bow before you buy it. Has it been constructed sturdily enough to withstand a few dry fires without breaking? My experience is that a bowyer who has built a bow with this eventuality in mind will proudly state that, whereas one who has not given much thought to it will hem and haw. Probably it takes a little bit away from performance to build in the extra durability, and if you are willing to accept this tradeoff, then fine.
Obviously, examine all your nocks from time to time and discard any that have incipient cracks. I quit using pin micro-nocks for this reason; cracks were occurring too frequently, but at least I saw this problem coming and managed to avoid having a dry fire because of it.
Don't grip your bow so lightly that it will fly out of your hand if there is a dry fire. The one time I had any obvious damage from a dry fire, the bow flew out of my hand and the riser cracked when it landed on my concrete patio. I have had a few other dry fires when there wasn't any obvious damage, but you always wonder if there was some structural damage that you didn't notice, sort of like old football injuries that don't start causing problems until 20 years later.
Topic: Vintage Arrow Nocks (Read 923 times)
