Dry fire/nock failure

[pdk25]

I was out shooting under the lights out back an hour or so ago when I ran into a little problem.  I was shooting my morrison dakota that is 79# @ 29" using some of the gold tip kinetic 200 shafts doing a little bit of bare shafting.  total weight was right at 800 grains without any fletching.  Truthfully, it was little too dark to really watch the arrow flight, but I had already shot this arrow a little and roughly knew how it was flying.  I drew and released both the bow and the arrow.  Dry fired it.  I was kinda panicked because I don't think I could replace this bow and I really like it.  Good thing is that it looks okay on pretty close inspection.  Anyway, when I picked up the arrow, this is what the nock looked like.

 


I had only shot that arrow by itself, so I know it wasn't damaged from another arrow contacting it.  I don't even know what this type of nock is called, but I was wondering if anyone else had something similar to this.  I know that there were some problems with other gold tip type nock, but I don't know about this type.  Hey maybe it's something I did, but I never made a nock look like this before.

[2treks]

Ouch, That stinks
Sorry for the mishap

[JamesKerr]

Hope your bow is okay. This is just a guess but maybe that much poundage put enough stress on a weak part of the nock to do that.

[Possum Head]

Once Goldtips current nocks get out of circulation they claim this common problem should be resolved.Glad your bow's OK mine has done a dance or two across the ground for the same reason and hasn't shown damage.

[tradtusker]

I can't see it being the bows weight i shoot the same arrows and nocks out of heavier bows.

I would contact Goldtip Patrick and see what they say, because that is not what you want to be worrying about, could have cost you an expensive bow.
I did hear about them having a recall on some of the other nock's but nothing about these, but you better check, let me know what you find out please

[Dirtybird]

Yep, I would contact goldtip.  See what they say and purchase some new nicks from one of the sponsors here.  Good luck and I'm glad that now is okay because that thing is a shooter.

[Guru]

Pat, I got some arrows with those nocks on them a couple years ago. Even though I did kill some critters with that batch of arrows, I also had 2 of those nocks fail on me at release!

Still have the arrows, but after the second failure, I changed them all out to Easton nocks.

Both were with my 57# Kwyk Styk

[lpcjon2]

I have a ? for you guys. Is it poor materials or is it that those nocks are made for the wheel bows with skinny strings and that Trad strings are fatter and tend to put more pressure on the outside tabs of the nock, rather than all of it in the center of the nock groove? Just my morning mind going after the coffee rush.

[tradtusker]

NA i can't see that being the reason.
sure you nocked it all the way in? as another thought?

[Rick Richard]

Had nock failures with CE's also. So, it is not just an issue with Gold Tips

[straitera]

Lucky that you didn;t damage that new bow +/or yourself. Getting too close to your trip Downunder.

Shooting after dark has its own set of trials but I've had troubles w/bad nocks too. Could be it wasn't full nocked? Could be mfg stress flaw? Helpless feeling to have them break or blowup on the shot. Never wrecked a bow (nock on wood!).

[Mike Gerardi]

Curt did you failure look like Pats.

[kbetts]

The pic looks to me like the arrow wasn't released cleanly or should I say perfectly straight.  The groove of the nock didn't fail, just one of the "ears" is folded.  Almost like all the force wasn't centered.  Just my $.02.

[pdk25]

I can't say for sure about the nock being all the way in because it was pretty dark. To feel the nocks, the 'ears' are pretty flimsy so it is possible that on the draw I pulled the arrow off of the string.  Just never had something like this happen before.  Maybe I pulled the arrow part of the way off and it did this as the string rolled off of my finger.  That seems somewhat likely.  A stiffer material probably wouldn't have done that. I will probably just change them out with easton x nocks.  I can't imagine that this was due to the size of the string.  The nocks were not too tight at all.

[Guru]

Originally posted by Mike Gerardi:
Curt did you failure look like Pats.

Yes Mike, Just like that, one of the "ears" failed on each of the 2.

Mine had nothing to do with nock fit, they fit just like my others.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with not being nocked properly as far as all the way in.I nocked them just like I'd done thousands of times prior with other arrows.

It's just a weakly designed nock I believe. I've never seen them before that or since then.

The arrows I shot with those nocks were CX arrows.

[pdk25]

Thanks, Curt.  Makes me feel a little better to know that I wasn't the only one.  If I broke my bow, nothing would have made me feel better.

[Precurve]

Just this weekend I ordered 2 dozen replacement nocks for my GT's as this has happened to me 3 times.  I also shoot CE and have never had an issue with those nocks.  I tried shooting the CE nocks in the GT's and had no issues.  Hopefully the new nocks will clear this up.

Dave

[Red Tailed Hawk]

Sorry to hear about your dry fire, Glad bow is okay.

[KSdan]

Search threads here. . . a number of us have had GT nock failures.  As I stated then- it is great that GT replaces them; but it does nothing for a broken bow or ruined hunt opportunity.  I will no longer use GT nocks.

[Guru]

Dan, All the other GT arrows I've used had the reg GT nocks...these are something different as far as I know.

Like I said, I'd never seen them before or since and these were on Carbon Express shafts...

Anyone know who makes these nocks?