Was shooting my pride and joy, 6 year old Osage selfbow, 50#@28" 66" when the unthinkable happened.

3 nights ago I had the nock on a carbon arrow blow up upon release and the arrow fell straight to the ground. As full of a dry fire as I have ever experienced. Found no visible damage to the bow, so sheepishly shot another 25 or 30 arrows.Everything seemed to be ok.

Last night same thing happened again. So far no visible damage to the bow. Shot another bunch of arrows with no noticeable ill effects. Needless to say will be putting new nocks on all my arrows before shooting again.

Just hoping that no extreme damage has been done, as this has been my go to bow and has served me well.

Time will tell how tough this Osage stick really is I guess!

Hope its ok......I loves the Osage! Take some consolation though If it does go south......it makes great firewood. :o) Regards

I never owned or shot osage bow. Based on thirteen years of comments read here, including this one, it would be my 1st choice for bow wood. To my eyes there is no finer bow then a well crafted osage bow. Maybe someday.

you probably ok,, usually dryfire on a wood bow will show if its damaged,,, if it not broke ,, its prabably gonna last your life time,,:)

You need some better nocks or inspect them better I've never had one blow up ever on release. I've busted plenty but if they are breaking on release that's very dangerous

I would hate to guess how many thousands of arrows, both wood and carbon have been shot at brought up his bow in the last 6 years, so hopefully bradsmith is right. David, yes I need to inspect my nocks a little closer. I guess I have never had 1 break in close to 50 years of shooting, so I get careless. I have shot these arrows for about 5 years, year round, inside and out, through hunting seasons, winter leagues, and 3D seasons. Every now and then I will replace a nock that is plainly damaged, but will start checking before shooting each shooting session now. Lesson Learned!

Are you sure they at least have a slight snap onto the string? Maybe they are to loose and fell of before let loose the string? Just a thought? JF

Thx JF, but both had one ear cracked almost entirely through. I had just built a new string several weeks ago for that very reason. The serving had wore enough that the nocks were getting loose, and the body of the string was showing some wear, so rather than re-serve it I made a new one. Before that if i found one to be loose i would pinch it a little to tighten it back up, which likely was the root of the failure. Won't do that anymore either.

If those are the those white Nirk nocks from about 5 years ago dump them. There was a post on TG some years back about them. I had two break as well from my heavy ASL bow.

I had a tillering string break on an osage selfbow at full draw. I used it to begin shooting in the bow after final tillering, and then would make a new string once the bow was complete. Tillering strings lead a hard life and it just wore out.

I was afraid it had done damage, maybe even something I couldn't see on the outside, and the first shots following the incident were rather tentative :^) but that worry was apparently unwarranted as that was thirteen years ago and I still shoot her today, many thousands of arrows later. There's always a risk when any bow is dry fired, but good osage selfbows aren't as fragile as many believe.

I have never dry fired one of my osage bows but have had people I was teaching to shoot slip a nock off the string without knowing it and dry fire. My granddaughter dryfired one 2 or 3 times on her first shooting session the other day, no damage .

I think osage bows are a lot more resilient than glass bows and are a lot more prone to give than to break.

I don't remember if I have had that happened with osage as I don't shoot plastic nocks anymore and I've yet to break a wrapped self nock.

I've had that happen with other woods years ago with no problem.

I don't see nock breakage as dry fire as some energy goes to breaking the nock.

Jawge

I just cringe when I here that. Carbon?

Osage will break if you let them dry out too much. I've had two break but there were knots in the wood.

I don't like a dry fire in any bow. Had a couple blow but for the most part a well made selfbow will withstand a dry fire. I have had knocks come off wood arrows on release before. Arvin

Selfbow gods were angry with you for shooting carbon;-) I've done similar. To answer your question directly, Osage is amazingly tough stuff. A dry fire at full draw is a lot of stress, but if you're not seeing and damage or change in tiller after a couple dozen more shots, I'd say your bow is fine. This actually makes a case for slightly "overbuilding".

Yeah I shoot 3D with some pretty fair shots, all recurve shooters and they are awful hard on wood arrows so I shoot carbon to save on arrows. I save my woodies for special shoots. They were not nirk nocks by he way so no need to worry about that. Have a 2 day 3D shoot this weekend so will update everyone afterwards. I will take a back up bow just in case something does happen.

Osage bows are very durable. I know mine takes a beating.

I made some osage shafts by using an arrow dowel maker. They were the weakest arrow shafts I have made. Very low spine. I also made some nock inserts to glue into bamboo shafts out of osage and everyone one of them broke. I think osage is one of the better looking woods so I tried to incorporate it as much as I could into archery but as of right now a bow is about it.

"How tough is Osage?" Tougher than a Woodpecker's lips. Yessir. When it comes to firewood, the only thing I know of that burns hotter is coal.

Well,the bow made it through the weekend 3D shoot, so I feel a lot better and more confident that I either got real lucky, or Osage is pretty tough. My vote goes to Osage being king of bow woods. ??

Flight shooting we use arrows with tiny little self nocks that do break on occasion. I have had many many dry fires with no damage. On laminated wood bows I have had handles pop loose on dry fires.

Thanks badger, after continuing to shoot this bow, and hearing of your past experiences, I feel more confident that the bow still has some life left in it.

Thanks badger, after continuing to shoot this bow, and hearing of your past experiences, I feel more confident that the bow still has some life left in it.

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