ORIGINAL: awshucks

I blew up a Quad 400, not sure why. There were wheels, cables, string, limbs, ect all over my garage floor. Could not get less than a 3" group at 20 yds, probably due to the 12 lb trigger pull. There was a post along time ago on another forum by someone who had a relation that had worked for Bnett for a long time. He gave a run down on the various models and problems or, in some cases, lack thereof. I wish I could find it, but can't.

Basically, when you shoot an arrow, the weight thereof slows the string and limbs down some. When you dry fire either full or partial, that lack of resistance allows the limbs to exert all their force on the string alone and bad things can and usually do happen.

I've had dry fires and was lucky. Planter and Htoler [I believe] weren't.

You can string/unstring/adjust an Excals string via a "stringing aid" which has two pieces of heavy duty plastic w/ holes on a string. You slip the holes over limb tips and partially cock the bow, which allows you to replace or add twists to the string. There are two scribe marks on the rail top on Excals that show the preferred brace heights. As long as you are between the two you are good to go. Most Excals have a "sweet spot" that is 1 1/8" to 1 1/4" from end of rail, near closest scribe line to trigger.

You can also change strings w/o the aid, but it's a job! All new Excals come w/ video or DVD that explains all of this much better than I can.

The more poundage your bow has, the harder it is on servings, just a fact of crossbow life. My Emax is cruel to srevings, the Phoenix much kinder, my friends Vixen has had the same serving for well over 500 shots, and still looks good.

The ideal situation is to shoot the bows before purchase, like at a Cabelas. The best prices are usually at bowhuntersuperstore on E-bay. Good luck to ya!!