Came back from a hunt on a friends farm (3 does 20yrds away but too many twigs and branches for a shot) and went into his barn to take a few target shots.
I took a few shots with my compound (glad I did, 30yrd pin was shooting high) and then he tried with his crossbow.
His 20yrd pin was good but his 35 was off so he was adjusting, his third shot was a horrible loud noise and nothing sticking out of the target. Only took a second to realize he had forgotten to put a bolt on the deck and had dry fired it. A cams axle had broken where the limb splits (stupid compound x-bow, why bother with cams when its not you holding back the weight?). Anyways, he took it pretty well, espescially since he just got it back from warranty work after cracking a limb from shooting too light of a carbon bolt.
Hopefully he'll see the light and buy a bow soon.

when are people going 2 learn them cheating bows arent no easierj/p lol

At least he has the warrenty.

I was curious about what kind of xbow he had.

That's why I always reccomend a Ten Point cross bow. If you forget to load the bolt there is an anti dry fire mechanism that stops the string in less than an inch.

There are a few others that use a similar device and if I were to purchase a cross bow this would be a must have piece of standard equipment.

The draw cycle. Instead of gradually loading up to peak weight at full draw like non-cam limbsdo, cams on the limbs have the ability to load up near the start of the draw cycle.

Why bother with a compound bow for the same reason ? It isn't like you're holding the full weight with them either .

It sounds like your bud needs to read up on the basics before he destroys his xbow and/or gets seriously hurt . Better yet , tell him to buy a recurve xbow , he can still dry fire it but he won't have cams to destroy .

LOL!Anybody thatforgets to load a bolt on the crossbow before yanking the trigger, maybehe shouldn't be playing with sharpened sticks.[8D]

The original idea behind the compound crossbow was because of the crappy triggers most manufacturers use. The more draw weight, the more tension on the triggers. The more tension, the harder the trigger pull. A high poundage crossbow is a lot harder to trigger off than a lower poundage one. So, instead of doing the R&D to design a decent trigger system, they put cams on the things. Letoff means they could crank up the draw weight and still get by with their crappy triggers.

Ten Point and Excalibur are the two main exceptions to the rule. They've got updated trigger systems. If I were to get another crossbow - which I may do, someday - I'd go for the Excalibur. Mainly because of the over-inflated price for the Ten Point, but also because they are recurve crossbows. Simpler, less stuff to break, less stuff to maintain, all of which equals more reliable.

I hunt with traditionalbows instead of compoundsfor the same reason.

I'm pretty sure it was a Horton but I didn't look too closely, I can tell you there was alot of plastic on the thing.
I do own an Excalibur Exocet that I love, but I hate carrying the thing, and now that I'm confident with my compound I never use it anymore. Comparison to my Exocet was why I made the comment about stupid cams, like AP said there is very little that can go wrong with my x-bow as the trigger is the only real mechanical moving part on it. The recurve limbs give plenty of power and its easy to remove the string when the season is over.

If you're not gonna use that Exocet anymore I would be more than happy to babysit it for you .

Thanks for the offer Kevin, but a friend of mine beat you too it, now I'm trying to get it back before he lets all his friends use it since he just bought an Exomag.
I can't complain though, I get a share of meat taken with it, and I hunt his land all the time.