Carelessness almost cost me today!
 

What a dummy........I preach it all the time, "Attention to detail", "know your equipment" etc etc, and a lack of concentration almost cost me my 3D league title, a trip to the hospital and maybe even injuring another person.

Today was Week 15 of my outdoor winter 3D league, The final week and this shoot would decide the overall "Open" class title between me an one other good shooter in the league. A few points separated us for the overall crown but I needed to put on a good showing today to secure it.

Almost didn't happen. :eek: While warming up this morning at the practice buttsand talking with the regulars I was rattling arrows together pretty good, busted 2 nocks and at the 40 yard bag I really hit one hard........my pin nock was gone and the bushing was just crushed in the center.
So I pulled the bushing (I don't glue them so I can change damaged bushings) and replaced it with a fresh one and a new pin nock.

I FORGOT TO CHECK THE SHAFT.[&o]The very next shot was with that same arrow and it absolutely exploded at release. Pieces went everywhere in every direction and with some serious force. I was EXTREMELY EXTREMELY lucky that rather than winning a league title I wasn't going for surgery. I pulled a 3" sliver of carbon out of the cuff of my long sleeve shirt somehow missing my skin, and the back fletched portion of the arrow whistled over my knuckles. I was very close to being a gruesome internet picture.

Picture one is the damage to my bow and arrow rest.....notice how hard a portion of the arrow hit the corner of my Limbdriver rest. IT BLEW THE ENTIRE CORNER CLEAN OFF. [:-]It also smacked up the finish on the riser leaving a gold streak down the shelf where the arrow label skidded down the face.



Picture 2 is of the arrow itself........at least what we could find of it. There were at least a dozen people on the line with me and that is all we could find of the exploded arrow.



And picture 3 is just anice picture of the title winning 3D rig. :D
I shoot fixed pins IBO scoring in the Open class against some very good scope shooters to 45yds+ so I am pretty proud of that. This league is a grind for 15 weeks in all weather.
I held it together shooting a 309 w/ 15x'sto secure the overall league title for the 3rd straight year. But I was very fortunate that I'm not having surgery right now.:eek: I was also pretty rattled for the first 6-8 targets while the adrenaline wore off.



Moral of the story is USE SOME COMMON SENSE. I didn't do that today and it could have been very ugly. I endangered myself and the people around me and I got away with one. IF you are shooting groups and hitting arrows ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS inspect the ones that got hit.......look beyond the nock or bushing.
I am guilty of not doing it everytime and I could have paid the price.

That won't happen anymore.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Glad you came out OK. I guarentee you'll check them now.


I'm guilty of the same thing though, I group all the time but only seriously check if they hit pretty hard.


The arrow I'm shooting, I've been shooting for 3 weeks now, and it "might" have gotten it's third win in a row. It might be another one to write on the fletchings ;)

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Glad you and everyone else is alright. Hopefully it helps someone to avoid a trip to the hospital in the future.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Where is picture three!! Glad you and everyone else are ok Matt!! I think i will look my arrows over a little better as well from now on!

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

WOOOOOOW, what a story. Sure glad you were able to type this story to remind everyone about checking their arrows. Mobow had a thread earlier this week about the exact same thing.

We had some arrow slapping on our shoot today also. I gave mine a quick check, but probably shudda done a better job myself. I will now.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

i am proud to know that no one got hurt and congrats on your win.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Lucky indeed buddy and a huge congratulations on your victory.:)

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

And you know better big guy. Glad you or no one else was hurt, and congrats on the 3D crown .

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Matt-Congrats on the victory and for being humble enough to share a mistake you made that could have had disastrous results. I hope everyone who reads this will take the time to be more careful. Thanks you for posting this.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Good reminder and Congrats on your title!!

But I see the only reason you shoot as good as you do is because if you miss in the yard the arrow is going in the drink[:-]!

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Wow, that would really sucks. Congrats on your win, and congrats on not having your hand tore in half.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Wow.... Now that is some green grass..... Do you fertilize? Perhaps aerate? :D

That is 100 shades of green greener than my yard..... Guess the old saying is true, the grass is always greener on the otherside....... Especially if your name is Terrelle Pryor


Congrats on the big win!
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RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

congrats on not getting hurt and congrats on the title, but pay attention Dammit!! :D

RE: Carelessness almost cost me today!
 

wow glad to hear you weren't hurt. that must have been scary when it blew up

RE: Carelessness almost cost me today!
 

Yeah it was a treat.........but I wouldn't have wanted to be one of the other guys there as well.

One guy (who I don't know personally) pulled out his BRAND NEW "brand X" bow........(I'll leave name-brands out but it was a 2008 binary cam style bow)
He wanted to show someone on the practice range how the cam timing looked and POW!!![:-]
I was just around the corner out of sight and it sounded like someone got shot with a .22 I looked over just in time to see a piece of cable guard bounce across the parking lot.
I had never seen anything like it........the upper cam cable post had sheered completely off at full draw flush with the cam surface letting the bow just come unglued. The people he was showing it too confirmed that he didn't dry fire it or anything, that cam part just snapped off. [:-]
String and cable spaghetti and a few odds and ends hanging off.

This was a brand new bow that he said he didn't even get to fire a shot out of yet, he bought it yesterday and JUST pulled it out of the case to sight in.....so technically THAT guy had a worse day than I had. :D

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Congrats on the title Matt, but more importantly... we're all very glad you're alright.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

WEW....its like wearing your Harness Strap when you're in a tree....Always do it...

Glad yer ok...

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Glad to hear you came out unscathed, Matt. Congratulations on the win, as well.

I had the same thing happen with a GT arrow this past summer. Knocked a chunk of concrete out of the wall in the range at Sportsman's with the insert end of the shaft. [&:]

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Congrats on the win Matt. I cant imagine the accuracy it takes to shoot that well. I couldnt even come close.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Yeah I couldn't (well sadly I guess I COULD) imagine how much force that fletched end could have hit my hand with after seeing it chunk the corner of a solid aluminum mounting block.

I keep having visions of that thing driven through my hand and popping out between my fingers somewhere.[:o]
The sliver of carbon that was shot through my shirt was enough. That one long sliver was basically like 1/64" from being driven into the back of my hand.

RE: Carelessness almost cost me today!
 

Scary! I'm happy everything turned out ok! It could have been ugly! Glad you're ok!

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

wow....thats amazing...one of those things where you almost think you SHOULD have gotten hurt...

glad to hear you didnt...weve all seen those pics...and they are ugly...and after having a few small slivers of carbon fiber in my own hand from a busted arrow, i dont want a blown up arrow in my hand!! i dont even remember what i was doing...think i was bein a tough guy and snapped one to fit in the trash better....i had a few slivers in my hand i had to dig out...it hurt worse coming out...it was verrrrrrry coarse and jagged and didnt WANT to come out

and congrats on the victory!!! i would been WAY too shaken up!! once im shaken up, im done. like once i got stung by a ground bee at full draw and nailed the release...WHAM missed the target(big bag) missed the backstop(2 haybales high, wide and deep) missed the big apple tree...luckily the fence stopped it...maybe it did rip through the hay bales..think at the time i only had 1 deep on the top layer.. i tried shooting after i took care of the bee sting, but i couldnt..i had target panic for a while after that. the back yard at the old house was "urban"...and arrow making it out of the yard could been bad...thats why i built such a backstop...just never expected to miss it ALL....

watched an alumanum arrow blow up off my buddies bow...boy did that scare me...he didnt even know what happened...only found the fletching half...it flew up into the apple tree and fell back down...still a mystery on how that happened...i watched it blow up not far off the bow...

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Glad it all worked out and because of your mistake it will help make us more aware.
Thanks Bro!

T

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

WOW!! Glad youre okay Matt, that was a real close call. I had the same thing happen at the end of this past season when I took a shot at adeer and pieces went everywhere. Congrats on the win also.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

What a story Matt. I'm glad it turned out o.k.
I've been a little lacks at times, but have been lucky. I have shot a few arrows w/ broken nocks and split shaft ends and didn't find it till later.
Sometimes I think I need to tatoo a sign on my forehead to check my arrows more often.

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RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

I had the exactly same thing happen to me at a 3D shoot a few years back. Scared the sh!t out of me when it happened. I check shafts after every shoot now. Glad to hear you were no hurt.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Matt congrats on your win Way to go. and for keeping your cool after that happened I am also glad no onw was hurt. Yes you should always check your equipment expecially after hiting a shaft. Years ago in the old days before the compound I was shooting in the NFAA in the Va state open indoor championship locked in a tie for first in the last round. I didnt pay attention to my arrows and one of them had to insert come out in the target when I shot it you can imagine a hollow shaft flying through the air went into the ceiling ( 2013 aluminum ) costing me first place I lost by ONE point. After shooting a round it only takes a moment to check your arrows you never know what could happen.

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Congrats on the win, and I'm glad to hear nobody was hurt. Very fortunate. You should have bought a lottery ticket that day with the luck you were having.;)

RE: Carelessness alost cost me today!
 

Glad to hear everything worked out for ya! [8D]Check those arrows from now on!