atcfisherman

Well, I purchased my new Barnet quad 400 a couple of weeks ago. I was at my friends house sighting it in when the accident happened. He is 65 and very experienced rifle and bow hunter, but has never hunted with a cross bow. We had the target set at 25 yards and was hitting a group of about 4 inches in diameter. He decided to sit down and shoot a couple of times. The 1st time everything did fine. The 2nd time he held his thumb up on the hand that was holding the body of the cross bow. When he pulled the trigger, the string ripped 1/2 his thumb nail off and took a huge chunk of meat from his thumb. [:@] OUCH!!!!!!!!!!

It started bleeding very bad. After intensive bandaging we went back out side and he said, "Look, at least I hit the bullseye!" Anyway, just though I would pass this on as a safety issue to remember to keep all thumbs and fingers below the top of the crossbow. I went over all the safety issues with him as well as a few safety pointers, but I never thought about this one. His thumb now about 1/3rd gone because I didn't realize what he was doing.

alsaqr

Very sorry for your friend's injury. Crossbows are very dangerous this way.

Dnk

Geeeeze thats gotta hurt. Sorry to hear that! I saw a thead on this a while back and picked up my bow and just cannot see how that happens????? Has anyone checked this out? It feels so awkward to even get close to the top of the rail. All I can say is that I hope I'm not around when that happens to anyone I know. It would take me quite a while to stop laughing!

shewe

ouch. hope he will be ok.[]

Hotburn76

I think it depends on the CB and how you hold it Don. If you hold the CB correctly in the palm of your hand it should be pretty hard to do. But I used to catch myself holding mine with my palm and the first crease of the fingers and it can be done quite well, but I only tried it once and now know not to do it! Also at 5'3" your fingers may not be long enough to do it! WHACK!!! LOL good buddy, I owed you for the bunny email!!! EVEN!

4x4utilityman

OMG, that has got to hurt. I had my crossbow safety fail one time in the stand and go off on the shin of my leg. Luckly there was no arrow, but it did require several stiches as well as a few words yelled out into the woods....LOL.... now I can laugh about it, but when it happened, I just about passed out.

Planter

I KNOW just how it feels. The shot I gave myself wasn't anywhere near as bad as your friends but I bet he only does it once. All I had to deal with was a bruised thumb.
I think it happens with rifle shooters use Xbows off a bench cause, I can't imagine getting my thumb up over the rail shooting offhand. Hope your buds back shooting.>>>>>>>>>>W hack! OUCH..

awshucks

Good thoughts!! I never had this problem offhand or from the bench, but while at an informal 3-D shoot awhile back, I took a shot sitting. W/ my elbow rested on my knee, I for some dumb reason ended up w/ about a 1/4" of my thumb above the rail. Got lucky, just a minor amount of pain, but a major lesson on focusing!! It's the nature of the beast!!! Some of you new guys may not have read the post by Randy, aka 10 pt about the 10 pt shooter that ripped the stitches outta his thumb by having it above the rail when he launched one. How did he get the stitches in the first place??? You guessed er Lester, had his thumb above the rail!!! Have ya'll heard of the Darwin Awards?? Recently, a fellow xbow hunter in Oh I believe was carrying a locked and loaded xbow slung and killed himself. Let's all remember to be careful out there!!! It takes well over 100 "Hurrahs" to equal one "Oh, Crap"! My sympathys go out to anyone who has a hunting/shooting accident, and I'm not making light of anyones misfortune, just trying to remind us all to THINK.

smokepolehall

I really hate to hear your friend tore his finger up while shooting the CB! We do post about that same thing to all the new folks, can't be to safe on fingers!

Dnk

Here's a fact. The only time a finger or a thumb should be going above the wood of the forearm of anything is a double barrelled shotgun and then evenly. My 20 gauge Browning BBS(SBS) dictates it since you have to hold down the barrels for a quick second shot. For accuracy reasons you should never touch the barrel of a rifle. Any pressure on the barrel will alter the point of impact. Nowwwwwwwwwww I am sure that I am going to regret saying this by wacking my thumb! Any body here have a petard that I can borrow? LOL!