15 Problems You Can Actually Fix - The Key To Cheap Bows

This is a box full of flawed bows. What's up guys my name is Kasdan. Today we're going to go over the 15 most common issues with cheap bows and how to fix them or prevent them from even happening in the first place. Let's get to the point. Issue number one with cheap bows is that the draw weight is not what it says it is. Yeah you can see behind me right here is our draw weight measuring system. I'll show you how it works here in a minute but what we found from testing the draw weight on all of these bows is that on average they're off by about seven pounds and we've had them be as off by as many as 16 pounds and sometimes they're dead on but that's the issue with cheap bows is you don't know if you're actually going to get what they say you're going to get. The reason why the draw weight being so far off is such a big issue is for a couple of reasons. Number one say you're a beginner you want to start with a 25-30 pound bow you order a 30 pound bow and you get a bow that's closer to 40 pounds like 38-37 pounds. If that happens it's going to be very difficult for a beginner to be able to shoot that bow and learn good form with that being their very first bow. Or say you're a hunter and you need a 40 pound minimum draw weight for your state to hunt and you order a 40 pound bow and the bow comes in at 33 pounds. Now inadvertently you're being illegal and hunting the game that you're trying to hunt even though you ordered a 40 pound bow. So that's why this is such a big deal. So how do you fix this issue? How do you know you're going to get the draw weight you're wanting to get? Well number one you can buy from a company that you trust. A company that you could return products to so that could be through Amazon. You buy from a company that you believe will have customer service and get back with you. Option number two is you could buy an inspected bow. That's what we do at Shadow Proof Archery with our Black Hunter bows is we inspect everyone test the draw weight and if the draw weight is different from what it said it was going to be then we write the actual draw weight on the bow. For example you can see here these were supposed to be 60 pound bows. We measured them it wasn't 60 pounds it was closer to 55. Then we write 55 pounds at 60 inches on the bow. The third option to get around this issue is to be okay with the variance in draw weight. If you're fine if you get something that's a little bit off then don't worry about it. The cheap bow is worth the risk. Issue number two with cheap bows is limb flaws. This is flaws in the finish of the bow and most often it's just where the finish didn't didn't get put there. I'll show you some examples. When I'm saying this is a box full of bow flaws I wasn't joking. This is a box full of bow flaws. Here's a good example. Besides the draw weight being off this is the most common issue we have with bows. Most of these bows have flaws in the limb. Limb flaw. Limb flaw. Limb flaws. Limb flaws. Limb flaws. Yeah you get the point. There's a lot of flaws in the limb. Now these issues in the limb are purely aesthetic. They won't affect the performance of the bow. So to solve this issue you can just shoot the bow. You could refinish it or you could return the bow and get try a new one and hopefully it doesn't have any flaws in the limb. It's really interesting with these that the flaws in the limb seem to be way more common on the Blackhunter longbow than the recurve and they're always like in the same spot right here close to the tip overlay. Maybe it's an issue with their machine. I don't know exactly but besides the draw weight being off on a lot of these bows there being a whole entire box of these flaws in the limb it's the most common issue that we have. Issue number three with cheap bows is the tip overlays and this issue can come in two forms. One being the tip overlay has a sharp edge and what that sharp edge is going to do is cut your bowstring eventually and then the other issue with tip overlays is they're not fully shaped or there's some deformation on the tip overlay. To solve the issue of the tip overlays having a sharp edge you can do a couple of things. One you can use a chainsaw file and sand down that groove until it's smooth. Number two you could get like an invincible bowstring or an endless loop bowstring. A string that has served loops and that's going to protect your bowstring from sharp edges. Third way you can kind of get through this issue is if you just keep getting new bowstrings you'll kind of just keep buying new bowstrings or return the bow. Issue number four is delamination. Now I've only seen this very rarely however I have seen people do reviews of bows where it's completely delaminated on them when they've shot their bow and that's a failure in the glue up or in the materials where the bow just peels apart. I have seen that on one of the bows we've inspected where it started to delaminate at the tip and could have gone all the way down the bow. Obviously set that bow aside so no one would ever shoot that. The fix on this issue of delamination is I would suggest just returning the bow. You could try and do a glue up and try and fix it like that but it's pretty dangerous could end up having a bow explode. The next issue that cheap bows have is the limbs not wanting to fully seat onto the riser. So as you can see here this limbs on I've tightened down the allen key all the way down it's as tight as it will go and this limb has got quite a bit of wiggle in it. Let me tell you why this happens first and then we'll go over the fix for it. The reason why the limb won't fully seat down and the the bolt won't fully tighten down is that the bolt is hitting the bottom of the threads. It's going all the way down as far as it can. You cinching it down is not gonna make it any tighter but the issue is with the bows that are lighter draw weight. So they made these to work for a 50 pound bow. This one's supposed to be a 35. It actually came in at 25 and because the draw weight's less the well because the limbs are thinner the draw weight's less and so with the lower draw weight bows sometimes it won't fully seat down. Whereas it looks like this one they drilled it in a little bit deeper so it does fit but we got a lot of wiggle in this limb. So how do we fix this? Well it's actually really easy to fix this. In most cases you can just string up the bow and shoot it. When you put the string on the bow it's going to take the wiggle out of the limb. You can see this limb has got quite a bit of wiggle in it. Let's put a string on it and now at brace height all of that wiggle is gone. You can see at the back here there is a gap and that's not an issue if it's not too big. If it's big enough where the limb might slip off of the locator pin then you would have an issue but I'd be totally good shooting this bow and there's no rattle or vibration in the limb because at brace height the string's under tension here and keeping it from coming out. Now if you don't want this little gap here or it's too big let me show you another solution for this issue. If you'd prefer not to shoot the bow where it's that little gap between the limb and the riser what you can do is get a washer like a rubber washer or a washer a metal washer of some sort put it on the bolt and then tighten it down with this on the outside of the limb and that's going to basically make the bolt shorter and tighten it down. I don't know what this is but I'll use it as an example. The next issue with cheap bows is that the bushings could be mismatched loose or completely missing. You can see this bow here it's supposed to look like this but it showed up with just no bushing at all so it's completely missing. On many of these the bushing is just loose well it can twist and come out really easily or you can see on this set of limbs they sent us one black bushing and one gold bushing. This one actually isn't a huge deal unless you completely lose the bushing or if it comes without one. Some styles of takedowns they come with the bushing completely separate it just slides on like a washer onto the bolt before you screw it on which is totally fine. The only issue with that is if you lose the bushing so the issue with these being loose sometimes is that when you take down the bow it might pop out and you might lose it but if the bolt's in there obviously it's not going anywhere be totally fine. So fix for this one dab of glue push it in and you're good to go or just make sure you don't lose the bushing. The next issue with cheap bows and this one might be my favorite issue is the arrow rests are completely trash and this might not be all this is not all cheap bows but the bows that we buy and inspect the arrow rests are trash. Often they'll come in the package like this that you can see the sticky stuck onto the box of the hardware and now this I mean you could glue it on but it doesn't have the double side sticky and this is what I mean by trash like they would work as an arrow rest like it's got I think fake calf hair it would work as an arrow rest but look what happens when I peel off the back so none of the sticky stays on this it's not that this isn't sticky this is sticky but it doesn't stay on this so the options on this is not an expensive fix you could glue it on or you could buy a new arrow rest. Now the next issue with cheap bows is the bow strings that come with the bows. Most cheap bows come with endless loop bow strings and they totally work they will work for the bow in most cases they're just not very nice bow strings and sometimes they're not quite the right length to get the correct brace height. So how to fix the issue of the string well you can just shoot the string that you have with it and it will totally work to fling arrows or if you want to upgrade you can go to shadowproofarchery.com and get a D97 bow string for your cheap fiberglass bow and that will be an upgrade for sure you can buy a string wherever you want it honestly. The next issue with cheap bows is that customer service can be non-existent especially when people are like drop shipping they're just wholesale buying they're never looking at the product go straight to Amazon and they're just trying to sell a product they're not really trying to help people. Kramer and I reviewed one of these Black Hunter bows and they said that their customer service always gets back within 24 hours we reached out to them and we never heard back ever like still haven't heard back and that was like three years ago. So just know who you're buying from with Amazon you kind of have a fail safe because if the company itself on Amazon doesn't respond you can still usually return the product and Amazon will take care of you but whatever company you're working with if you're buying a cheap bow just be sure you want to work with them it can be really frustrating if people aren't there to help you. Another issue with cheap bows is their listings and sometimes the like it just bothers me when it's just like not real I'll show you what I mean. So this is a listing for a Black Hunter Takedown Recurve let's go to the first photo here left-handed longbow okay why is there a photo of a left-handed longbow on the Takedown Recurve listing? That one's not too bad okay this one they put a string on it to show the draw length but the bow isn't pulled back they say brace height of seven inches but I bet they give you a 56 inch string which gives you like an eight and three quarter inch brace height like what are we doing here like these it's just that's helpful no that's good you can tell he's obviously not holding the bow but it's a it's helpful for left and right and the arrow shelf is on the wrong side so that's just a taste of how the listings could be. Kramer and I made a video on one of these bows and we spent 30 45 maybe an hour um just laughing at the listing of this bow and the materials that came with it it said that if we had any trouble with our binoculars to let them know like it was just like if someone doesn't seem like they know what they're talking about they probably don't and so that can just be an issue when it comes to the bow it can be confusing when it comes to buying a bow. Check this the next issue with cheap bows is the packaging so sometimes the packaging can be poor and that can cause damage to your bow in shipping which is unfortunate the fix here is to return the bow if it's damaged or to again work with a company that you trust. Next issue is that limb silencers are often non-existent on cheap recurve bows. One of the trademarks for cheap bows is that there's so many accessories with the bow you get arm guard you get a glove you get a arrow rest you you get silencers you get all these things with the bow but one of the things I've not seen with cheap bows is limb silencers so that'd be for a recurve bow you'd put that silencer on the limb to make it quieter and it's one of the things that makes the bow the most quiet the easiest but I have not seen those with cheap bows so limb silencers would be a great way to upgrade a cheap bow. The next issue with cheap bows is that the AMO is not what it's listed at. For example this Black Hunter bow comes with a 56 inch string usually that would be great for a 60 inch bow but when we measure the AMO string groove to string groove along the contour of the limbs we actually get over 61 inches on this bow now it's still listed as a 60 inch bow just for consistency and all of that but it's not actually a 60 inch bow no wonder there's so much confusion with buying strings. So the solution for this one is to usually use the string that comes with the bow and that will usually fit it or you can buy a longer or shorter string. When your AMO is off your string length needs to be adjusted and how you do that check your brace height that is the distance from the deepest part of the handle to the string and when your brace height's good all is good it doesn't matter what length of string if your brace height is good all is good and usually a good brace height is between seven and eight and a half inches or seven and nine inches we'll say. The next issue with cheap bows is limb twist and tiller issues with the bow. Limb twist happens when the limb gets twisted and the string no longer runs down the center of the bow. Now if the limb is twisted you may have an issue or you may not have an issue. If you have a light draw weight bow and the limb is twisted one of the things that you can do to fix it is just to twist it back. Easy come easy go with limb twist. Now if it's into the tiller of the bow where it's like a heavy draw weight bow or it's like just really really twisted already then you might not be able to twist it back but one of the ways you can twist it back is put a c-clamp on the limb and push. You can just twist it right back to where it was. Limb twist is an issue if it affects the shot of the bow or if it's twisted so much that the string's wanting to come off the side. Now you'll be able to tell if the limb's twisted if the string's not running down the center of the limbs and sometimes you twist the limb when you string it especially using the leg method. With the tiller of a bow that's just the way that it bends so you can measure how the bow's tillered by measuring from the deepest part of the limb to the string we got eight and a quarter we got eight and just over a quarter so this has a eighth inch positive tiller which is actually perfect. With bows like this you probably want an even to about a quarter inch positive tiller so an even tiller is when the distance is the same on the bottom limb and top limb. A positive tiller is when the top limb bends slightly more than the bottom limb. What you don't want is the bottom limb bending more than the top limb that would be a negative tiller and a negative tiller just isn't going to shoot as smooth so the solution to this one is make sure your bow is tillered well. If it's not tillered well the issue is going to be in the efficiency and smoothness of shooting so if it shoots fine you're fine. If you want to change the tiller you could take you could start building your own bow and start sanding stuff like that or you could just return the bow. The final issue with cheap bows. Now the issues with the riser can be a couple. Number one is just aesthetic the other one is very dangerous and is less common. The aesthetic one is that there often is a drip in the finish especially right here coming off of the arrow rest. You can kind of see that little drip right there. Just a little tiny drip barely noticeable but it does happen quite often. It's not a huge deal unless you really are picky with details and finish but that's kind of the cost of getting a cheap bow. The more major issue with these risers is sometimes they break. I've only seen them break a couple of times. I've seen some pictures of people I don't know what they did to their bow or what their bow was built out of beforehand but I've seen these break right in half but I've never had that happen with me personally or any that I've sold but I have seen it crack up here sometimes or down the middle between the handle. So that's just something that's just something to keep an eye on make sure there's no cracks in your handle and you'll be good to go. If there's a crack in the handle return it and restart or get a replacement riser. Not a super common issue but can be an issue. There can be so many issues with cheap bows and you might be thinking hey Kaz that's not really a big deal to me like it's just kind of aesthetic things it's not really functional things and I totally agree and since we have so many of these bows that don't make the cut for us to sell we started something called the bargain box where you can get these bows that have flaws in the finish and stuff like that at a discounted price. So if you want to check that out you can check it out in the description and if you need anything let us know we are here to help. Thank you so much for watching I hope those 15 issues with cheap bows helps you make your next purchase but also does not paralyze you in your bow archery experience that you would shoot your bow and enjoy it is my goal. Stay shatterproof and if you need anything let us know I'll see you on the next video.