Sad News For The Season..UPDATED 12/13/16

My sad news is that my Barnett crossbow limbs are splintering after 3 years. Luckily they are still under warranty!!! The crap thing is either 2+ weeks if I ship it to Barnett with no service charges besides shipping cost or get a local shop to get the limbs in from Barnett "For free?" and pay them the service charges. Hopefully tomorrow Fully Draw Archery will be able to give me an eta on timing through them.

Great way to start a Monday.

Anyone else ever have this issue??

Don't know a thing about crossbows,but are you sure you are shooting enough arrow weight? You sure don't want it to happen again.

Well after actually talking to Barnett they informed me that Carbon Express arrows shouldn't be shot out of theirs due to the nocks not being deep enough and must be 11 grains. Which was very interesting to learn. Started shooting carbon express maxima blues last year.

Which model bow is it?

Interesting about the arrows and nocks. What grain/size were those, total?

while trying to buy my son a crossbow I had three Barnett dealers talk me out of a Barnett. they said that I wouldn't like it when it took three months to get it repaired. they all pushed Parker crossbows because of customer service.

We had a limb start to split and it only took 4 days total for them to send me a new head assy.

Another time, I was in vans and it just happened that the Parker rep was there. I told him that I thought that I was having a limb issue again. He took my address and three days later a new head assembly showed up on my door steps. were not talking about a $1000 CROSSBOW THIS WAS A $450 THUNDERHAWK you just cant beat Parker for customer service.

props right there. Awesome service

Ok so after several phone calls with Barnett here is what has been said. Which to add Barnett has been amazing with all the information they have given me and customer service has been top notch. I actually have always had amazing customer service with them and thats why I will stay loyal to them.

Minimum full arrow "bolt" weight can't be less then 400 grains

Minimim arrow OD 0.344"

My full arrow weight with broadhead is 403 Grains

My arrow OD 0.340"

Conclusion is that 0.004" difference in bolt size is the thickness of a piece of paper. Which is 0.0039". So for that would I can't justify saying OD makes a difference.

Now for the weight i'd say I'm pushing the threshold on that one running 100 grain field points and broadheads. I think what I will do there is go up to 125 grain.

The other thing they noted is that the nocks on Carbon Express bolts aren't deep enough and don't sit on the string correctly. Yet one lady told me if I run nockturnals which I do that it would be ok.

So if I ran their Bloodsport 22" bolt at 325 grains + 100 grain tip that = 425 grains.

If I keep the Carbon Express Maxima Blue bolts at 303 grains + upgrade to 125 grain tips would be = 428 grains

I'd be 25 grains higher in weight which might help my limbs or I just by all new bolts.


Yes it was a lot of calculating and stuff but I am very picky about my stuff.

What do you guys think??

I think I'd be shooting much more above the minimum weight recommendation than 28 grains. I'd be more comfortable at 50 grains above the minimum, but that's just my opinion.

God Bless,
David B.

Gotta shoot it to know what works best. My wicked ridge loves 125g yet my horton does better with 100.

See that's what I am thinking. I spoke with a few other people and they all said "well you are within the spec" yet I feel like going up would be smarter man.

Also though what they recommend is only 25 grains above spec. That's what makes this difficult.

Yea, even 100 would be better. No need to try to turn it into a rifle. Much better to have it be durable than squeezing a few more FPS out of it. Anything pushed to the edge will have a much greater failure rate.

Agreed yet you know the true breaking minimum should have some tolerance. I think I'm gonna up my grains some.

the heavier the better, in my opinion. my nephew took 500gr bolts when we went to Africa and blew right through every thing he shot.

Problem there is most broadheads only go up to 125 grains. I got 8 good arrows though.

Well that was quick. New limbs arrived today. 8 day turn around isn't bad. Now gonna up the grain maybe and probably get new bolts with deeper nocks.


Barnett has really good customer service I must say.