Buying a Uses Jennings Buckmaster

[joshheat25]

I have decided to buy a used bow from my buddy. it's a jennings Buckmaster. i think it's a 2000. But it's 60# with a 29" draw. I need to get it to a 28.5" draw because the string wacked my arm a few times. but the bow is in great shape. This way when I go to buy a nice bow in a few years I'll know what I like and dislike.

[Bowhunters]

I would ask if you are sure that sometimes you aren't using poor form or being lazy with your wrist on your bow arm?

Not all but some people will grab the bow like a pistol grip or have their wrist canted inside the bow so when drawn the wrist turns in or curves inwards and that brings the forearm in towards the path of the string.

If you are holding your bow correctly your wrist should be below or inline with the handle of the bow and that should help prevent you from having (string slap) on your forearm.

When you draw your bow move your head over slightly and look down your bow arm, your arm, wrist and hand should all be in a fairly straight alignment and your fingers and thumb should not be gripping the bow handle but loosely pointed forward, if your wrist is canted inward you need to fix that poor technique and that will move your forearm away from the string.

One other thing that can cause occasional 'string slap on the forearm' is wearing excessively bulky clothes like a very loose fitting sweatshirt or thick insulated camo, jacket, etc that the string is catching on.

Proper form with wrist under handle -

[joshheat25]

Bowhunters. you are good. That was what my problem was! I just bought the bow tonight and I was shooting some more targets. I didn't get hit by the string at all!!! But my question is. the bow tends to fall forward after I shoot when holding with no pressure. is this natural? Maybe I should practice with the string like that.

[Bowhunters]

Bowhunters. you are good. That was what my problem was! I just bought the bow tonight and I was shooting some more targets. I didn't get hit by the string at all!!! But my question is. the bow tends to fall forward after I shoot when holding with no pressure. is this natural? Maybe I should practice with the string like that.

I'm glad that fixed the problem, that or bulky clothing is most often the problem when someone has a string slap problem.

The bow falling or jumping forward like you explained is a normal reaction, when the arrow launches from the bow the bow will jump or fall from your hand if its not stopped from doing so.

To minimize the amount of bow jump you need a stabilzer attached to the bow, (it should be threaded into the front of the bow's handle area below the grip) you should see a threaded hole in the front if no stabilizer is present, that should remove most or all of the bow's jump during release of an arrow.

To stop the bow from falling from your hand you also need a restraint, often called a 'Bow Sling'. The red one in the picture is very old school, the ones you will see today are made of fabric or rope and are similar to what is in the pic below.

It attaches to the bow and you slip your hand under and through the sling to the bow grip and when adjusted properly it will hold the bow to your hand when the arrow is fired.

Bow Sling -

[joshheat25]

Thanx yea that would be a big help! I'm going to buy a stabilizer, strap, and some Rage 2 broadheads from cabelas when I get my discover giftcards. Tonight I was shooting and put three arrows all touching!!! at 20 yards I was very suprised and pleased! I am using Easton aluminum superslam/superlight arrows.

[Bowhunters]

Sounds good to me bud, that tight grouping is a good sign that the bow is tuned and it fits you and it works for you.

When I first got into bows when I was young I was taught to work up in distances to where I could consistently put 5 arrows into a small paper plate sized group at 40yds, a small paper plate (approx 8-10") is a fairly accurate size to think of to target for the heart/lung area of a deer, i'm old school and when I started 40 yds was the maximum most anyone would ever consider taking a shot at a deer with a compound bow, with todays faster flatter shooting bows lots of guys on tv and even some here take shots on big game out to 60yds and thats cool if they are that good. Its not just about your bows ability to shoot accurately to 60 yards but your own ability including dealing with any wind and any objects like brush etc. between you and the animal.

Whether a deer is too far for your ability with a bow or there's no clean shot because its chest is covered by brush, etc. you don't want to injure an animal but to humanly kill it so that it doesn't suffer for days before it gets pulled down by a coyote because it can't run.

Just keep practicing and you'll get where you want to be, if you plan to hunt out of a tree stand then its good practice to mount your stand up in a tree in your yard (wear your camo and fall restraint) and practice shooting down at the target to simulate what it will look and feel like during a real hunt and move the target around the tree and practice the draw and release from side to side to shoot at different body angles.

Take breaks for a few days and try different things to make sure you don't burn out and keep it fun.

On expandable broadheads like the Rage 2 you mentioned - I've never used Rage or any expandables but i've read some about them and some members here claim to have had failure of some expandables to open properly on impact and some people on other sites have had similar experiences with different ones.

It takes the use of impact energy to open an expandable broadhead so its probably more likely if your bow is not very fast or on long range shots that the blades may not open because in both of those cases the arrows will generaly be slower and that means lower energy.

I'm not taking a dump on Rage on this, all expandables use their impact with the animal or target to open the blades so I would say this on any expandable and i'm not poo pooing expandables because when they do open up they let out a lot of blood but i'm just making you aware its something that you may see at some point.

Good Luck !