Death Knell for a Bear Kodiak?

[Ben M.]

#6429

A friend of mine owns this well used classic ’53 Bear Kodiak. It has pretty serious stress lines in the backside of the working portion of both limbs. They look like chrysals you’d see in the belly of a selfbow, only they’re on the wrong side of the limb. So what do you guys with fiberglass experience think? Is this a sign of imminent doom for this old bow? If it were an osage selfbow I’d advise him to wear a face guard while shooting, for fear the thing will explode in the near future.

[Ben M.]

#51150

Looks like I made a mistake on the age of the bow. It’s more likely from the late 1960’s. No matter the age, it still looks to me like this bow is on its last leg.

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#51395

Hmm…hard tellin,’ but better safe than sorry. I’m assuming he’s not the original owner of the bow, and doesn’t know it’s ocmplete history? I’d be worried that it had been dry fired at some point.

[Firedog]

#52401

I shoot two old Bear re-curves. When I first got into bow hunting about 12 years ago someone sold me a pressure quiver that caused my bow to get some horizontal marks like those in your picture (not vertical lines). I didn’t know anything but I figured that was bad, so I stopped using the quiver.

I have shot the bow many times since then and taken quite a few deer with it. I switched to a compound (I never gave up shooting fingers for what it’s worth) and now my goal this year is to go back to traditional only.

So, I guess my short answer is I don’t know, but my horizontal cracks/stress marks in the finish haven’t given me grief.

Good luck.

[Trad Archers.com]

#52720

That’s just the finish.

It happens on a lot of those 50 year old bows.

It’s nothing to worry about.:wink:

Just looks a little unsightly is all.

It’ll be alright to shoot (maybe even for another 50 years).:)

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