Nockturnal Nock problems

[bayman1975]

Found this on Archerytalk. Has anybody on here ran into this? This not about an Excalibur bow, but the lighted nocks themselves. These are just a few of the post on this topic:


WARNING "Nockturnal Flat knocks are not safe from tenpoint crossbows"
I wanted to pass this along. I purchased 2 new packages of the Nockturnal flat Knocks for my new tenpoint crossbow. First shot with the new knocks resulted in a dry fire with my arrow pushed out of the bow maybe 10 feet... Thinking it may of been just a bad arrow or freak accident shot arrow number two and the exact same thing. Both arrows had the cock feather ripped off and the shaft was shattered about 6" infront of the fletching... This scared the hell out of me, sounded like a rifle going off, woke up my pregnant wife who was asleep, and thank God my 12 year old out there with me... These are not safe in my opinion to shoot. I have contacted doubletake to see their feed back. I will post upon their reply. I would appreciate some feed back if anyone else may of had this experience.
Jason




This is what I believe is the issue. Nocturnal is a pin plunger design. It should never work on a flat nock. The reason it works as good as it does on a normal nock is because there are 2 prongs on a normal nock to guide the string to push the pin plunger. If you think about it for a moment, the idea of a flat nock and the design of a crossbow that uses a flat nock is that the string is pushed at the tangent of the edges of the back side of the nock. If there is ANYTHING that would remotely allow the string to not to be at the center of the nock, it will move above or below the arrow. THERE IS DOWN PRESSURE on the flat back nock shooting crossbow, that is why the cock feather was ripped! Case in point, due to super smooth finish of my Firenock F, even I sometimes have customer who wax their string too much and the string slip over the edge and end up with semi-dry fire (the arrow fly out about 15 ft and dropped). Which I have advice them to rough sand the back of the F nock so the string will not slip so easily and immediately solve the problem. The only way for a nocturnal design to work if it is true nock. IMHO, that design on a half-moon nock is iffy as well, there is just not enough guiding track. Nocturnal need no less than 4mm of travel to be on and off! That is a pin sticking our 4mm at the back of the NOCK as it is the actual size of the plastic plunger that the pin cap is pushing to activate! DO not take my work for it. Go get a till lighted bobber lighted battery and see how much travel you need to activate and deactivate it by moving the green cap! Well! What do I know, I only design Firenock...




I had a similar experience to yours, tradman-okc with my Excalibur. I was told to sand down or rough up the back portion of any shiny or potentially slippery nocks by my friendly dealer.

I decided to just use my Lumenoks (that always work) instead.




I believe the problem may be to light of an arrow by my estimation.

20" GTII = 146gn.
Fusion Vanes 8gn. X 3 = 24gn.
Nockturnal Flat Nock 20gn.
Brass Insert 110gn.
Tip weight. 100gn.
Total weight 400gn.

A Lumenok weighs 32gn. which would give an overall weight of 412gn. that is closer to TenPoints Min. weight of 425gn. That may be enough to prevent what appears to be a dry fire condition.
Those weights are without glue of course.




The same thing happened to me. I am sorry I didn't post a warning. My dealer contacted Rage. They said that is their flat nock. When I first looked at them, I thought it didn't look right. One shot is all I did. My arrows are what came with the Tenpoint package and shoot well with factory nocks, Lumenocks, and Tracers. Stay away from Nocturnals if you need to shoot flat nocks. I got a refund from the dealer and he sent all he had back to Rage. Rage bought out Doubletree Archery, at least for the Nocturnals.




Tradman-okc

After our pm conversation I noticed you are shoting fusion vanes. In our experience, the fusion vanes are a good vane but they have too high of a profile to shoot with our bow. The vane will touch the bottom of the barrel channel causing the back of the arrow to lift slightly. When the arrow lifts up it can cause the string to go under the arrow causing a partial dry fire. I would recommend using a 4 inch vane with a medium profile. If anyone has any further questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you.

Andy Eicher
Customer Service Mngr.
TenPoint Crossbows
330-628-9245 Ext 122




Please go back and read Dorge's post above

Andy, yep, the 2" Fusions touch the bottom of the barrel groove but I've shot tons of them out of Ten Points with never a problem using standard Gold Tip flat nocks.




I was in a local archery pro shop this morning and I told a buddy there to watch out for the Nockturnal flat nocks. He smiled and said he already knows about them. He shot one out of a Carbon Express SLS and got a dry fire. It bent the cams but did no damage to the limbs.





Just tried out my Nockturnals, Excalibur crossbow, Easton 2219 arrows with weighted brass insert, about 500gr total, NAP quikspin ST 3" fletching, 2 deg right offset. Never have experienced a dry fire with my excalibur exocet until an hour ago, always super careful. I freaked when it happened, and I wasn't sure why. OK, so maybe I leaned down a little and let the arrow moved a little off of the cocked string? I tried another, a newly built nockturnal arrow, but ONLY AFTER I closely inspected my limbs; looked ok, so I thought let's try this again. It didn't dry fire, but the arrow hit the target 12" low and was stopped only by the very bottom edge of the target, and this allowed it to penetrate almost all the way thru, stripping off my new fletching! Now I thought the dryfire messed up my sights (scope)...

So, here I am with one lost arrow (can't find the dryfired one for the life of me), and the second is damaged. Decided to try one of my older arrows that has ALWAYS shot perfectly, and it shot PERFECTLY, whew, now my stress is lowing. Shot another of my older 2219 arrows, configured EXACTLY the same as the nockturnal, BUT these use standard easton flat nock, again, EVERYTHING else exactly the same (same arrow, insert, fletching).


I did try several google searches about this problem, and I finally found this post, and I immediately registered in the forum, so I could share.

Folks, if you shoot a flat nocked crossbow arrow configuration, do NOT use nockturnals; use some other lighted nock (I do successfully use lumenoks).

I'm now convinced, and it wasn't me and my custom application of the nockturnal! I just can't find the dry-fired arrow, so I can confirm the nock is still in place, but I know it is (I've been building arrows for some time, and these nockturnal nocks were glued in, tight).

(in case you are wondering how I got the loose fitting nockturnal to work on the 2219, it's called several coats of acyrlic fingernail polish, that with several hours/days of curing and fitting the nock to the shaft, and it's not the first time I've done this, but again, until I read this post, I figured it was ME the cause of the issue...)

Larrie

[Farmer]

Stay away from these POS . Have used Tracers Lumi's and fire nock with ZERO trouble !


I purchase these nocks from a local pro shop , had trouble finding an arrow shaft they would fit . Could not turn it off as per instruction . Told the dealer of my trouble . He loaded one on to an arrow put it in a GT Flex and fired . He promptly got a semi dry fire . He then said all this style nock were going back to the supplier . Poor design for our type of crossbow .

[Cossack]

Actually the new Blazers (with Blazer logo) are lower and do the trick, also the 3" Fusion. The latter work great in my Cyclone that had issues with original Blazers.

[NewGuy]

I had the same experience, while the ones for compounds are most likely good. I would not recommend using them out of any crossbow. Wish I saw this before I bought them

[Farmer]

I would take them back to the shop you purchased them at . The manufacturer is aware there is a problem . The shop may take them back as they did for me .

[NewGuy]

Unfortunately I bought them off eBay, I could not find any local to me. I'll fire off an email to the company and see why happens.

[NewGuy]

Emailed this morning, reply back this afternoon to sen them back for refund. 2 of them are in crappy nock heaven and 1 is ready to go back. Waiting to hear back again. Apparently these ones are old stock.

[Skip]

This very thing just happened to me yesterday! I thought I did something wrong. Was shooting 30yds, arrow went 20. String actually flew off. I inspected good, restrung and shot another one, same result except this time at least string stayed on. Tore fletch. Thing is very loud to begin with compared to my regular bows, but this was extreme.

[Big John]

Hey skip:

Why dont you tell us what you really think of Excalibur? Your only posts so far are to complain about them. How about giving us some good info.

Big John

[jd4223]

I experienced the same problem when shooting my Excalibur Axiom.Went to shoot a deer at 32 yards and pulled the trigger.Sounded like a semi dry fire!The arrow went the entire 32 yard distance but the shaft was busted(carbon fire bolt)and the vane torn.The arrow was just lying flat on the ground like some one had just dropped it.Never would have penetrated the deer if it would have made contact.Gave away the other 2 arrows that I bought as a 3 pack.Paid $60 for all 3 arrows.Told my buddy about what happened when I gave him the 2 arrows.He said he shot 1 of the arrows with no problems.

[hplemons]

I have a matrix 380 excalibur and my crossbow was doing the same thing...arrows just puking out of the bow busting 3 sets of strings and one time it blew one of the arms off. I spent hours amd days trying to figure out what the heck was wrong....finally I figured it out, the flat end of the knocks have a raised section likd a nipple....well the string was actually slipping off center amd hitting the lower of the raised nipple causing it to throw the arrow amd bust strings and etc....so we shaved the raised section off so that its completely flat (no raised nipple...which that raised nipple is actually what turns the lighted knock on) after we shaved them flat we haven't had any other problems! So if your having problems with the lighted knocks with the flat tips with the raised nipple on it do not fire that weapon great bodily harm could occur! Pete from excalibur stood behind me the whole way amd helped with anything I needed and did a great job! Goodluck amd if you have any questions email me at [email protected]

[Buckshoals]

The Rage Nocturnal nocks suck ! Had three put on new bolts for hunting and never shot them until now .I have a Excalibur bow,shoots fine good 30 yard groups. Put 100 gr. slick tricks on hunting bolts first shot hit 15 yards. in front of target.the same bolt and broad head with standard flat nock shots fine.Even tried nocturnal with field point hits about 24 inches low at 30 yards.noticed when i shot the nocturnal the bow was much louder and it finally damaged a new Flemish string.Wish I would have found this sight 6 months ago.

[amythntr]

.....Buckshoals, welcome to the forum....nice to have you aboard...1st order of business is why not complete your registration so we know where you hail from...it helps us to help you...

.....there is a lot of great information to be had from a lot of knowledgeable people who can always help you with any of your Excalibur issues...log in often and you will learn a ton....

.....you latched onto a really old thread...so some people might not even look at it since it's like 4 years old....

.....your question is pertinent and others have complained about the Nocturnals also....

.....my suggestion is that you consider what many on this forum use and that is the Lumenoks and the Ignitors....some also use the Firenocks...this last brand is a little more pricey but people get stellar results from them...

.....each brand have their benefits and drawback...if you go to each website you can learn which lighted nock you will need for your arrow...

....one thing I might also consider is looking into the Black Eagle Archery arrows....either the Executioners or the Zombie Slayers for your CB....if you have them already you will need the .300 diameter lighted nock for that arrow...

....again, welcome aboard....come back often....by the way tell us what Excalibur you have chosen...

Anthony

[paulaboutform]

Check the date of this thread....beyond STALE.

[Farmer]

It is an Oldie ! LOL