Loose Fasteners

[Sawmill Hollow]

I love my Matrix 380. I bought it about two years ago, and I shoot it a lot - a real lot. At first it was incredibly accurate, but over time it became increasingly less so. Eventually I had to tweak its Tact-Zone scope settings almost every shooting session. I thought I had a scope problem. So, I connected to the Excalibur Forum to see if any other Tact-Zone owners had a problem keeping his or her scope zeroed. But through the Forum (and later via Dan Miller) I found out my problem was not the scope.

On the Forum I ran across posts about loose fasteners, and sure enough, all four of my scope mount fasteners and the two rail to trigger assembly fasteners were loose. So I tightened them, but over time they loosened again and again, especially after dry-fires. Excalibur’s dry fire safety was one of the reasons why I bought my Matrix 380, but their advertisements didn’t say anything about tightening fasteners and resighting-in scopes after every dry-fire.

So I bought a Wheeler FAT Wrench, and connected to the Excalibur Forum to see if I could find torques for these six fasteners. SHAME ON EXCALIBUR FOR NOT PUBLISHING THESE TORQUE MAXIMUMS IN THEIR MATRIX MANUAL AND ON THEIR WEBSITE FAQs. Over time I stripped the allen heads of the scope mount fasteners, stripped the rail to trigger assembly threads, and others!

Fortunately, through the Forum I ran across glowing praises for Dan Miller (Horizontal Archery) an Excalibur guru, and sent my bow to him. Dan did craftsman quality work restoring my 380, including retapping and rethreading the trigger assembly, and installing larger fasteners on the rail to trigger mounts, the stock mounts, and the scope mounts. They look much more rugged. I don’t think I’ll ever have to touch them. He also smithed its trigger into a shooter’s dream. Now my bow is back to being super accurate with a sweet trigger and no scope tweaking. Above and beyond all that, Dan listened over the phone to my bow problems on several occasions, gave me excellent advice about crossbow design, crossbow target shooting, crossbow hunting, always told the truth, and only once told me I was a pain-in-the-ass. WOW - THANK YOU DAN!

All of this was free - covered under Excalibur’s excellent warranty. Thank you Excalibur, but You could design a much more rugged, and/or much more user-friendly fastener system.

[longbow joe]

Was he yelling at a barking dog from time to time lol hes the real deal

[Ekkie]

Danny Miller is *the* guy to go to for stuff like this. I agree about Excal not making the fasteners robust enough, too, btw. Loctite is a band-aid imo.

~E

[sproulman]

[Quintehunter]

Grab your loc-tite and go out in yard and do this,throw it away..

use only fingernail polish that loc-tite is too tough on threads and causes more problems and not needed in my OPINION..If you walk into my gunsmith he will throw bottle for ya...

If that's the case, then he is using the wrong grade of loctite. Been using the stuff for years without any issues.

[sproulman]

[foofoo]

i can understand your fustration. any tool especially for hunting you need to go over your equipment from time to time. loose screws can happen on anything. as far as torque specs i used my knowledge of installing scope mounts, rings, and bases on rifles and shotguns. i use a wheeler torque wrench and keep 15 inch pounds for anything aluminum and 20 inch pounds for steel. for me ive used loctite but now only use a drop of oil and to make sure the threads are clean and of proper torque. i keep a complete allen key kit with the crossbow in the case and will check from time to time but rarely have to tighten anything.

[Quintehunter]

There are actually more than 2 types of loctite, but if you're happy with nail polish, keep using it. It accomplishes the same thing anyways...

[Eck]

2 kinds of Loc-tite red/blue ,1 your never use and other is awful to remove screw etc..

I sit at gun shop with Gunsmith and here him say,DAM LOC-TITE on scope screws etc.....I believe a lot of screw heads are chewed up on our bows do to that stuff..I stopped using it after I stripped my heads etc and I never used it on my Guns I am very happy with just clear fingernail polish...

have wife get it at store saves a lot of stares..

You and your gunsmith need to do a little more research. I have no less than 5 types of "Loc-Tite" in my shop and I don't have all of them.

The product is an adhesive and unable, by itself, to damage steel, or aluminum. What your friend probably saw, and I've seen it too, where Loctite is used in an attempt to make up for oversize, or otherwise improper holes, and/or poorly cut, or damaged threads. Likewise, Loctite doesn't damage screw heads, or slots. That's done by someone using a poorly fitting screw driver blade, too much torque, or both.

BTW, Tell your gunsmith 400-410 degrees F will cause all grades of Loctite to break down, even the Red 262 "Permanent".

[sproulman]

[sproulman]

[flightattendant100]

If you will clean and degrease the fasteners, then use 100% silicone (caulk) on the male threads, install as normal, and wait until tomorrow to shoot. You wont have any loosen up from vibration, yet you can just remove them when you wish to. Gunsmith showed that to me in the 70's. I have NEVER had a scope come loose using this method.

[janesy]

I love my Matrix 380. I bought it about two years ago, and I shoot it a lot - a real lot. At first it was incredibly accurate, but over time it became increasingly less so. Eventually I had to tweak its Tact-Zone scope settings almost every shooting session. I thought I had a scope problem. So, I connected to the Excalibur Forum to see if any other Tact-Zone owners had a problem keeping his or her scope zeroed. But through the Forum (and later via Dan Miller) I found out my problem was not the scope.

On the Forum I ran across posts about loose fasteners, and sure enough, all four of my scope mount fasteners and the two rail to trigger assembly fasteners were loose. So I tightened them, but over time they loosened again and again, especially after dry-fires. Excalibur’s dry fire safety was one of the reasons why I bought my Matrix 380, but their advertisements didn’t say anything about tightening fasteners and resighting-in scopes after every dry-fire.

So I bought a Wheeler FAT Wrench, and connected to the Excalibur Forum to see if I could find torques for these six fasteners. SHAME ON EXCALIBUR FOR NOT PUBLISHING THESE TORQUE MAXIMUMS IN THEIR MATRIX MANUAL AND ON THEIR WEBSITE FAQs. Over time I stripped the allen heads of the scope mount fasteners, stripped the rail to trigger assembly threads, and others!

Fortunately, through the Forum I ran across glowing praises for Dan Miller (Horizontal Archery) an Excalibur guru, and sent my bow to him. Dan did craftsman quality work restoring my 380, including retapping and rethreading the trigger assembly, and installing larger fasteners on the rail to trigger mounts, the stock mounts, and the scope mounts. They look much more rugged. I don’t think I’ll ever have to touch them. He also smithed its trigger into a shooter’s dream. Now my bow is back to being super accurate with a sweet trigger and no scope tweaking. Above and beyond all that, Dan listened over the phone to my bow problems on several occasions, gave me excellent advice about crossbow design, crossbow target shooting, crossbow hunting, always told the truth, and only once told me I was a pain-in-the-ass. WOW - THANK YOU DAN!

All of this was free - covered under Excalibur’s excellent warranty. Thank you Excalibur, but You could design a much more rugged, and/or much more user-friendly fastener system.

What exactly do you mean by "every dryfire" ? Are you using the ADF to decock the bow? How many times have you dryfired your bow?