Bowtech 340 Destroyer Limb issue

[Bunnell]

I was out shooting my bow Saturday and my upper limb started to crackle, got to looking at the limb and it appeared to be delaminating. Has anyone else had this problem?
I called Bowtech and they said no problem bring it in and they will replace the limb at no cost.
Is this a known issue? They didn't even ask if I dry fired it or try to void warranty at all. I hope all goes well at the factory Thursday when I take it down there. Also while reading the warranty info they talked about up graded limbs that you could buy for $85 anyone have any info on this?

[Jellymon]

Unfortunately yes, the hardcore limbs on the destroyers have been known to delaminate. I have heard that bowtech was out of destroyer limbs and were giving out new bows at discount for customers instead. Hopefully bowtech takes care of you, sorry for the bad luck.

[Jellymon]

Sorry, but I'm hoping you have a sense of humor.

[D-Rock425]

Bab limbs on a destroyer who would have thunk.

[NWWABOWHNTR]

See if they'll cover it... get it fixed and sell it.  Sorry but Blowtech's to me have always had these issues. 

[Bunnell]

Just a follow up, on my Bow
Went down to the factory pro store in Eugene..
Those guys are great they replaced both of my limbs corrected the issue that caused the delamination which is not the limb but the little piece of Teflon that is under the pivot point on the limb, the grease dried up and that cause the limb stress. By the way they told me that this is not uncommon with that year bow it seems they used the wrong kind of grease for a while and it dries out.
Well anyways all repaired with a complete tune up done also at no cost.
My buddy has the same bow and they replaced the parts that could go bad but were not at this time and did a complete tune on his bow for free also.

You can say whatever you want about Bowtech but do not bad mouth their customer service it was AWESOME.

Also while I was there I shot the latest bows they were nice but to much for what I would gain.

[RadSav]

Dried grease is the reason for limb failure!  That's one I haven't heard before. I'm going to give those pro-shop guys a call and flip them some crap over that one 

I'm a pretty big fan of the newer Bowtech.  And you are right, Todd and the proshop guys are terrific (regardless of dried grease conviction)!  However, I can not for the life of me understand what Bowtech was thinking when they decided to use this limb design.  Perhaps they figured by laminating the limb they could eliminate the troubles every single solitary bow company that has ever used that limb design has eventually had.  Sure it is better than the club tipped limbs of PSE, Mathews, Martin, Sims, early Bowtechs and a whole host of others.  But in those other cases the goal was "CHEAP LIMBS".  This laminated aluminum insert limb ain't cheap!  It may eliminate the compression side shearing that the others were known for, but it still focuses stress into a small area rather than distributing it over the limbs length. 
 
Makes no sense to produce that limb today.  And now the old limb and cam is back too...   I can understand a company not wanting to be seen as a copycat.  Especially when you are a company like Bowtech that has been on the leading edge of development for so long.  But there is a reason the PSE & McPhearson limbs are being copied by nearly every other bow company on the planet...they are really, really good!  And durable

I would really like to shoot the Bowtech Specialist for hunting.  And I have been within moments of keeping one for my hunting stock probably a dozen times.  Each time I let it go in favor of the CPX model because of that limb.  I am one of those seamheads that must have complete and total confidence in my bow before I head into the field.  And I just can not find confidence in a limb design that has proven over twenty years to be unreliable.  Laminated or not!

Good thing for Bowtech is that the new CPX limb is about as flawless as it gets!  But as much as I absolutely love the CPX I would like the ability to change up my Bowtechs now and again.  And that probably is not going to happen until they change the limb design on the non-CPX bows.  That is why when I decide to go light or different I shoot a Bear instead.  Bowtech could probably have me as an exclusive Overdrive Binary user if not for that darn limb!

I'm pleased you had a good experience with customer service Bunnell.  I truly believe the Bowtech service is much better than it is given credit for.  And I certainly hope that is the last of your problems.  The Destroyer 340 has some outstanding features hard to find much anywhere else.  It is a bow, like the Specialist, that I seriously contemplated shooting myself.  There is a lot to like about it.  Good luck and keep that Bowtech bloody!  Mine always seem to work better that way

[Jellymon]

Rad, what is the limb design your talking about, and the flaws with it? Im kind of curious.

[RadSav]

Rad, what is the limb design your talking about, and the flaws with it? Im kind of curious.

One piece limb bows have always had an issue of splitting at the fork.  We've used buttons riveted, screwed and taped to the fork.  Some companies even added extra material during pressing to eliminate twisting splits. 

I'm not sure who the first to do it was.  But at some point someone said, "Let's take flex of the limb tips completely out of the equation!  We'll grind the first 2/3rd of the limb and leave the rest a solid brick."  It shot like a brick was attached to the end of the limb, but for a while it seemed to solve the problem.  And it was Cheap!!!  So most manufacturers started using the new limb design.

Some manufacturers with extreme cam lean problems started seeing failures earlier than others.  And these failures were not a simple center limb split, but complete explosions.  I know a handful of early Bowtech shooters that were hurt so badly they never picked up another bow and went back to the safer sport of shooting firearms   Mathews who had an almost identical limb to Bowtech added a lamination to the stretch portion of the limb.  While this did not change the rate of failure it did reduce the violence factor to a great extent.

Other manufacturers without cam lean issues found out much later that the simple stretch and compression process was disrupted as the flexing portion of the limb met the non-flexing brick part of the limb.  This eventually led to shearing of the lower section of the brick where the long compression fibers from the flexing portion of the limb passed over the short non-flexing portion of the brick.  While not as violent and catastrophic as the other failures it was a rapidly increasing failure non-the-less.

As the speed race really began to ramp up the solution to produce more speed was to pre stress the limb more.  With brick tipped limbs the additional compression stress compounded the shearing failures until very few manufactures remained using this type of limb.  PSE's new limb was producing unheard of speeds while maintaining a failure rate so low most other manufacturers refused to believe the figures PSE was putting out.  Mathews ran a similar limb on the McPhearson line and kept the brick tips on mild mannered Solocam models.  The McPheason Monster was seeing impressive speeds and almost nonexistent failures too.  Soon most leading manufactures were all developing similar limbs with great results.  Only the tried and true masterfully designed Hoyt limb seemed to survive the movement even though it was unable to compete in the speed race.

Without finishing another chapter in the "Why doesn't RadSav give a short answer?" book I'll leave it at that.  Hope that helped answer your question.

[Jellymon]

Answered it and then some. Thanks. I didnt know if you were talking about a specific solid limb design or solid limbs in general.