[ELI5] why is dry firing a bow so bad for it? Does the arrow really make that much of a difference in that regard?

Question

[ELI5] why is dry firing a bow so bad for it? Does the arrow really make that much of a difference in that regard?

In: 2366

Answer 1

When you loose an (appropriate for the bow) arrow, effectively all the energy stored in the bow goes into the movement of the arrow. With a properly tuned bow and arrow, the bow should basically be at rest in your hand after the arrow flies, no vibrations or forward movement.

If you dry fire a bow, all that energy is NOT going into an arrow. There’s nothing slowing down the limbs untill they’re abruptly and violently stopped by the string, which itself isn’t elastic. So it’s sort of like you took the bow and smashed it against the wall. I think you can see from that analogy why the bow might get damaged.