Category: targets

As a first post, I figured I’d set the tone for the type of content crossbow shooters could expect to find here. Although there are specialized- and significantly more expensive– products to make ease of bolt removal from a foam target, there are many cheaper & readily available products. In particular Carbon Fibre- I shoot the Quill 16.5″ ones- bolts absolutely fuse to the foam and are a real monkey to remove from my Rinehart 18-to-1 foam target if they’re unlubricated.

WD-40: A can of WD-40 Silicone spray does the business cheaply & effectively and can be sourced locally without any postal order lead time. And it also has the additional benefit that it can be used for other jobs. Spray it on a rag, wipe your bolts down with them and they won’t fuse to the foam target.

SOAP: True, you could rub soap on your bolts, but I feel its’ tacky nature would affect both the speed & flight characteristics. As well as being more fiddily and getting your hands soapy. And of course, the soap will eventually make the crossbow rail tacky after shooting numerous bolts which also could serve to reduce bolt speed if you don’t constantly wipe it off.

K-Y Jelly: I’ve heard that wiping bolts with K-Y Jelly works to ease removing bolts from targets too. Although it’s dual-use and can be used for sexy-time when not shooting crossbows, it’s certainly not cheap. An undesirable characteristic however it that it’s wet and will get in places that will be a PITA to clean it from.

And of course distance from the target will affect the difficulty in removing bolts from it.The further away you shoot, the bolt will lose velocity. Just ensure your scope is sighted accurately or you run the risk of losing bolts and at ~£10/each last time I bought a bunch, that’s a different and more expensive problem to have then removing bolts from a foam target 😉