Crossbow Rail Lubricating Tips

Lubricating your crossbow's rail is an important component to maximizing its string life and longevity. However, like many things associated with crossbows, there is no uniformity when it comes to a particular technique or application. For some reason, every manufacturer requires different criteria when it applies to lubricating the rail.

Granted, there is a vast array of materials being used to make today's crossbow rails, but I've not seen much difference in string wear from one material to another, and I shoot them all on a regular basis. The important thing is to occasionally lube the rail between shots. The purpose of this is to create less friction or drag on the bow string, which in turn increases string life.

So how often should the rail be lubed? After every shot or a particular number of shots? This is where the discrepancy between the manufacturers comes into play. I'm a firm advocate that you should always follow the manufacturer's guidelines when servicing your crossbow.

However, after shooting thousands of arrows from nearly every available crossbow on the market, I've come to the conclusion that lubricating your crossbow's rail isn't nearly as important as we've been led to believe. Crossbows are fast and the string generates a lot of heat as it passes down the rail, but I've yet to see any string failure due to lack of lubrication.

Often times the crossbow's string retaining hooks will cause more damage to the string than lack of rail lubrication. Also too much lubrication can cause string serving separation. Therefore, I generally lubricate my crossbow's rail approximately every 50 shots. Occasionally I'll smell string burn after a shot, at which time I also will apply rail lubrication, but other than that, I'm not overly concerned with applying it more frequently.

There are also a lot of different rail lubricants on the market. I've found the best to be the oil-based lubes. They generally come in small packets or in a small container with a roller or dauber on the top. The oil based lubricants are less likely to collect debris such as the paste, tube and ChapStick-type container lubricants. This will keep your rail, string and trigger box cleaner.