Against my better judgement I was talked into puttin back the pin nocks on my Cartel Triples before shooting a full FITA last weekend.

My worst fears were realised when I had three arrows struck in the nock at 50m. The nocks shattered and whilst the pins themselves looked OK, close inspection of the rear ends of the shafts showed longitudinal splitting.

I don't normally use pin nocks as I find the nocks crack and spit quite easily but what surprised me was the damage this time to the shafts. The pins don't really protect the shaft end at all.

So I've gone back to my previous practice and that is that I cut the pin part off using snips, file the end flat and glue this into the shaft. Then I fit an outsert nock over the top. This provides excellent protection. I have had a couple of back enders which have caused the outsert nock to break but the aluminium inisert hasn't been harmed and more particularly the shaft end itself is quite free of splits.

I thought I'd pass this on for people to think about with their own gear. Hope it helps.