Wood bows are more like people. Most live a good long time. But there are those on either side of the bell curve. And just like humans, take better care of them and they tend to last longer.
I semi-retired the bow I have been carrying since almost the beginning, 12 yrs ago. Sinew backed osage. It has been rained on, left in a hot car, slammed in a car door, fell off a roof rack in a pvc tube at hiway speed (bow survived, pvc shattered at near zero temps), overdrawn on about one third of all the shots put thru it, and asked to do these things with little or no regard for what it wanted! It shows almost 3/4 inch of deflex to the tips when it had an inch of reflex new.
You might say it is like a 60 yr old man that used to be a professional bull rider then rodeo clown. Not as spry as it once was, but ready to hand out some punishment if it came to a fight.
