FF string compatable ?

[Sirius Black]

When did bows, especially Bear, come with FF strings? Just curious, in what year did Bear bows become FF worthy? Where was the transition point between dacron and FF?

[Orion]

Don't really know.  Bear started putting on those two-three ply white and black tips in the late '90s. However, they've been putting limb tip overlays on many of their bows for a lot of years. I run low stretch strings on Bear TD limbs made in the early 70s. I'm redoing a '57 Bear Kodiak with original micarta tip overlays right now that will get a D-97 string when it's done.

[LBR]

Good question.  I have no idea what the answer is though.

[JRY309]

Not sure about Bear's,but Martin/Howatt started making their bows FF capatable in 1995 and later.They will have black fiberglass tip overlays instead of wood overlays.But not all bows had a fiberglass or say micarta overlay for FF capatabilty.I mean in Dan Quillian bows like his Longhunter he used a 450+ string and all they had was a hardwood tip overlay.

[hardbern]

In the UK the availability of Brownell's FastFlight was announced in 1986 ( British Archer Jul/Aug 1986 - Quicks advert) with further details a couple of months later (British Archer Nov/Dec1986) from Brownell.
     
Quicks themselves did not advertise Fastflight until their 1987/88 catalogue.
     
It appears the first bows to offered with Fastflight did not come until 1988 this time through WAS - Wales Archery Specialists (1988 Catalogue), a dealer/retailer for a number of manufacturers. The first bows to be announced with Fastflight (as well as Kevlar) by WAS were:
- Border "Mirage";
     
- Marksman "KG1" & "Portland 2000";
     
- Hoyt "Gold Medallist".
   

[LBR]

A couple of other things came to mind.  I'm pretty sure when Bear "re-introduced" it's traditional line several years ago, some bows were FF compatible and some weren't...so just because a bow was made at or past a certain date won't guarantee you can use any string on it.

Some companies will warranty one high peformance material but not another.

Finally, just to give credit where it's due...the founders of BCY (Ray Browne and Bob Destin) invented the original Fast Flight material when they worked for Brownell.  Later on, after starting BCY, Bob also invented the first blended material (450 Premium).  The original Fast Flight material is still available through BCY, but is named 652 Spectra since Brownell owns the name "Fast Flight" (Ray and Bob actually named it, but...).

[JRY309]

When Bear re-introduced their traditional line of bows,the Bear Grizzly was dacron only because it had no tip overlays at all.The Bear Super Grizzly,Bear T/D,Super Kodiak,Kodiak Magnum,Super Magnum 48 and Bear Kodiak came with D97 strings.But they left alittle to be desired,they were 16 strands of D97 and the loops were way oversized.My Bear Kodiak had 4" upper loop and a 3" lower loop.I quickly twisted up a BCY-X with smaller loops to fit the bow.I think the Bear Kodiak is a sweet shooting bow!