non-ff silvertip limbs with antler tips-tested aggressively

[pdk25]

I should be receiving a set of limbs soon for a silvertip that are non ff, but have antler tips.  Has anyone tried using ff material strings on similar limbs?  I though that the addition of antler tips would make limbs able to handle fast flight materials.
Thanks in advance.

[McDave]

I've always found Dave and Beth to be very approachable and willing to answer my questions, so if it were me, I'd go directly to the horse's mouth.

[pdk25]

Thanks Dave,
I may do that but was just hoping to hear from some others that have done it and may not have communicated with the Windaurs.  I got one response back from someone who has done it with no problems, but I would still like to hear from others.

[Orion]

As far as I know, Dave categorizes his bows fast flight or non-fast flight depending on the composition of the riser.  Needs several reinforcing laminations to be considered fast flight.  

By all means, contact Dave, but if it were me, I'd run a padded loop fast flight string on it regardless. Don't currently have any Silvertips, but run padded loop D-97 strings on old Bear TD limbs.  No problems, and much more pleasant to shoot, not to mention faster.

[md126]

I have the same limbs (non FF with antler) and currently use Dacron. I have a padded loop FF string from Ten Ring Strings but will probably stick with the B50 for now (it's also from Ten Rings). The bow is very fast quiet and pretty shock free with it so it's not worth the risk. If it rattles my teeth I'd prob switch but it doesn't. A good B50 string helps

Anyway I sent Dave and Beth an email about this a while back regarding limbs I had bought.  This was the response:

"Glad you found limbs. Limbs don't appear to have been built for FF. Dave ultimately would not recommend it but tons of guys are shooting those skinny strings with the bows and not having problems as far as we know. It would be up to you on whether you want to take that chance. FF also puts stress on the riser so Dave reinforces the riser as well on FF bows. Just another consideration."

She also said he uses carbon fiber now in the tips for FF. My tips look plenty strong with the antler and the phenolic it has in there.

Hope that helps

[cacciatore]

Pat, I am been using some 63# Limbs for a couple of years, they are non ff ready and carry antler tips. I used them with a Ten Rings Rhino string without any issue. I like my arrows to be at 11-12 gpp though. If you look under the antler layer probably you'll see some phenolic or more than just one material.

[pdk25]

Thanks everyone.  They should be at or a little over 70# at my draw, and I am thinking that they may make a nice bow for buffalo in the future for a time if I don't feel like handling my heavier bows, and as such I would like to maximize the performance being that they would be at a borderline weight.  And felix, I definitely would not be using extremely light arrows with that setup.

[McDave]

I'm glad you brought up bow weight.  I wonder what affect that has on the use of fast flight string and light gpp arrows?  Intuitively, it would seem that fast flight string on a non-FF bow, and low gpp arrows would be more of a problem as the weight increases, but I don't know whether that is true.

[pdk25]

I would expect that lighter gpp arrows would leave more energy behind to be absorbed by the riser and limbs which are traveling at a a faster speed and be more at risk as well, but I would not be using these limbs all that often, and would plan to have fairly heavy arrows tuned out of them.  I would say around 800 grains most likely.

[Keith Zimmerman]

I use FF on mine.

[LBR]

I wouldn't, simply because you would void the warranty by doing so.

[pdk25]

These are used limbs, so there is no warranty.

[LBR]

I really don't think a properly made string will do any damage at all (I've used "high performance" materials on selfbows for years, been using BCY-X on a Samick Journey for 5 years), but...if something were to go wrong, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the string.

I personally won't buy a bow, at least not to keep, that isn't warrantied for any string I want to put on it.

[pdk25]

Well, I got the limbs in and gave them a try.  They look pretty good on this riser, although this riser is 17", and I plan on putting them on a 15" riser.  They scale around 68#@30", which is around what I am drawing.  Unfortunately, I got to test them out with FF string a little.more harshly than I planned.  On the second shot the nock broke resulting in a dry fire.  The bow survived, and no damage to the riser or bow that I could tell.  The next 20 shots seemed fine.


 
 

[cacciatore]

Pat are those the limbs you bought from Mike?

[pdk25]

Some other pics of the limbs.


 

 
 

 

 

[cacciatore]

Pat are those the limbs you bought from Mike?

[pdk25]

Yes they are, Felix.  Just got them today.

[Bldtrailer]

what kind of string are you using and are the loops padded ?

[pdk25]

Heck, I don't even remember where I got this string.  I have a drawer full of them. The loops aren't padded, but it isn't a crazy skinny string.