fast flight on vintage bows

[oldbohntr]

I've been shooting low-stretch, low mass strings from old bows for years.  Probably at least 5000 shots from at least 25-30 bows: Bears, Wings, Widows, and others-back through the 60s.  Never a hint of a problem. I'll admit I've "known" some things before that didn't turn out to be true.....but I simply have not seen there is any risk in putting a properly made "skinny" string on many old bows. Nyron, my experience is they generally do all that you found with your Kodiak.  And, they turn a lot of mediocre performers into much better bows....the results are less noticeable on bows that were already great shooters.

All that said, I use a 10-12 strand B50 string on any Bear with paper micarta overlays, any static recurve or bow w/o overlays or with nocks designed like the Herters recurves......and others that seem like their design might invite a failure.  There are also bows-like my one remaining '60 Kodiak or any of the early Widows through '63 that I see no reason to accept even a minimal risk of failure.....Dacron will work on those just fine.

If any of the doubters feel adventurous, I challenge them to take an average shooter-maybe even your old carp bow?-and fit it with a 450+ 8 strand flemish string with loops padded to 12.(450 is large diameter and soft, but very strong.) Then compare how the bow shoots with the two strings. Noise is usually less, but does vary, based on how well your string is made, brace height,and the bow limb design-but, as a rule, it will not take MORE silencer than a similarly constructed dacron string and speed, vibration, etc will be better.  My low strand count, low stretch, hi-strength strings generally have a total mass-including padding & silencers-  35-50% less than the "traditional" 14-16 strand B50 string. That tells me they have to transfer more energy to your arrow. Less noise(which is basically vibration), and less "felt" vibration also equals more energy to the arrow.  

This was my choice, and -so far-it's worked out just great! By the way, in case anyone wonders if I've only tried one material, I use 6 strand ultra-cam strings on the new hybrid longbows with great results, but I suspect that may be over the top for more of the old bows.  I've tried a couple of others, but settled on these two.

[kuch]

I second that Tom

[Kelly]

Is 450+ still available?

Anyone use it in an endless string? I've never learned how to make flemish strings but endless I'm very good at.

[oldbohntr]

Hi Kelly!  
I bought a spool of 450+ a very few months ago from 3R or KK, I think.  I don't know if it's still being made.  I'm just the opposite from you; haven't made an endless string in a couple of decades, but make several flemish every week.  I have received several hybrid bows with endless strings of 8125, D97, etc.  They worked fine, but it is my habit to make my own string for any bow I buy for myself-collector or for resale. I doubt it makes a difference....I'd guess the loop serving on an endless makes particularly good padding. Speaking of all that, however, I simply choose to use low stretch material on all the bows I intend to keep and use myself.  

I know you're an old Wing fan.  Maybe the bow I have the most experience with this material is a '64-65 Swift Wing, 62", 52#. It was always a sweet, wonderful shooter.  But, it's exceptional with 8 strands of 450+, and has gone at least a couple thousand shots, maybe many more.

If you haven't yet, look for info on Rick ******, likely on the other site. He's done more definitive work on these strings than anyone I've read. But, I've not experienced anything that makes me doubt what he says. And, I'll guarantee that I'm getting more experience with them almost every day.

[Kelly]

Tom;

I've made "skinny" endless strings out of 8125 with enough extra strands underneath the servings to equal 16 strands. These were for modern bows and have not had the guts to try one on my older classics. Guess I should try one on a more common older bow with character so it won't be too much of a hurt on the pocket book if something happened.

On another note, recently acquired a fairly large lot of the same string material that Jack Howard used on his bows. Am anxious to make some strings for my other bows to see how they react with it.

[Bjorn]

My '59 Grizzly is still shooting with the skinny string on it since 2008. Bow stays strung most of the time and no problems, the wood arrows weigh about 525 gns. I still won't try anything but B50 on my Kodiaks or other collector bows.
BTW I too tested the strength of several string materials and found they were consistently about half of manufacturer's specs.
I'm not recommending modern strings on older bows, just decided to try it for myself.

[last arrow]

Putting this back on top to see if anyone has any updates.  As with any practice, the longer the history the better conclusions you can make about it.  

I am interested as I pulled out my 73 Kodiak Hunter and was shooting and my serving broke. Wanting to keep shooting, I grabbed my backup string for my current go to bow (an 10 strand endless loop TS+ padded to 16 strands in the loops) and put it on.  I was shocked at how much this changed how the bow shoots compared to the 12 strand Dacron I took off.  Besides seaming much faster, it was quieter with less shock and vibration - just a better feel throughout the shot.  Also, the annoying buzz in the old spring arm quiver was gone.  I had to use a 50 grain lighter point to get the bow/arrow back in tune.

[last arrow]

I weighed the two strings.  The TS+ weighed 90 grains and the decron weighed 144 grains.

[Precurve]

Try a 12-14 strand B55 endless loop string as a higher performance yet safe alternative on your older collectors.  My experiments with this showed it closer in performance to a flemish twist D97 than a B50 flemish.  I can usually shoot the same arrows and tip weight with the B55 endless loop as the fast flight string where the B50 flemish always meant retuning my arrow setup.  I use 12 strand for 60lb and 14 strand B55 for 70lbs+.

Dave

[59Alaskan]

I have found the endless loops are higher performance than the flemish twists as well.

I have also seen scarce few posts (on TG or other sites) in the past 2 years since this thread was last posted on in 2013 about old bows blowing up with padded FF material.  I actually can't remember even seeing one.

While I don't do it (use FF on my old bows) I know many guys who do and I am likely going to try it soon.  I would NOT do it on an old Bear with the micarta tips on it still, but that's back in the 1950's...so you're KH is fine.

Endless loop does seem to give a noticeable improvement in speed on my old Bears over the twist.  It's a bit tougher to quiet down for me though.

[last arrow]

I always used endles loop strings also. I may try a 10 strand b-50 to se how it works.

[damascusdave]

I will shoot all of my 60's Bears with low stretch strings...if that sort of material had been available in the 60's Bear would have been using it

DDave

[damascusdave]

We have satisfied ourselves that virtually all the stretch in a B50 string occurs in the loops...my stringmaker is a Master at braiding the loops which takes care of that issue rather nicely...I suspect that a well made endless loop string does exactly the same thing...I will use a B50 string on a particular bow so that I can shoot a more reasonable spine...with draw weight over 60 pounds at 30 inches I find I need to be shooting 250 spine arrows with BCY-X which greatly limits my choices

DDave

[Blackhawk]

With the '59 Kodiak being the last with the paper micarta tips, most folks say 1960 and later bows are better suited to low stretch.

But what about the '59 Kodiak Special?  Are they also made with the paper micarta?

About a year ago, I put a Dynaflight 97 flemish string on a '59 KS of about 45# and been shooting it from time to time.  I noticed improvement in all aspects of shooting the bow and see no negatives to report.

[Horney Toad]

5 fps (or less)doesn't matter that much to me. I could never justify the added risk to a bow.

[mahantango]

It's really not about the speed increase, which is minimal. It's about the feel of the shot which is infinately better.

[Blackhawk]

I agree with that.  I found the shock about gone, less noise, better flight, more accuracy, etc.    

[artifaker1]

Years later now....I'm using 10 strand 8125s on my fast flight limbs and Dacron on any other. After reading thru the later posts on this thread I would still caution to not use low strands counts with Dacron. In fact, going up in strands to reduce stretch would be ideal and probably improve performance. I know there is some info on big game hunting with heavy Bear bows on this site that talk about getting huge performance increases when increasing strand count on bows of 125lbs or so. Like going from twenty to twenty six strands...
I would also like to point out that there is plenty of info on fiber strength out there from manufacturers and if your testing and getting low results then knot strength and or rigging maybe all that is being tested.
I shot a few ends with a skinny string on my 39lb #2 takedown limbs and then reconsidered. It wasn't worth doing  because I wouldn't want to have to disclose to someone that I had shot any of my old Bear stuff with fastflight. Even if there was no damage. The above 39lb limbs are fine, and had no problems.

[mahantango]

I've been using a 12 strand Astroflight  with padded loops on my '55 Grizzly static, thousands of shots. Whole new feel to it.

[SL]

I spoke to someone years ago about this, I believe it was Dan Quillan. He stated that the way the nocks are cut is what counts. No square shoulders or flats. Most older bows have more square shoulders. He told me to take a file to the nocks and taper the shoulders like the newer bows if I wanted to shoot FF and don't worry about it.