I shoot a SKY Trophy longbow. The bow was designed with tips to handle fastflight but I have always shot it with b50. I fella frOm SKY told me the fastflight would make it a completely different bow- should I make the switch to fastflight? How much faster will it make the bow? It's 58#.
One of the commercial sponsors of this board is SBD Bowstrings, Pierre Lucas. They make great fastflight string out of the latest material available, "skinny" strings with low mass weight. The strings aren't very expensive, and it would be worth while for you to try one and decide for yourself if there is any performance advantage.
Personally, I wouldn't consider shooting a bow that was built to handle fastflight with any other kind of string. The tips that are used on bows rated for fastflight are somewhat heavier than non-fastflight tips, and add some mass to the end of the limbs, so if you don't use fastflight, you are paying a price for it. Might as well get the benefits too.
You will gain 8 to12 fpr. Ff. Is harder on the bow then B-50 in that you will feel some hand shock. You will need to tune the bow again and the spine in the arrows you are usiing right now wil be to weak for the FF string. And the bow will be louder.
I'm a fastflight string fan. It gives "oomph" to my low poundage recurves.
QuoteOriginally posted by atatarpm:
You will gain 8 to12 fpr. Ff. Is harder on the bow then B-50 in that you will feel some hand shock. You will need to tune the bow again and the spine in the arrows you are usiing right now wil be to weak for the FF string. And the bow will be louder.
Well.....technically none of that is usually true (apart for the speed gain & spine issue)
99 times out of 100 you'll feel a lot less shock, as the FF string doesn't allow the limbs to travel too far forward of their brace height. Because of B50's stretch, your limbs are presently travelling beyond brace.
HMPE (FF) strings of reasonable design (ie NOT overbuilt) are actually less hard on the bow, if the bow is designed for it.
Also, 99 times out of 100, you'll notice a lot less noise.
I agree with him, it will be a completely different bow and you will kick yourself for not going with a FF string sooner. I would suggest you get padded loops also. I suggest a 10 strand with padded loops for you.
I've messed around a bit building strings with FF materials and B50. I've tried various strand counts too. Personally, I think 12-14 is the perfect performance verses noise ratio. Anything lower than 12 gets really noisey REALLY fast (I've gone down to 8 strands). Plus you end up needed to double serve it to get the arrow knock to seat properly... 14 gets a better arrow fit, but 12 is quick and quiet enough. My strings I go 15 strand, 3 bundle. Its just what I like. To me the speed for lower is not worth the noise and harsh performance. If I need to go that fast... maybe I should shoot a wheelie ; )
I have found the skinnier the ff string the quieter and lower hand shock from the bow. I shoot 55 lb RD longbows and love an 8 strand string padded with B50 to 14 strand in the loops. Properly padding the loops does a lot for noise reduction.
For me the only bows I shoot dacron on are a couple of older vintage recurves that rarely get shot.Just not a fan of dacron!I shoot a FF type string for the feel and not for any speed increase it may give me.The bow feels more solid and not springy like with a dacron string.
what Robtatto said. fastflite strings are ++++++.
Fastflight has made both recurves and longbows faster and quieter for me. I shoot 6 strand SBD's below53 lbs and 8 strand above 55.
Fast Flight SBD strings are the only way to go, I love their performanceand how quiet they are.
A lot depends on how the string is made. Generally speaking, you gain durability, while reducing stretch and creep. Noise depends on tuning, silencer type, silencer placement, nock fit, release, etc.
I've never seen evidence of a FF type string damaging a bow, "overbuilt" or not. What is overbuilt depends on your personal definition.
FF type strings generally reduce hand shock, not increase it.
IMO, you loose some of the benefits by going too low in strand count--you loose durability, you add stretch and creep--those are the attributes I like and the reason I use them to begin with.
Like most everything else in this sport, there are lots of opinions and personal preferances vary.
Chad
Once I built a ten strand flemish: I did not like the feel of it. I shoot it once and my bow limbs were vibrating like a bango string and I never made one like that again. I do shoot 15 strand FF's and I like them. Nor did I mean at anytime to say not to try them. You asked for pro's and con's. Everyone has different thoughts, and here in this thread you should get a lot of them.
In my experience I own a couple of bows that are built for fast flight and I now shoot Dacron on both more speed yes but I got alot more noise from the fast flight even with heavy arrows.
(bow in 55# range and shooting 700 gr. arrows) For me anyway I Like the slightly slower but much quieter Dacron strings.
FF for me, gained 11 ft/sec and a quieter bow.
Im my experience there are no cons with FF. I wouldn't even consider dacron anymore
i like FF strings. SBD and Olivery Stacy make a awsome set of FF strings.
B50 here IMO FF is too noisy
Though they shoot with more oomph than B-50 I have always found it much more difficult to quiet down FF strings.
I've never come across a bow I couldn't get quiet with a FF type string. Heard a lot about it, had a few brought by my shop that "couldn't be quieted" that left quiet. Some bows are noisier than others, and will be loud regardless...but most can be just as quiet or quieter with a FF type string.
Again, how the string is made, how you tune, nock fit, silencer type and placement, etc. all make a difference.
One thing is you can't just swap from one string to a totally different one and expect to just string it up and go. You'll have to re-tune, possibly swap arrows or point weights, to get the best results.
Chad
if yer bow can handle a modern hmpe fiber string, then by all means, USE IT!
it really makes absolutely no sense using dacron that will have lotsa stretch and creep.
hmpe fiber (i.e. - fast flight, dynaflight, whatever) is not about limb/arrow speed, it's all about performance stability.
get yerself a custom hmpe bowstring and don't look back. :thumbsup:
With the bows I've used both on, all but one were considerably more quiet with FF. The only exception was a used Palmer that I just couldn't get quiet with any type of string/silencer combo. I sold it-it sounded like a .22 going off regardless of the string
What LBR and Rob said.
You gotta spend a little time to retune the bow after changing to a high performance string. Like said before, "you can't just swap from one string to a totally different one and expect to just string it up and go".
I have yet to find that a high performance string is noisier than dacron after I have spent the time to make adjustments where needed.
Heck, I find that I don't even need silencers on my Kanati with it's ten strand, D10 string with padded loops. :thumbsup:
The only drawback I saw when I switched the SBD string is that I had just bought the "right" arrows for my B50. :banghead: I noticed a significant increase in speed and the bow seemed a bit quieter with the SBD.
Just my $.02
Thanks for all the responses!! I really appreciate it- I'm gettin FF and gettin it dialed in.. Only 73 days till I head west for elk- not that I'm countin haha
First and Foremost, Fast Flight is a tradename of Brownell. Spectra is this product, of which is a creation of DuPont.
I have a p.p. when folks "blanket", the materials under this name!
Rob is right, when he calls them "hmpe' materials.
There is alot more to these materials than just "Fast"! Please take note.
there was a thread on here a while back about dry firing your bow and most bows that got damaged from dry fires used fast flight strings it might be worth trying to recover that thread and read on it a little
QuoteOriginally posted by frank bullitt:
First and Foremost, Fast Flight is a tradename of Brownell. Spectra is this product, of which is a creation of DuPont.
I have a p.p. when folks "blanket", the materials under this name!
Rob is right, when he calls them "hmpe' materials.
There is alot more to these materials than just "Fast"! Please take note.
while I agree with you, calling HMPE material "fastflight" is like folks calling any soda water a coke.. it's just a generalization... :thumbsup:
HMPE, Dyneema, Spectra, FF...I'm with Javi on this one.
I've had several bows break on me, known of several more. Only two of them had a FF type string on them (it actually was original FF). Both were old bows with skinny strings and unpadded loops.
I've said it a ton of times before--when a bow blows up and it has a FF type string on it, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the string. When one blows up with a dacron string on it, then something else gets blamed.
Well, let me back up a minute. I do know of one other bow added to the list, that pretty much exploded and it had a FF type string on it. Thing is, it blew up the first time the owner pulled it to full draw, and according to the bowyer it was a new bow. Obviously the string had nothing to do with it.
Anyway, my point is without any other evidence, just based on my experience, dacron shortens the life of bows more than FF. I don't think that's the case at all, just making a point.
Chad
Right on Chad-I dry fired a bow with dacron once and cracked a limb. Have done it twice unfortunately with FF and not a problem!
I would never shoot a dacron string on a longbow ever again--a Fast flite style string improves the performance and feel of a longbow to the point where you will wonder what you were thinking by not changing years ago--
On recurves, well designed recurves, I have never noticed the night and day difference that I always notice with a longbow--
When I change from dacron to FF on a recurve, it usually means changing the arrow to one that would work on a bow of 10#s heavier in weight--
If ya can use it
I have never not been able to quiet down a ff bow