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Flight shooting strings

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Badger:
  Same as pyro supplies. Most of all our linen comes from the same mill. Mine usually break in the main body of the string usually toward one end or the other. I didn't break any last year as I got lazy and went to 125 grains, more strands.

avcase:
We spend all kinds of time trying to squeeze a little more performance out of our bows. It makes sense to try to get the most out of the string too.  For maximum performance, a flight bow string should have minimal mass and maximimum stiffness. Rubber band-like elasticity hurts performance. I feel a couple extra strands of string may not be too bad a problem as long as the forces are evenly distributed to each strand because it makes the string stiffer.

Tuomo,
The last linen flight strings I made for a 50# bow (about 200# breaking strength) are 80-85 grains, fully silk served with reinforced loops. But these were shorter than yours at 54"-58" long. I use endless loop construction and no wax. I often use the thin Barbours 25/3 or 35/3 which has a strength-to-weight ratio almost as good or better than Dacron.  I haven't had issues with these strings breaking at the salt flats for many years now.

I made a 400# string for a simple composite bow that Steve made for Jozsef Monus this year. I think the string was around 64" long, and weighed around 140 grains fully served with reinforced loops. The string was a bit long giving the bow a low brace height and I thought the resulting high forces would break the string to bits, but it held together without any issues.

Alan

loon:
I would imagine that a shorter string would need to be stronger due to higher tension at brace?..

Badger:
  Loon, the string angles of a lower brace put much higher strain on the bow than any other position it will be in. I have had string break right in half a few times when I had them a bit too long and marginal strength to start with.

Tuomo:
Here is one string made from Swedish 35/3 linen. Breaking strength is 200 pounds, length 57", 16 strands, little waxed and with 4" center serving. Weight is 68,8 grains. It weighted 63,8 grains without center serving and wax, and 66,2 without wax. I served it same material as the string body.

With endless string, serving material and waxing is quite important factor. I have used quite thick silk servings (loops and center), which weighted 40-50 grains totally, plus about 10 grains wax. With this string, servings weighted only 7,5 grains and wax about 2,5 grains. Quite a remarkable difference! And more important than string body yarn qulity. For example, if the linen yarn would has 50 % more strength per mass, the string body mass saving would be 18 grains. And 10 % would equal about 4,5 grains. Linen, which has 10 % more strength per mass (compared for example to good quality Barbour's linen) is very difficult to obtain.

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