I'm having a good time shooting my new Half Breed, got it tuned up with some Wapiti cedars and wanted to make note of the specs so I reached out to Craig Ekin to see what string material be supplied and he confirmed it was a B50. The tips are reinforced so it'll accept a FF string, which I'm tempted to try, but I feel like it's already super quiet and tuned so I also feel why bother? Any of you guys with a Hill swap your B50 for FF?
I like the feel of fast flight better so I always change them out. I don't think there is a big difference in performance I just think the bow feels crisper to me. Just as many people prefer the feel of B 50. What length bow do you have?
If you're going to try different strings, be aware that HH makes the string loops small for a reason. Have had "normal" sized string loops slip off the nocks.
64" for my wee-man arms
I could have mailed you one to try out for 66 or 68, I don't have one for a 64. Again just my opinion but for me the shorter the bow, the less difference it makes the bow feel. You should post this on the Howard Hill topic on here you will probably get more responses
Ten Ring Strings makes strings for Hill Style bows with "Fury" material I think it's called. It's a great fast flight material and Allen makes a great string. All of my Hill Styles wear them.
I know Craig likes dacron, but any of his bows will handle low-stretch materials. I put D-97 on all my ASLs. IMO, they do yield a significant performance increase over dacron and they definitely reduce the hand shock, which is also influenced by arrow weight, limb timing and personal sensitivity.
The low stretch materials may not be as quiet as dacron, but i get them quiet enough for my tastes with wooly whispers string silencers.
If you get a string from Champion bowstrings, you can tell Chad that it is will be for skinny tipped longbow, give him the exact strung bow length and tell him what nocks you will be using and he will hit it on the head right from the package. You still will have to put on your own nocking point, which will be supplied. i would bet that you will like that particular bow better with a non stretch string. http://www.recurves.com
The strings that came with mynewHills were B50,I switched those out with D10 strings from SBD ,it made a world of difference.Pierre will make the loops any size you want.
Thanks for the info guys and thanks for the consideration Greg, I'm going to try a different material just for experimental purposes and see what difference it makes...the bow is also shooting so good now that it could be a dont fix what isn't broken thing, but what fun would that be?
I have been making my own from B452-X 25 + strands to match 16 strand B50 thickness. lasts forever, no noticeable wear after at least 2 years.
be sure to re-tune your bow before you evaluate the change.
Can a Hill bow without reinforced limb tips still shoot low stretch strings?
Conventional wisdom says you should not, but personally i would not be too afraid of it. i would use caution with the skinny strings and be sure to pad the loops.
referg: Most Hill built bows and ASLs built by others contain limb tip wedges. They stiffen the limb tip a little and also strengthen it. ASLs are thick at the tips, and they don't have unusual/deep cuts into the belly glass as some recurves do. About the strongest limb tip around. I've never heard of a limb tip breaking or delimitation occurring in an ASL because of string material. I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen or heard of it happening.
Lost Nation Archery is a sponsor here and they make a string that has a woven (for lack of a better term) loop that fits any longbow or recurve rather than a fixed lop size, and it tightens to fit the nocks perfectly. Available in both B50 and D97. One of the best strings I have ever had.
18 strand 452X with .026 halo. It's basically a bulletproof string. I'm pretty sure I could cut 1/2 the strands without worry of breaking