Hey guys..

I just picked up a little 52" Ben P recurve from a local gunshow. Figured I'm gonna make it my new bowfishing rig.
It didn't have a string on it, so I had to pick one up at the local bowshop. The guy is fairly knowledgable when it comes to trad bows, so I trusted him when he told me I needed a 48" string for the bow.

Problem is, I can't get the brace height to come below 10 inches!  I can twist that string until I'm blue in the face and it stays right around 10 inches.

I'm figuring that the brace height for this bow needs to be around 8-8.5", but I'm a long way from getting there if the height wont drop.

What do you guys think?  Wrong length of string? Or is it something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!

Your never going to lower the brace by "twisting"  a string. You have to "untwist" it. But you dont want to untwist it too much either particulary if its a flemish string.

Some strings will stretch quite a bit if they are new. You might try leaving it strung for a while and see if it stretches out. Other than that you need a new string.

Also. Where are you measuring from?  You should measure from the farthest point in on the grip to the string.

I "twisted" one way, then the other, sort of like I do with my longbows, but never made any progress. I left it to where there's no twist in the string at all.

I measured the height from the deepest part of the grip to the string.  

I agree with you that the bow may need to just be strung and left for a while. Hope that makes a diffrence.

Thanks for the input Tom..

I think your string is too short. It isn't going to strectch that much. Be carefull, I surprised you got it strung.

longbow -3", recurve -4", right? but I don't think its carved in stone, most times your guy would probably be right. I'd take the string and bow back to the local shop, he should know what to do when you show it to him.

I did a little looking around after posting
 http://www.archeryarchives.com/  
if you follow the Ben Pearson links, I stopped looking with the first one I found.
1971, 52", PB-H52, 40-55#s, 7 1/2 to 8 1/4 inch brace height.
no string length listed but I'm thinkn you might want to go longer  

Definetly the string is wrong.

I'll bet my last dollar you got a sting meant for 48" AMO, not 52" AMO which is actually a string length that measures about 44".
Check it out and let me know.

Happened to me.

Measure the string from nock to nock. It should measure 48" like Kingstaken is getting at.