How do I know what bowstring I need for my recurve

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bigbuck150

New member
I just purchased a pearson recurve at a yard sale. It says 60amo on the handle. I've read conflicting info on the web. Some say to go 3" shorter then amo while others say 4" shorter. I've always gotten my compound strings from 60x custom strings but I'm not sure which of these I need either. www.60xcustomstrings.com/longbow-recurve-bow-strings/ Is one of these better then the other? I've heard that dacron is the way to go on older bows. Thanks for any help. Looking forward to trying traditional archery.
 
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String length between 3 and 4 will be correct for most recurves. Three inches short on a lightly twisted string then twist to get proper brace height. Dacron was suggested on older recurves do to it's elasticity.
Fastflight has very low stretch, low creep tendencies due to it's material blends.
Different blends of Vectran, Dynema, etc. will give it different characteristics. Depending on what the shooter wants (little to no creep, material diameter for lower or higher strand counts, no fuzz etc.) determines the material he builds with.
Older recurves had the chance of blowing their tips off with strings of little to no elasticity.
Most though can handle a flemmish string made of materials like BCY 8125. The flemmish style string tends to have a little inherent shock absorbing qualities over an endless loop style.
 
You need to order a string for the length of your bow nock to nock (NTN). The AMO length is marked on the bow. Your post indicates a NTN or AMO length of 60 inches. Correct AMO length is 3 inches less than the NTN AMO length so you need a string length of 57 inches. Dacron is a good choice and honestly you will gain very little with the low stretch materials.

Dacron will stretch a bit with use but you can easily twist it a bit to regain your brace height. A string 4 inches shorter may give you too high a brace height and will never stretch enough to bring height into spec.
 
Usually 3" shorter for longbows and 4" for recurves. B-50 is safe on any bow and will stretch quite a bit, your fastflight materials while having little stretch will still stretch a bit. The less amount of strands in a string will cause it to stretch more, when I build a string for my recurve I always make it 4" shorter because I don't like a lot of twist in my string. But to each his own.
 
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