B55,D97, and Linen

[bassman]

That makes more sense to me now. String I weighed was 2 inches longer, and thicker in diameter, and 2 long pig tail adding to the weight. Who ever rolled my string made it thick enough for a recurve bow, and safe enough to shoot for a longer period of time. If you rolled a D97 string now that weighed the same as your linen string fps  should be close, but in my mind I still think D97 would still have a slight  edge, or maybe not. Roll one up ,and shoot them through the chrony. I would like to see the results.

[Badger]

  Each strand of D97 will slow the bow by about .75 ft per second. Weight seems to be the over riding factor.

[diliviu]

This is so interesting! Considering B55 and D97 were made to offer about same safety (both not overbuilt), I could almost bet for a difference  of maximum 5-6 fps  at speeds around 150-160 fps. So string material is definitely more important than I thought.

[bassman]

Years ago I bought my son a 40lb Samick Sage take down glass recurve. The string that came with the bow looked like a small rope. I tied a 10 strand B55 string ,and a 10 strand D97 string for the bow ,and shot all three strings all else being equal. Still remember the numbers. The factory string shot average 148 fps at a little over 26 inches of draw. The B55 string shot average 154 fps. The 10 strand D97 shot 162 fps. A bow string plays a big part in how a bow performs. Through time I ended up shooting 8 strands of both B55, and D97 with no negative effects.