Fluorescent recurve string - improved sight picture ?

Corax67

Well-known member
Is anyone else currently shooting a fluorescent bowstring?

I spent a lot of my longbow season this year really concentrating on getting a consistent draw & sight picture and it began paying dividends with my scores this year better across the range of rounds I shot and improving (by small amouns) week on week.

Longbow was brought to an abrupt halt following a bicep injury and out came my recurve with weedy limbs to feed my archery habit & I finally managed to put my 36# limbs back on a couple of weeks ago to shoot with minimum discomfort.

The thing is all the time I was shooting my recurve I completely forgot all the work I had done on sight picture by being lazy and just getting the sight dot onto the ring, drawing through the clicker and ping - grouping has been 'wafty' to say the least.

On noticing that my current string was getting more than a little furry when stripping down on Saturday I popped into my local shop and had one made up while I waited and for a change I choose fluorescent green rather than bog standard black which I've previously always used.

During a session this evening I set bracing height & a nock point with the new string and was utterly taken aback by what I now see when I draw up.

It it is now so much easier to get a definitive sight picture that I can replicate over and over again! No longer does the blurry string fade out of sight, especially as I was indoors in less than perfect light, rather the fluoro green stripe of the string and the equally bright green dot on my Shibuya fibre sight pin leap out at me ensuring I get myself lined up every single shot & my groups are tighter than a tight thing.

Admittedly the first dozen ends were messy but it's a brand new string and I was tweaking things but once I found a groove the next dozen were a revelation.

Has anyone else come across this phenomena?

If this actually works & it's not just a burst of 'new kit boost' then I am seriously thinking of sourcing a suitable fluoro for my longbow next season too.




Karl
 

caspian

Member
I'm quite partial to a red string for visibility, and I have a couple of archers who like fluoro green and orange for the same reason. others find anything other than black distracting, so each to their own.
 

ThomVis

Active member
Made a new full flo-orange string only to find myself standing under the lights on the shooting line with the target outside in the dark. With the glare coming off the string I could just see my pin, the riser completely disappeared. I now make two tone flo-orange&black strings and am happy with the contrast it gives on different backgrounds.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Interesting idea, Karl.
I think ThomVis has a good point to make about overbright and dazzling.
Perhaps the value of the bright string is that it reminds you to take notice of the string picture; where a dark one may allow you to forget about it, occasionally.
I feel string picture is very important, and if brighter makes it "easier" to repeat... fine. If it detracts in some way... change it.
At an indoor event where I shot once, all the archers on my target shot off to the left( so did I) for a couple of ends.
There was a skylight window that let in a shaft of sunlight that lit up our strings for that short period of time. When the shaft of light moved away, the arrows returned to where we wanted them.
 

Timid Toad

Moderator
Staff member
Supporter
Fonz Awardee
Ironman
I always shoot mixed colour strings. Brighter for indoors/field darker for target outdoors. Mostly I use black and white for target, and a mixture of black, orange red and yellow for dingier conditions. Purely flu strings are too much unless shooting in a coal bunker.
 

JohnK

Well-known member
It's different for everyone. I have to use light colour bow strings for indoor and outdoors. Outdoors I can get away with an orange and black string, but indoors I have to have a fluorescent colour or white. If I don't, the string becomes almost invisible.
 

dvd8n

Supporter
Supporter
AIUK Saviour
I used to use a white string but then I had a cataract op and since then I found that white dazzled me in all but the dimmest of lights. I ended up having to go to black string to be able to see the target.
 

Corax67

Well-known member
Well i shot indoors last night for the first time in almost two years and outdoors in unexpected sunshine and can report that, for me, fluoro is definitely the way to go.

No earth shattering scores but much improved grouping - long may this continue.




Karl
 
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