Hello everyone-

I am new to the site (been reading for quite some time now)...I would like to draw on your knowledge.

What is the preferred method to silence a recurve? I shoot a Hoyt Dorado takedown, I placed moleskin under the string at the limbs but still have noise off the string at the shot.

What should I try? At this point the string is bare.

Thanks for your help! Wolf

try twisting the string to change brace height a bit. go up or down and take a few shots to let the string settle. Then rank the noise. If it gets better go more in that direction until it gets worse. Then back off again until you the minimal noise level. That is your optimal brace height. Measure that and right it down. Now the bow is ready for some beaver balls or whatever. Place them equidistant from the limb tips. Try 10" down. Then take a few shots. Move them up or down until the bow is at it's quietest.

This process takes a little time as you can see. But this is how to make you bow the most quite.

Hmmmmm.... Sounds good, but the optimal brace height for arrow flight/tuning purposes may not be the quietest. Maybe life is that good sometimes, but I guess I'd have to mess with things a bit until I was convinced that I could really have it all....

On silencer placement - I read somewhere that the optimal points for the silencers are at the 1/4 nodes on the string. Say your strung bow measures 60" nock-to-nock (NTN); the theory was that because of the way sound waves get propagated , by placing the silencers each 15" from a nock (with 30" of bare string between them), you should get minimal noise. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly and you're supposed to go with thirds instead of fourths, in which case the silencers would be 20" from a nock and 20" from each other.

Try either or both of those and see how you do... I'm not sure how nocking point distance from each silencer figures into this, but it stands to reason that it should....

FWIW, I've found catwhiskers to be as effective as they are ugly and beaver balls to be as useless as they are aesthetically pleasing. I believe there was a TBM tip about wrapping catwhiskers in beaver fur. That might be the ticket...

catwhiskers and bowhush work for me scary quiet

Are your arrows heavy enough or are you using too light an arrow? Somewhere between 8-10gr/#of bow weight. If your arrows are not the problem and the bow is really banging try raising the brace hight. Cat whiskers and a bow quiver make my Widow silent. I do mean silent! Frank

MEasure the string at the contact points of the limbs. Divide by 4. Locate cat whiskers this distance from the contact point of the string and limbs. Good LUck.

BTW: This is almost the same as GF stated, but not using total string length...just from the contact points. This is the same as what happens on a guitar, between the nut and bridge. After the nut and bridge, the length determines tension, but not pitch.

Stiktamers

heavier arrows will make the bow quiter for sure. It will also make a slower flight and larger arch in the flight path.

my best silencers were thin strips of mink fur that are would around the sting for about 3#

What........are "Limb Savers" a bad word?

Lone Wolf: I was glad to see your question, because a lot of bum dope comes up on this issue and I thought this would be a good time to straighten this out.

Then Reg beat me to it. That is the first thing to do- tune the bow with nothing extra on it.

For me that generally does it. For a lot of guys, six more twists in the string helps a lot. But then I use fairly heavy arrows, which are a lot quieter than light ones.

If that is not enough you can put something in the string, beaver balls, cat whiskers, or just your granny's knitting yarn.

In my experience, that should do it. If you think you need to pad your string grooves or something else extra, I would go back to the above first and do it better. - lbg

Heavir arrows will help absorb some energy from the string. I use wool yarn to make sring puffs by wrapping it around my hand 10-15 times and then slip the bundle off my hand and into the divided string. About 1/3 of the way up from the ends. Trim with scissors about 1 inch on either side of the string and shoot to puff them up. Seems to work well for me.

STIKTAMERS do work very well on a recurve bow. I have them on my kodiak mag with great results.

http://leatherwall.bowsite.com/tf/lw/thread2.cfm?forum=23&threadid=176715&category=

Check this old thread Lonewolf. It's the way I do mine now. Works very well.

I really appreciate all the information! I suspected that the solution was beyond any one "quick fix".

Thanks for steering me in the right direction!

On the arrow weight- I shoot 5575 GT's at 28" with 125 grain heads- the bow draws 50# - What do you think?

Thanks again!

I have been using wool yarn for years and it works great. Another thing you might do is soak your loops and laquer thinner and clean all the waxs out. Its a matter of working all the wax out of the loop. It really softens them up and and you get less string slap on a recurve. I also make my own strings, and blend B50 with 450plus, about 60% 450 and 40% B50 making a l0 strand string. so far this is my quitest set up.

Ron

I use a brush button on the lower end near where the string lays on the limb along with wooly boogers about midway from the serving on both ends of the string.

If these measures don't do the trick,you may want to try a different string.Different manufacturing procedures,material and number of strands vary greatly.It all figures into the total results.

I have an older recurve that I just can not get hunting quiet!!! I have lowered and raised the brace, put on as many as six string silencers, put felt in the string grooves, used heavy arrows, tried wood, carbons, and alluminums, fletched and bare shafts, strings up to 16 strand B-50, and it still "twangs" like a guitar string!!!

Any advice???

BB1004

"On the arrow weight- I shoot 5575 GT's at 28" with 125 grain heads- the bow draws 50# - What do you think?"

Based on these specs your arrows should weigh about 382 gn, That is 7.6 gpp. An arrow that is 9 or 10 gpp would likely be quieter. Your arrows have a dynamic spine of 95.9 lbs. Your bow set up is closer to 60 lbs, so your arrows seem to be over spinned. Using heavier points would reduce the dynamic spin some, and would add weight to your arrows.

Good advice from REG above. Work on your BH first and then add silencers as needed.

LoneWolf, if my guess is correct... you are shooting a 400-425 gr. arrow at 50 pounds. That is approx. an 8.0 - 8.5 GPP arrow. No matter what silencing method you use, it will be louder than if you were to shoot a heavier arrow, 10 GPP arrow would be good. Recurve noise problems are exasperated by shooting metal riser bows. Unless you are planning on shooting at deer further than 25 yards, a 10 gpp arrow won't cause a problem just because it doesn't shoot as flat as the 8 gpp arrow. Shoot a heavier arrow and you will have a quieter shooting recurve. Also, get some sort of silencers on the string, it will help tremendously. All recurves shoot quieter if they utilize string silencers, regardless of how well they are tuned.

I use The Hairey Beaver silancers measure 12 inches from loops inside and install one on each limb steve cuts these the right width and they work every time Bro !! !!

Del,

Have you tried using a Dacron string with a strand count of 10 or 12?

There are some bows that just will not quiet down due to their individual nature. Solution try before you buy and if you get a custom that will not quiet send it back it is not made right.

Also, a too low brace height spells noise... a higher brace height spells quieter. Tune your setup accordingly.

Here is another method for quieting the string slap on a recurve.... the following link is to my GoogleSites page with illustrated instructions.

https://sites.google.com/site/stickbowmadness/muffler-silencer

Okiak, I have gone down to a 10, I have literally 5 different strings for this bow, LOL!!! They all are lounder than a .22!

BB1004

I just bought 6 sets of Catwhiskers and they are going to do the job for me. That cost me 7.50. If I had not corrected the guy punching them into the till they would have cost me 2.50.

We told him they were 6 pairs at 1.25 and he heard 6 for 1.25. It was hilarious actually trying to get it sorted out. We finally just told him "John, it is 7.50. I am a math teacher and Jordy's mother was a teacher who taught with my mother".

If I am in a hurry I tie them on. Otherwise I use small tie wraps or dental floss to attach them. If a bow is already quiet I just split one and use half top and bottom. I also usually trim the length. One of the great advantages of catwhiskers is that they shed water.

DDave

If you have any old Dacron strings laying around, cut about 3" of the string, fold it in half and insert it in your current string. Cut the loop and shoot the heck out of it. Let it fray, then you can trim it up if you like. It is water-resistant, way more resilient than yarn, and to me works better than the cat whiskers. I have had mine on for over a year and no problems. Cat whiskers are gone in a few months on all my bows.

J

STYKTAMERS!

Brace height, strings, silencers,and arrows.

My Gharing was pretty loud and since I am thinking of maybe using it to hunt this year I put some catwhiskers on it yesterday. Does not even sound like the same bow. I am going to do the same with a 60 Kodiak right now. Those little suckers are very noisy without silencers (I have it braced kind of low because the string is actually for a 60 inch longbow and therefore an inch too long). I would replace that string, but it is so well made that I cannot bring myself to do it. To me the standard for a great Flemish twist string is no visible ends, not something that every string maker can accomplish or cares about.

DDave

String Slap?? Isn't that a misnomer? Virtually impossible for the string to slap the limb the way I see it.

bowbender, what bow is it? do you have hand shock?

todd, you're asking a question to a seven year old thread. There is a current one on silencing a bow just from this past week.

I brought one to the top.

I haven’t had a problem with a loud bow. Proper brace, proper string materials, good string silencers placed about 15” from the loops. I like whiskers and I like the wooly balls. I have modern soft rubber compound silencers one one bow and it’s nice and quiet. I think it’s just that some bows are just really quiet. Some make a little more sound. Doesn’t matter, it’s not that different if you listen to someone else shoot it from 20 yards away.

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