Has any of the older 70's and 80's vintage Damon Howatt recurves suffered limb failure from using a fast flute bow string. If so, what year forward is compatible?

Thanks!

I have a 75 howatt that I added antler overlays to the nocks. No issues in nearly 3 years

I can think of 2 members of this site, who are very knowledgeable regarding your question. If they don't chime in, contact Larry Hatfield, or pdiddly.

I'm sure it's not fast flight rated, but I have been shooting a skinny string with padded loops out of my 1973 Super Diablo for over a year without any problems. I can say for a fact, it improved the speed,and overall feel of the bow enough for me to take the chance that it may cause damage at some point. It may never have a negative effect, only time will tell. John

From 1995 on Howatt had thicker tips on their recurves for low stretch strings.

I have BCY-X strings by stilldub and Fury strings by Ten-Ring on some older Howatts. The strings are not skinny. They are slightly thinner in the body than B-50 but the loop diameter is the same as B-50.

I make sure the nock grooves on the bow form a nice teardrop shape and I check for rough spots or raised glass in the nocks as well.

No problems so far on four bows. The oldest Howatt I have a low stretch string on is a 1964 Howatt Hunter.

Some would counsel against doing so but that is my practical experience.

The bows are quieter with less vibration and more zip.

Probably. But they have also failed with B-50, B-55, and other materials also.

Thanks guys for clearing this issue up for me :). I've the older bows were not fast flite rated but have never seen one fail when using one.

Thumper, the term "fast flight rated" is a mystery that no one can answer for sure....only conjucture. If someone tells you a bow is fast flight rated, they are only going by what someone else thought it was...heavy overlays, etc. I've used it on bows with no overlays and for a long time.

The terms ff compatible/rated were terms used by bowyers to let you know if bows were ff safe and would be covered in case of breakage. Not many still use it but some do. Most bowyers would tell you if it was made before a certain year ff would void the warranty.

I think when FF was new, the bowyers simply didn't know what might happen, so they didn't guarantee the bows against something that they weren't specifically designed to do. Which is a Good Business Decision, IMO.

I don't think using FF would void the warranty on my '90 Hunter, though it might've done so 25 or so years ago. ;)

This is one of those questions that makes me wonder how accurate Stu's calculator is on such things....

According to the calculator, switching from B-50 to a 14-strand FF would raise my spine requirement by about #2.5

So I plugged in the numbers for wood shafting (#55 Hunter drawn about 26.5", using 125-grain point, and 0.1" as my token strikeplate number).

With B-50, that bow (sez Stu) will throw a 27 3/4", #60-spine shaft (all up 504 gr) at 178.4 FPS

Switch to FF, and it'll throw a 28" #65-spine shaft (516 gr total) at 180.9.

Kinda makes you wonder if the calculator is off, because I'm not sure I see much up-side.... Going up #5 in spine rating sounds like a big win, but the heftier shaft comes with a slight weight penalty, so it's a matter of 2.5 feeps... And about 1.6 fpe. I guess you can look at that as a 5% boost in output, but from a glass-half-empty POV, it's just a dozen grains going less than 1.5% faster.

Guess I'm wondering what the fuss is?

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