Home > Archery Kit > SBD Strings
SBD Strings
Reviewed By Andy , 16 October 2009
Archery is a wonderful sport to be involved in, not only is it great fun to shoot a bow but there is also a myriad of off shoots which you can get yourself involved in, most people make their own arrows, some make their own strings and some even got to the lengths of making their own bows.
Personally I'm not really the practical type, which is odd because I come from a long line of craftsman, my father being the pinnicle who can pretty much turn his hand to anything practical with stunning results. I have neither the patience or time to make my own equipment, I'm possibly being unfair to myself because I'm sure given the time I could come up with something acceptable. However I always want to do as well as I can when I shoot in competition and putting myself at a disadvantage by using something I have made isn't really my style. So I have tended, when needed, to buy strings rather than make my own.
Plenty of people offer string making services, however when you take your shooting seriously what you really want is a custom string made to your exact specification. I needed some new strings as I had recently purchased a new set of limbs for one of my bows and I only had one rather tatty old one between two bows. A good friend had recommended SBD strings and they had a page on the Sponsors section of Tradgang, the work looked good, they were using the sort of materials I was interested in using (D-97). The strings were also 8 strand, rather skinny which should in theory increase arrow speed. I had however had various issues with skinny strings in the past, mainly due to a lack of loop padding, however SBD explicitly mentioned that they pad their loops to avoid the sort of issues I was getting, string noise and vibration.
I contacted Pierre at SBD with some questions, where I should measure the limb width, because my limbs taper, and if they could ship internationally, I got an almost instant response, confirming where I needed to measure and also that they would be more than happy to ship internationally and if I gave them my address where how much extra it would cost me. That evening I too the various measurements they need and sent them to Pierre and in the mean time he had responded with the postage costs. SBD offer number of colour options, I went for a mix of orange and black, but they offer a pretty large range of options. I paid by Paypal and again within minutes Pierre had confirmed the order.
To my surprise I got an email from Pierre the next day confirming the strings had been made and that he had already shipped them, exceptionally quick service for what would have been custom strings, I had ordered three and there is no way they would have had 3 in my exact requirements and colour combinations hanging around. The strings arrived in less than a week, excellent as we normally have to wait a few weeks for delivery from the states. The strings are exceptionally well made and came with a brass nocking point already installed, it was exactly the right length and I only had to add a few small additional twists to get the right bracing height for the bow.
I had a chance the following weekend to try the strings, they worked really well and vibration and noise were minimal, much less than other skinny strings I had experimented with. The arrow also seemed to be much faster than the standard string I had been using, luckily we had two bows which were the same poundage and we shot both side by side, the one with the SBD string was noticeably fast as we were having to adjust our aim otherwise the arrow flew over the top.
| Rating | |
|---|---|
| Features & Design |   |
| Not really much to say on features or design as it's just a bit of string, but it's exceptionally well made. | |
| Performance | |
| Initial indications are that it perfoms much better than a standard string, but without the vibration and noise often associated with skinny strings. | |
| Value for Money | |
| Good value, no more or less than you would expect to pay for a string. | |
| Overall | |
| We don't have a section in the summary for customer service as much of the stuff we buy is second hand, but that's where SBD set themselves apart from the rest. It's a really well made product but backed up by exceptional service. | |
Steve Nicholson and Andy Gilfrin, are real archers interested in the best archery suppliers have to offer. In our search for the very best bow, arrows and equipment we have shot, used and worn pretty much everything on offer.
We value feedback from users and suppliers and are keen to hear from you if you wish to contact us about anything on the website.
Contact Steve .. steve@archers-review.com
Contact Andy .. andy@archers-review.com
We are now offering the opportunity for suppliers, manufacturers and bowyers to get involved. Check out the sponsors page for more information.
| Essential Details | |
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Magazine |
Magazine
We were very pleased to give our support to the James Whale Kidney Foundation shoot which we cover in this months magazine. We were also contacted by Lars Pilø with news on the archery related finds on Jovfonna, and while we couldn't get out there ourselves Lars kindly filled in some background information for us.
A mixed bag this month, me in the South West, Geoff putting the record straight, a chat with Keith Stay and the wisdom comes from South Cox of Stalker bows.
We take a tour the length and breadth of the British mainland to visit Scotland with Border Bows, Yorkshire with Aidy Hayes, the Wirral with Jason from thelongbowshop.com, down South with the Company of Canterbury Longbowman, and Geoff is in Spain.
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Quick Links |
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Your Comments
Tell us what you think, do you agree with the review or have something to add?
Posted by: J Carpenetr on Apr 3, 21:09
Following your review on these I ordered one for my recurve to replace the original 16-strands of elasticated B50.
Pierre was as efficient as written about here, and the order was placed in a matter of minutes. It does help that being 6ish hrs behind in the US that you can do a lot of this in the evenings after work!
Unfortunately the string never made it through, when I enquired about it, SBD made and sent another within 24hrs, no questions asked.
The quality of the finished product is very high, the kind that only hand-finished with care by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing gets you.
Significantly faster, group sizes are much, much smaller- even with arrows that are now too weak for my bow.
Ignoring the cost of the new arrows(!), this is possibly the cheapest and most effective way to improve my bow I could have found. Highly recommended for all FF approved bows.