Once again, David is spot on. I don't doubt Bernie's skills or knowledge...but I know Eric Krewson normally uses wood overlays on his selfbows, and HMPE (usually Dynaflight '97, I think) strings.

I know my own favorite bow, that I pull [email protected]" on, that I've never shot more than 10 gpp on and generally less, that I draw to 30", that I get well over 180 fps with, that I've shot tens if not hundreds of thousands of times over the past 12-15 years....has wood overlays on the limb tips, and it's doing just fine even though it's NEVER had a dacron string on it.

Back to the discussion on speed.....I accidently ran across an interesting tidbit about picking up 6-12 fps just with a proper anchor and release (it's on the safari tuff site under "tips and trophies). That's as much or more than you'll typically pick up by changing strings.

This has been very interesting and enlightening, even if there hasn't been any real testing done. Thank you all for your input, and the civil way you presented it.