Archery | What Happens When You DON'T Unstring A Bow (For Months)

Quick reference:

Modern bows, fibreglass laminated limbs, compound bows = OK to leave strung.
Traditional bows, wooden bows, self-bows, longbows, etc. = UNSTRING WHEN NOT IN USE

What happens if you leave your underwear hanging behind you in your video

unstringing and stringing my new recurve bow is like hell to do, took me minutes to try and attach the string
if I would have to unstring and string my bow constantly that would be torture.

Non-compound bows should be unstrung when not in use. Good for the bow limbs n the string.Of course, you can keep them strung in a state of war when you need to use them fast before your enemy kills you.

I only keep my bow strung during transport and use and un string it when I get home my bow has been fine thankfully it's a wooden traditional look bow recurve shoots great but I always un string my bow when it's not in use ps ite only strung up for a couple hours not days

I left one strung up in my truck one day in the summer while i was working and when i left work i discovered that one limb had delaminated and came apart. Heat maybe? Im not sure. Sucked though.

Excellent your explanations, subscribed.. your info is very important greetings from colombia 🇨🇴

I have one bow i shoot and I'm not taking the string of when I use it everyday! You will do more damage taking the string on and off all the time! Ive tested the draw poundage and its the same after a year...

well you gave fair warning, that is very sad what happens. Poor longbow, bet the asian coposite horn wood laminates did very well even with humidity.....

Fix: landseet oil / flat surface /weighted down.. / heat .. like ..greenhouse or Van ... or .. steamed..

Just a thought. If you hung your bent bow upside down on 2 pegs ( equidistant from the hand grip and roughly where the bend begins) and then suspended a weight from each end would it eventually straighten out?

Thank you. This is information I am not (yet) passing down to my granddaughter. I want her to fully develop the habit of un-stringing after every use, regardless of the material of the bow.😊

I keep my English Longbow unstrung at all times unless its in use and, it's still set through use!

Some of the reasons for not leaving bows strung are Irrational nonsense.

So you base this whole video and the title of the video on a cell phone that maybe 1% of the people who shoot bows use. Clickbait buddy

I have left my laminated bow strung for about 2 years now (its a cheap 120dlls bow from ebay) I only shoot it like once a week, so far it's working pretty fine, it's still working like when it was new.

I never unstring my fiberglass limb bows. Get told all the time I need to as they have wood in them. It's the fiberglass that does the work and that is fine. My wooden bows I unstring as soon as I finish shooting.

Same thing that would happen to your clothes-line when you leave the laundry hanging to dry in the backyard.

Naughty boy to not unstring your bows!

Mine is aluminum takedown. It's my first.

I’m pretty sure I’veseen a video by this fella saying it really doesn’t matter if you unstrung your bow.

Left a modern composite recurve bow strung for 3 years absolutely no difference

“Trigger warning”. HaHa!

If it took 6 months to have it lock on that shape. Can you weigh it down to flatten it out?

forgets to unstring after making video*

So... wood laminate takedown bows... should i unstring, or can i leave it be?

I've a 104lbs and 92lbs fibreglass.. I leave them unstring. I wanted to see if the limb and siyah are strong enough something I usually do for my new bow before I try it.. It was my first heavy bow.. Leave them for 3 days and the strings got stretch.. Is that something Im not aware yet? Strings are braided.

So the unstringing is not necessarily that I'm wondering about, let's say I'm lazy and I leave the top loop is on the limb but bot in the notch, so kinda just hanging there while the bottom loop is in the notch.

Is it ok?

good review and information.... but... how, how can any archer buy a bow and not shoot it?
every bow I've bought or been given has gone out to the field asap!
including a compound bow I bought, not my cup of tea but still gave it a shot.

Would you consider the Bear Tigercat "glass powered" to be ok to leave strung ? I can't quite tell if the wood part of the bow would be affected or not.

I like that you show your mess ups.

I unstring my bow and reverse string it for months. Then it has more power later... 🙃

Why you keep ruinin' your bows, bro? 😆

Id like to see how you unstring/restring that so easily.

I have the Southwest Scorpion. When I asked about unstringing the bow, the store I got it from said not to bother. They even said I can hang it by the string, it's how they have all their bows on display. It doesn't help that the way they were talking, it's too difficult to unstring a bow even with a bow stringer. Even if I did manage to unstring the bow, I have no idea what the twists they put in the string do. I have no training at all. I tried once doing the old push/pull method but I'm afraid of breaking the bow so I stopped before I could unstring it. From what you're saying, this bow will also get damaged from staying strung. That worries me. Mine's been hanging on the wall for 6 months now. Wind took down my target and I haven't bothered fixing it.

My legacy 12+ year old PSE BLACKHAWK is always left strung and hanging on my wall. I don't leave it unstrung for more than a few mins. The longest unstrung it has been is a week. Mine is fiberglass and wood laminate. I can see why you don't want to leave the 100% wooden bow strung.
The reason why I leave my bow strung is because if you leave it unstrung for years and then string it, it can break on you also.

seems like that kind of info should be common sense

Thank you. Im so new my bow is on order n i had no idea. Os sensei 😜

Would you consider the black hunter longbow modern enough to be left strung?

I keep my bows strung. It doesn't make a great deal of difference and if I need it on short order its ready. Can't shoot an unstrung bow. If it breaks I will make or buy another.

can you reverse string it or steam it and reset flat with weights on it

Forget months, my recurve bow has been strung and not used for years. I would guess about 4 years but it could be longer. It recently got it back out again and it looks and seems okay apart from being a tad dusty. The brace height has reduced but tbh I can't remember if this was ever set correctly to begin with. I might unstring the bow and see if I can get some twists into the string to fix the brace height.

Few years late but diggin the content. Can you string the self bow backwards and leave it set to make it straight again?

I'm so triggered that I'm banned from California. 🐸

Can confirm I left two recurves stung since last Summer. Perfectly fine.

Is it okay to use a bit shorter string example an AMO recurve bow of 64" with 58" 16 strand string? Thanks

It doesn’t take that long to unstrung a bow.

Another property I've notice in self-wood bows is their natural, time-dependent tendency of stress relaxation when held at a constant strain.
For example, take a wood self bow, put it on a draw board and record the draw weight at 28". Hold it there for a full minute and take another measurement. The second reading will be less than the first. This must be a universal property of all wood species. Though I don't think fiberglass or carbon fiber experiences the same phenomenon. Perhaps this is what makes wood self bows particularly vulnerable to taking on set from being strung for too long.

What was the name of that first bow?

Will leaving it strung wear out the bow string at all?