Before you set out to get a new set of strings for your compound bow, a brief overview of all that is involved in the business will enable you to make informed decisions and potentially save a lot of money while you are at it.
Cost of Strings
You want to start off by looking at the cost of strings and comparing them with the quality offered. Often times, with material as sensitive as this, one of these usually compromises the other, where cheap strings usually mean less durable strings, and durable strings mean digging further into your pocket.
The price range of strings can be quite vast, starting off from $60 and reaching heights of $200 and beyond. It helps to know how much of your bow you intend to use to make a decision on which end of the price range is best for you.
If you are a regular shooter, you would want to pay a little more to have long lasting compound bows that will save you the trouble, and cost, of having to restring often. Conversely, if you use your bow only occasionally, you could go for decent strings on the lower end of the price range.
In any case, if you can find the middle ground of cost vs quality, you should be well off, provided that the bow is strung well.
Cost of Labor
Once you have decided on your string, you still need to get them onto your bow, and that comes with a price too. The work of getting the old string off the bow demands certain skill, and can even be dangerous, so getting a professional to do it is probably advisable for those not wanting to risk it.
The bulk of the costs when it comes to the actual work done, however, comes from the care and precision put into fitting the new strings in a bow. If this is done wrong, it will not matter that you bought quality strings as the entire integrity of the bow will be compromised.
The price for getting a professional to do the job ranges is pretty cheap, giving the importance of the work done, costing about $20 on average, so nothing to complain about.
Alternative Methods
All this isn’t to say that you can go it on your own. If you have the time, patience, and dedication in willing to learn, you can restring your compound bow all on your own, as some often do.
Strings can be homemade if you have the right material and skills, and though a price tag can’t be put on this, it can prove to be cheaper than what you get ready made. The quality, however, rarely matches those on the upper end of the price scale, so you are left with having to make the cost vs. quality sacrifice, almost inevitably.
Archer’s who make their own strings need to be sure that it is a process they enjoy doing as they will probably need to restring more often than when buying ready-made strings.
The actual work of restringing can also be done at home, especially if you own a bow press, the device that facilitates manual restringing.
It would still mean knowing what you are doing, though, so caution would be advised and a reminder that getting it right is essential as doing a lousy or even inadequate job of restringing results in lousy shots in the field. As mentioned before, the actual cost of having someone restring your bow is relatively low, so going it alone is done more out of pride of ownership than concerns for potential costs incurred.
Conclusion
There are two aspects to restringing a bow, and after a little bit of homework, it should become clear that there are two costs to restringing as well. Choosing to compromise on the quality of your strings in favor of a better price really is a second cost to restringing a compound bow, and this applies to those wanting to restring on their own too.
The entire conundrum of which of these two prices to pay is resolved by your own particular needs as an archer. Regular players need quality strings, which are generally more expensive, and casual archers can afford to compromise a little on the quality cost.
Whichever price you choose to pay, they essential target remains something everyone wants, and that is a quality bow.