BCY Halo vs. Brownell Diamondback
If you’re at very competitive level of archery, i.e. you’re doing it more than just a hobby, you’re bound to come across some discussion about servings. It could be, someone telling you, you might want to reserve your center serving because its fraying, or you yourself might want to reserve your string because the serving’s have came loose etc. [To skip my bull story scroll to the paragraph before the picture (= ]
My curiosity of servings started quite differently actually. I’ve always shot with no2 Beiter nocks on my carbon arrows and Easton 3D Super Nocks. Those are nocks with larger grove to fit slightly ticker strings. Since I’ve always bought “custom made” strings, I was able to tell the maker to accommodate for these large grooved nocks. I’m not sure how they did it then, but it worked. However my luck ran out when I ordered two custom made strings form a well known string maker, Mr Greg Hill.
He told me that the Diamondback serving was the thickest available and it would give me a good fit with my then new 16 strand string. Cool! I thought to myself as always when the string maker tells me that large nocks wouldn’t be a problem.
But because the strings from Greg Hill are so well made, THE BEST I have ever seen to add to that, my nocks were just a little loose till I started wrapping dental floss on where the nocks goes on it. It was all fine till one day, a fellow club member was adamant that that wasn’t the largest diameter Diamondback serving, 0.025. I bought that and to my dismay it was the same result, or I must have sucked at serving.
Either way I must have been pissed off with the new spool I bought or myself sucking at serving, because I tied a really tight knot with the dental floss on the center serving. This messed up the serving big time and I had to reserve AGAIN.
Having scrolled through most of the archer forums on the net. Most people were talking about BCY HALO and how slippery it is off the tab on release. I thought why not? Since I’m already adding dental floss might as well try another serving then.
Here it is, BCY Halo 0.024 in blue.
If its unclear that spool hold 45 yards of the good stuff! Not 75 yards d=
Here’s the, erm, spool information(?) of the Halo and Diamondback serving side by side
And most importantly here’s a picture of the Diamondback serving and the Halo serving side by side.
The Diamondback on the left had some silver material going through it and appears consistently. This is quite use full actually when you’re serving your string because you can immediately spot when there’s a change in tension because the patterns would not be symmetrical throughout the serving. Whereas in comparison the Halo has no such thing making it just a little bit more difficult to compare.
Here’s a picture showing how the fray when cut.
For some strange reason the Diamond back tends fray a little more every time.
Right now here’s how both the materials looks like when served using a Cavalier Pro String Server. Both were served using the highest possible tension on the serving spool i.e. almost tight enough so it cant move even when pulled but not tight enough to cut off blood circulation to my fingers holding the start of the serving in place.
You can start to tell the difference between the two when you start serving them on to your strting. Diamondback has a good grip on the string even when a lot of tension is exerted, especially when you start serving. Diamond back stays in place and that’s it. All you have to do it wind away. Same thing at the end, no worries about it moving out of position when you want to end the serving.
On the other hand I had a bit of trouble with Halo. Starting the serving was a pain, as I was used to Diamondback before, Halo kept slipping out of place making it almost impossible to get the tension right while starting the serving. After a few tries I managed to get to grips about it. It was almost a similar story while ending the serving. But patience prevailed and it was done.
This is what the Diamondback and Halo looks like after being served.
Notice the pattern on the Diamondback serving? I’m not sure if its clear to you, but the patterns looks like they’re repeated pretty evenly. That means I got the same amount of tension throughout serving.
At first glance, it looks like color is the only difference between the two. But if you look closely, you’d notice that Diamondback is “duller” than Halo throughout the serving. I think it so since the Diamondback is “grippier” and the Halo is slippery as mentioned before.
How does it shoot?
The difference is clear. Halo IS very smooth, or slippery if you prefer, on release. It just goes. Actually is pretty clear when I was drawing my bow for the first shot with a center Halo serving. Because I have a pretty shallow hook on the string with my fingers, I could actually feel the string slipping out of position. This results in me making a weird shot because the string was not in the position I was used to and also because it just slips of the fingers making it feel fast. Almost makes me feel that I’m not ready to let go. BUT you should experience the difference and not just take my word for it.
While on the other hand I was so used to Diamondback staying in place with my shallow hook, there’s no movement whatsoever while drawing my bow. How it comes off the fingers on release is just normal to me and all because I’ve shot with Diamondback for the past 2 and a half years.
Funny thing I should also mention, I only shot with the Halo serving for 2 times. Then a couple of weeks back, the heavy snowfall forced the school to shut. As a result I didn’t shoot for a week and I had a competition at the end of that week. Haha, I ended up reserving my string with my Diamondback serving the night before the competition. Right after that comp I reserved it back to Halo and got the feeling of the shot about after 120 (+/-) arrows. As a result my sight mark has gone up by 4 lines on a Sure Loc sight(yup bracing height the same etc etc).And I’m loving it! (partly because its blue)
Oh and another interesting thing to note, at the maximum tension on a Beiter serving tool, the Halo serving gives me a lightly tighter nock fit than the Diamondback. Remember the Diamondback I use is 0.026” in diameter compared to the Halo’s 0.024”
