Hi guys when I originally had my Arc8dx I had BG80 at 26lb. When my string broke I was desperate as I had a match coming up so I gave it to my club coach and he strung it with Ashaway Microlegend XL at 25lb. I find my drives are better with the XL but don't like it's softer feeling. Is there some middle ground string I should try? The Ashaway string isn't hurting my game at all so I need a little advice.
Thus the fact that the XL is a .73 string, you should string it at higher tension compared to the BG80 (.68). 25lbs is definitly to low, to get the stiffness and the feel of the BG80 at 26lbs. Maybe 26lbs with BG80 is too high for you and lower it 1 lbs. 29 lbs with the XL should be hard as BG80 at 26 lbs. Due your warranty I would not go over 27 lbs, because I don't know how experienced your coach is. Which aspects change in terms of drives? If you won't go over 26lbs, I would stay with BG80, you can try NBG99 which is a superb string, but should string it 1 lbs more, because it a tiny bit thicker and don't hold the tension so excellent like BG80, but is nearly on par. The best way is to test different strings at different tension. It cost more money, but is the best kind of knowledge and experience in terms of strings and tension.
The Ashaway is measured their old way: unstrung. Whereas BG80's 0.68 is measured at a strung tension where in reality it is also about 0.73 in thickness unstrung. If the ML XL is a soft feeling string and BG80 a hard I guess you should find a medium feeling string , maybe NBG99 indeed ...
Decided to ditch the XL and go back to the BG80 at 26lb. I asked for 26 from the coach's normal stringer and it came back at 24 with the wrong string pattern. I don't have the control I had with the BG80 so it has to go. There's a very respectable company about 30 minutes away from me who will do what I want for the same money so from now on i'll go there.
For what it's still worth I bumped into a saved pic with a table of measurements by Dinkalot (actual thread still around of course) and the BG80 was roughly 0.72 instead of 0.73 I mentioned above and the XL 0.74 (varying from 0.73 to 0.75). BG65 is actually ~0.75. Gosen strings at the time also well above stated thickness ...
