The habit is to spec the main string and the control cables at the same strand count. Twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-six, whatever the shop is running that week — one number, all around. It is easy to quote and easy to build. It also treats two strings that are doing quite different jobs as if they were the same string in different locations, and it produces bows that shoot worse than they need to.
The main string and the control cables do different jobs. On a target bow, Axial spec's them differently.
Strength is not the question you are answering
Before anything else: within BCY's recommended strand-count ranges, strand count is not a load-carrying decision on a modern target compound.
BCY does not publish absolute breaking strengths for its materials — test methods vary too widely for a single number to be meaningful. What BCY publishes instead are recommended strand-count ranges. For 452X on a compound, that is 20 to 24 strands. Every strand count inside that range is a load-tested option; the choice inside the range is a behavior choice, not a strength choice. (70 lb per strand is a figure that has been widely circulated as a breaking strength for 452X; BCY does not publish it, and test conditions matter.)
Under-strand builds — dropping below BCY's minimum — leave the tested envelope and put the strength question back on the table. That is not a place a serious target rig should be, and Axial does not build there.
With that boundary respected, everything about the strand-count conversation opens up. Within the manufacturer's range, the main string and the cables can be spec'd for what they each need to do on the bow, not for a single one-size-fits-all number.
What the main string is being asked to do
The main string's job is a stability requirement, not a strength requirement.
Stability comes from mass. More strands means more material carrying the vibration and the impulse of release, damping the string faster and returning the bundle to the same reference position more consistently. It means more filaments distributed across the center serving, giving the serving a broader base to compress against, which is what actually keeps the peep sitting where it was set.
A main string built too light — too few strands — reads as "buzzy" at the shot, drifts in peep alignment over time, and is more prone to elongation and movement.
What the control cables are being asked to do
The control cables are not a reference surface. Nothing the archer sees or aligns to is anchored to them. They sit behind the cams, they carry a constant high tension when the bow is at brace, they carry an even higher constant tension when the bow is at full draw, and they route through cam grooves, roller guards, and cable slides at every point along their length. Control cable rotation is irrelevant.
Their job is to hold cam timing precisely and get out of the way of everything else. Both jobs are easier with less material, not more.
Bending fatigue at the cam
A control cable wraps around a cam under high tension. The strands on the outside of that bend travel a longer path than the strands on the inside. In a large bundle with many strands, the inside-outside path difference across the bundle is greater — more material forced to accommodate more path mismatch per cycle. That mismatch shows up over thousands of shots as uneven strand loading at the cam contact, which is exactly where cables begin to creep and destabilize.
A slimmer bundle bends more uniformly. Every strand is closer to the neutral axis of the bend. Path mismatch across the bundle is smaller. The cable holds its geometry longer.
Roller-guard and cable-slide interaction
Everything past the cam runs through a system — a roller, a slide, sometimes both. Bigger bundles mean more contact area, more friction, and more torque applied to the cable body at each guard interaction. On roller systems this shows as accelerated wear on the roller bearing and asymmetric cable rotation. On slide systems it shows as heat, glazing on the slide face, and higher shot-to-shot variability in cable geometry.
The correct answer to all of that is less material at the guard, not more. Cables run cleaner through cable-management systems when they are sized to the load they carry, not to match the main string.
Cam timing and mass
The mass of the cable does not accelerate down the string on release — the cable stays with the cam. But cable mass affects how the cam rolls. Heavier cables slow the cam's return, alter timing between the two cams on a two-cam system, and shift the effective valley position. On a target rig where timing is set to fractions of a degree, that matters.
What Axial actually builds
Concrete numbers, not ranges:
| Set | Main string | Control cables |
|---|---|---|
| Standard target set | 24 strands | 20 strands |
| Tournament set | 26 strands | 20 strands |
Twenty strands on the cables is not a compromise. It is a deliberate choice. Twenty gives a finished cable diameter that runs cleanly through every guard system on a modern target bow, bends predictably at the cam, and carries the working load with headroom to spare. Moving the main string up to 26 for a tournament build adds mass and stability where the archer needs it — on the reference surface — without changing anything about how the cables behave.
The main string count moves with the archer's priorities. The cable count is optimized around the cable's own job and stays where it is.
Two different jobs, two different bundles
Once the question is framed correctly, the whole conversation stops being a strength calculation and becomes a design calculation.
The main string wants mass, dimensional stability, and a broad base for serving. It gets those from higher strand count.
The cables want to bend cleanly, run cleanly, and stay light on the cams. They get those from lower strand count.
Both work well past their load ceiling at the counts a target builder would ever use. Load carrying is not what is being optimized. Long-term behavior is what is being optimized, and the two strings have different long-term behavior targets.
The "they stretch together" argument
The most common defense of matched strand counts is that the main string and the cables work as a system, and as that system stretches over time it needs to stretch equally. Matched counts, the argument goes, keep timing and reference position stable as service miles accumulate.
Equal stretch does not mean equal system stretch. Even in the hypothetical case where both strings did creep by the same number of inches, that would not produce the same effect on the bow. The main string and the control cables are geometrically different animals. The main string is a straight span between the cams, with load applied along its length. The cables wrap the cams through complex paths, cross through cable guards, and translate their length changes into cam rotation, not linear travel.
Concretely: the main string is about 65 inches long and the control cables are about 34 inches long, so equal percentage elongation between them still places the bow clearly out of time. If anything, this scenario would call for the cables to elongate at a higher rate than the main string, not an equal rate. Regardless, designing a system around a failure mode is not the goal — the goal is to design the system around correct operation and material properties.
Each string in the set has its own job and its own geometry. The right design goal is not to match them to each other. It is to build each one so that it holds its length, its shape, and its behavior across the full service life. When both strings do that, matching counts becomes irrelevant. When either string doesn't, matching counts doesn't save the set — it just changes which failure mode the archer sees first.
The correct answer is: each string must be perfectly designed for its own use.
Why the industry matches counts anyway
Three reasons, none of them mechanical:
- Inventory simplicity. One count, one build sequence. Faster off the jig, fewer setup errors.
- Warranty framing. When main and cables are built identically, service intervals are quoted as one number and returns are easier to reason about.
- Habit. "Twenty-four all around" is what most builders were taught, and the customer usually did not ask.
None of those reasons involve what the string is doing on the bow. They involve what happens in the shop. A shop that optimizes for its own workflow instead of the customer's bow ends up building strings that pass QA and shoot worse than they need to.
Published 2026-07-04 · Axial Bowstrings