Like a lot of us, I had a favorite uncle. He was my mother’s much-younger brother, so I suppose that had a lot to do with it – him being a lot closer to my age than any other adult figure I had contact with among my relatives. But the best thing about him was his sayings; he was full of them. I’ll never forget his favorite one: “That’s slicker than snot on a doorknob.” Uncle Tommy would be proud of the guys at .30-06 Outdoors. Mighty proud. These are the guys behind the brand-new “String Snot”, released at this year’s ATA show in Columbus, OH. I couldn’t help but try some out after reading a bit about the stuff. I like tinkering with new stuff, and keeping up with all the latest and greatest each year. If nothing else, I’d pay a little homage to my uncle. Now I’ve used a LOT of different string waxes in my day. Whether that’s a tribute to my love for tinkering or an admission of a few white hairs starting to make up more than their fair share of my hunting-season goatee, I’m not sure – but I’ve used everything from Bohning’s Seal-Tite, to Black Lightning Wax Lubricant with graphite and silicone, to what was for me for many years the Holy Grail of string waxes: Dalton’s High-Speed Conditioning Wax. I had the perfect bow to lube up with my new String Snot for my first trial run waiting for me when I got home from the ATA... my 2010 BowTech Black Ops Destroyer 340. I slid the cap off the tube of String Snot and was impressed initially at how smooth it glided across my strings without any clumpy, waxy buildup. I rubbed it in with two fingers as I normally do any wax, and it was in that act that I came to appreciate the name because of my next chore. I had yet to tie in my peep, and it was darn-near impossible to manipulate the BCY nock-tying thread around the groove of my ¼” peep I was inserting. I laughed to myself thinking what an aptly named product that .30-06 Outdoors had come out with. Now any wax would probably cause challenges in dealing with a tiny thread, but this stuff just felt slicker than normal. To confirm, I performed a very quick unscientific comparison to the Dalton’s Speed Wax I had sitting on my work bench, and my suspicions were confirmed: this was the slickest stuff I’d yet seen. One of the things I was interested in testing with this wax was how it affected the speed on my new Destroyer. The claim for String Snot was that it increased a bow’s speed vs. that of a traditional wax. As more and more bowhunters insert “feet per second” into the discussion when talking about hunting bows, this was an intriguing claim. The chrono I used at the local shop hadn’t been calibrated in some time and the speeds were probably off, but as long as it gave me a consistent baseline from which to test with, I was fine with that. I shot a 435-grain arrow at 62 lbs through the chrono for three identical passes of 275 fps before applying the String Snot. After vigorously lubing up the strings and cables, I wanted to see if I’d lost any speed. Three more shots produced the exact same identical reading of 275 fps, even after I’d put a decent coat of the wax on. Certainly no speed gains -- as expected -- but also no speed loss. I was impressed. Slicker than snot on a doorknob, String Snot is 100% odorless, will not freeze, is non flammable and succeeds in waterproofing your strings and cables through the use of Weatherlock Technology™, which is the same technology licensed to Winner’s Choice strings. One of the things that caught my eye was that it is made here in the good ol’ US of A. Yes sir, Uncle Tommy would indeed be proud.
Great review Greg! I've got some Snot here and am planning on trying it out next week. For those of you who are interested, we now have it available here on Bowhunting.com http://www.bowhunting.com/shopping/Products/String-Snot__SS-1.aspx
I also had the opportunity to test out the new StringSnot. I had much the same findings as Greg, it's the slickest stuff I have ever put on my strings. But in my speed test it did slow my arrow down a couple of FPS, but nothing major. You can read my review in the blogs. http://www.bowhunting.com/blog/post/StringSnot-The-Latest-Protection-for-Your-Bow-String.aspx
