# What is draw length exactly?



## Marco. (Jun 28, 2016)

The glossary here says it's "the distance bands are pulled back to the anchor point." Does that mean the distance from the forks to the anchor point, or the distance the bands are actually stretched? 
For example, for me the distance from the forks to my anchor point is about 31", so is my draw length 31" or should I subtract the length of the unstretched bands? (about 7")


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## brucered (Dec 30, 2015)

Your draw length is 31.

It's the distance from fork tips to anchor point.


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## Marco. (Jun 28, 2016)

Thanks Brucered


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## brucered (Dec 30, 2015)

Marco. said:


> Thanks Brucered


No worries. I remember researching and looking all this stuff up, not too long ago.

Your "active band length" would be 7".

Simple-Shot.com has some great info on it. Here is the faq that touches on your question.

WHAT IS "ACTIVE BAND LENGTH" AND WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Active band length is the amount of band located between the tie in on the forks and the tie in on the pouch. This length helps one to determine several things:

The percent of elongation. Most bands reach peak performance at around 500% elongation. If you have a thirty inch draw length and your active band length is 6 inches, you have reached 500% elongation. At this point, you are achieving good performance coupled with moderate bandlife. One could shorten the active band length in this example by one inch, would push the bands to 600% elongation. The result would be more speed but at the expense of shortened band life. Going past 600% elongation does little to incrementally increase speed and drastically reduces band life.As one begins to experiment with other elastics, the active band length can be a good benchmark for assessing one elastic's performance against another. As an example, a person may enjoy a given taper in .030" latex at a given active band length. If they were to use the same taper dimensions with a thicker or thinner material, using the same active band length helps one to assess the performance characteristics in a more meaningful way.


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