Building my own Carbon Frankenbow for 2024

[nphunter]

I will be building my own bow for 2024, the bow companies are moving in a direction that I don't care for, short, heavy bows, and the longer bows are all long draws and slow.

I'm a 27.5" draw and don't care for short ATA bows, I shoot much better at 34" ATA than 30. All of the bows in the past few years have been getting slow and none of the longer bows cater to shorter draw guys.

Hoyts Carbon Ultras are super slow, I remember 5-10 years ago all of their bows and several others were meeting or exceeding IBO. Now the majority are 10fps slower and even worse when shooting off of the bottom of the cam.

I do understand that these one size fits all cams, they work awesome for the shops, with fewer mods to stock, fewer bows to stock and they don't end up stuck with so many one-off bows. But for short draw guys, all these new cams suck.

I like my carbon bows and have been shooting one for 10yrs, however, I just feel really let down by Hoyt with their lineup the last few years. All the current carbon options have me shooting a super short ATA bow or a heavy slow bow. Bowtechs carbon bow is Heavy! and still has me shooting off the bottom of the cam, Elites is short and slow at my draw length shooting almost off of the bottom of the cam. PSE had the Mach 34 with S2 cams but now that's only available through the custom shop and honestly even with the S2 at 27.5" I'm shooting off of the bottom of that cam.


Anyway, after looking at all the new bows and growing tired of shooting my 29.5" ATA RX4, I decided to build a bow. I just purchased a PSE Mach 34 in mint condition, I'm going to sell the EC2 cams and strings off of it and strings and am ordering the new EM2 cam from PSE.

Here are the specs. should look like when I'm finished.

PSE Mach 34

34" ATA
6.75" BH
70lb Draw
23.5-28" Draw (Possibly 23-27.5")
IBO 341
3.65lbs

The bow is Charcol with subalpine limbs and I am going to do either gunmetal or silver solid color strings.

 

[MattB]

Do the cams make the same draw weigh with limbs of the same deflection?

When I was in your shoes I had the Hoyt custom shop make me an ultra with turbo cams. Still regret selling that bow. It was a little on the heavy side but it held and shot well and the turbo cams provided a fair bit of additional speed over the stock cams. My DL is 27.5" as well.

 

[nphunter]

I think I will lose a few of lbs in draw weight switching cams, I will see where I land and shoot it through the Chrono and decide whether or not I want stiffer limbs. My goal is to stay about the same speed with the same arrow I'm shooting out of my RX4 but with a longer ATA.

 

[OR Archer]

One thing I think you may have overlooked is the axle size. The PSE uses a 1/4 axle and the Hoyts do not. You would have to drill out the limbs and I don’t think I would advise that.

 

[nphunter]

One thing I think you may have overlooked is the axle size. The PSE uses a 1/4 axle and the Hoyts do not. You would have to drill out the limbs and I don’t think I would advise that.

I'm planning on putting a PSE EM2 cam on my Mach 34. They just released the EM2 cam this year, they had an EM cam up until 2022 and discontinued it in 2023 and just brought out the EM2 which is just a wider version of the cam. It's their baby smooth cam and should get me about 20fps over the EC2 cam.

 

[OR Archer]

I'm planning on putting a PSE EM2 cam on my Mach 34. They just released the EM2 cam this year, they had an EM cam up until 2022 and discontinued it in 2023 and just brought out the EM2 which is just a wider version of the cam. It's their baby smooth cam and should get me about 20fps over the EC2 cam.

Ah I misunderstood your build. Thought you were trying to put those cams on a Hoyt.

 

[Swampcruiser]

Sounds like a sweet build! If you are swapping cams around I’d send them to Bomar’s and upgrade the bearings and axles - it’s a worthwhile upgrade IMO .

 

[Alder_]

Are the bearings and axles Bomar’s use poached?

 

[ResearchinStuff]

You are confusing bomar and bowmar

 

[Alder_]

 

[camelcluch]

I was confused too. I thought we had a sweet bow mash up. Good luck with the cam swap. Sounds like a great option.

 

[nphunter]

Thanks, I thought the new 2 series PSE cams had wider bearings and bigger axles. I’m thinking about buying a Ti bolt kit since I’ll have it all apart to lighten it about 1.5oz. And will never have to worry about rust issues.

 

[Wolf13]

Interested in how this turns out for you as I'm also as a short draw person (26.5").

 

[nphunter]

Interested in how this turns out for you as I'm also as a short draw person (26.5").

Me too, strings and cams have shipped and should be here next week!

 

[Scoot]

Sounds like you'll have a great rig when it's up and running! I'm curious about how the EC2 vs the EM2 compare to each other. Let us know how it feels once you have it together. Smoother than the EC2 with an additional 20 fps sounds like one heck of a winner to me!

 

[nphunter]

Got the stings and cams and got the bow together. I lost like 5lbs of draw weight so I’m ordering new limbs. I also put a Ti bolt kit on it while it was apart.

Specs came out,

34 1/16” ATA
6 11/16” BH
27 3/4” DL
3.6lbs

This is almost exactly what I was expecting, I’ll probably put a loop on it and shoot it a little like it is while waiting for my new limbs. I also want to run it through the chrono and see where it ended up speed wise.

 

[Wolf13]

Nice! Losing 5lbs is actually good for me as I don’t want to shoot 70lbs and that’s what a lot of used ones are. How does the draw cycle compare to their older (~2017) evolve cams? Do you mind sending me the string specs?

 

[tdoublev]

Following to see the end result. May be copying you! Praying for optimal results

 

[nphunter]

Nice! Losing 5lbs is actually good for me as I don’t want to shoot 70lbs and that’s what a lot of used ones are. How does the draw cycle compare to their older (~2017) evolve cams? Do you mind sending me the string specs?

Here are the string specs. Austin (High Voltage Strings) built them for me and they turned out great.

Mach 34 (EM2 Cams)

String 56.812

Bus 38.5

ATA 34 1/8”
BH 6 11/16”

My draw weight started at 68lbs and went to 63lbs.

As far as draw cycle I’m not really sure how it compares, I’ve never owned a PSE. It draws firm but smooth all the way back and has very little drop into the valley. I ordered 85% mods and they also offer 75%.

 

[Wolf13]

As far as draw cycle I’m not really sure how it compares, I’ve never owned a PSE. It draws firm but smooth all the way back and has very little drop into the valley. I ordered 85% mods and they also offer 75%.

Much appreciated! That sounds similar to the original evolve - no hump/valley just pull back to the wall and then it's gone. I wish companies would show the dynamic draw poundage, should be easy for them to measure and much easier to compare rather than "smooth" or "aggressive".