If everything doesn' t look " perfect" at first then give me a few minutes to work the bugs out....

I know that some of you have been eagerly awaiting this review but I wanted to be extremely thorough and detailed in my examination of this bow. Some of my critics have commented that I did not give the last Bowtech bow that I tried enough of a chance in having only owned it for a week before selling it. In an effort to remedy that situation I decided to give the current offering at least a month of intense shooting before putting together this report. It arrived a little to late for our extended hunting season but I did have the chance to take it to one of our early 3D shoots. So, without further ado….




The Bowtech Patriot DC

As with all the bow reviews that I put together I like to have an orderly and easy to use format. So, to start off I will illustrate each of the bow’s components and go from there.

The Riser

The Patriot’s riser is machined from T-6 aluminum. It is what Bowtech refers to as a “Pro” riser and is approximately 25 inches in length. The amount of reflex is approximately 1.75 inches on the model that I own. The “long” riser design will be discussed later in the review in conjunction with the bow’s parallel limbs.

The Limbs

Bowtech’s limbs are made by Gordon glass but their specific composition is unique to Bowtech. They are of the compression-molded variety. Each limb measures approximately 14.5 inches in length and is at roughly a 35-40 degree angle to the centerline of the riser. The sand trap limb pockets are not found on the Patriot Dual Cam model for the 2003 production year as it was felt that they were not needed to reduce recoil. Limbs are available in 40, 50, 60 and 70 pound peak draw weights.



The Eccentrics
The dual cam eccentrics used on the Patriot this year are a modular based system. There are different modules for each inch. The bow is offered with any whole inch draw length in the 25 to 30 inch range. The cams are only available with a 65% letoff setting. All cams use 660 oil impregnated bronze bushings. Axles are Rockwell hardened stainless steel.






Cables/strings

Strings and cables are each 20 strand are BCY 8125 material. The particular Patriot that I am reviewing uses Bowtech’s “O2” strings. Some of the Patriots are shipped with Winners Choice strings installed while others are shipped with a new string unique to Bowtech.



Odds and Ends

The Patriot is adorned with Realtree Advantage Timber camo and is triple film dipped to increase the durability of the paint finish. The riser is fitted with two stabilizer mounts tapped for the typical AMO sized threads. One is located in the typical position below the grip and above the bottom limb pocket while the second is located slightly lower and on the string side of the riser. A Bowtech “Hush kit” consisting of four string silencers, a pair of Vibrablock limb dampeners and a cable dampener came factory installed on the bow.



General Commentary

As most of you know I write these reviews with one thought in mind….”How will this bow do for bowhunting?”. Because of this I have certain preconceived notions whenever beginning the review process on any given bow. I want it all! I want accuracy, low noise, low vibration and recoil and also a fair amount of speed. You will notice that I did place speed as last in my requirements. The reason is rather simple. My draw length is 31 inches and I can comfortably shoot most bows in the 65-70 pound draw weight range. With these specs and an average arrow weight in the neighborhood of 6-6.5 grains per pound of draw weight I can usually attain very good arrow speeds with just about any bow on the market. So, as I am sure you can anticipate my point, I have seen little need to investigate the Bowtech lineup with any great enthusiasm. Their main claim to fame up until this point has been speed….plain and simple. What need would I have for a bow generating 85 or 90 ft. lbs of Kinetic Energy when a bow shooting 70 ft. lbs will push a 2 inch cutting diameter expandable through a full sized adult deer? Good question. Hopefully this review will help answer that question.

In conjunction with my previous comments I also tend to prefer what now are commonly referred to as the “shorties”. These are bows with axle to axle lengths in the 34 inch range and under. The argument continues on how practical these bows really are for the average bowhunter since we have done perfectly fine with longer length bows in the past. Discussions of this nature have focused on how inaccurate the shorties are at longer shooting distances…how their light overall weight decreases stability…and how their overall design can contribute to a variety of shooting problems. Regardless of this I must say that I have found them to be overall more fun to shoot than their larger counterparts. I believe this to be the result of their specific weight distribution. Most of the bow is actually out in front of you instead of above and below the line created by your arrow.

So, we seem to have to opposing lines of thought without any possible solution to the potential problems nor any acceptance of the potential benefits of these designs.

Enter the Bowtech Patriot and its Vertical Force Technology. Leave it to Bowtech to come up with a way to maintain a relatively short axle to axle length (advertised as 34 7/8 inches) while still maintaining a long, stable riser platform coupled with a limb design that virtually eliminates vibration and recoil. Ofcourse, not only will this bow shoot an arrow quietly but it will also do so with a very high degree of accuracy do to its 7 7/8ths inch brace height and long riser design.

Speaking of the riser/limb combination. Bowtech refers to it as Vertical Force Technology. In other words, the fact that the riser is so long allows for the limbs to be laid back at an angle that is more parralel to the arrow than they are to the riser itself. What this does is allows the limbs recoil to be forced “up” and “down” rather than forward. This drastically reduces felt recoil within the bow and also allows for a relatively short axle to axle length despite the extremely long riser.

Ofcourse there is the bow’s speed. My Patriot Dual Cam came with a “birth certificate” that gave it a speed rating of 323 fps when the bow was set to its peak draw weight (71.1 pounds in my case), and a 29 inch draw length with a 350 grain arrow. Read on to determine if this bow really lives up to its speed claims.



First Impressions

The overall fit and finish of the bow was excellent. Every component fit snugly into place with no slop whatsoever in the axle or limb pocket area. The paint scheme was flawless. Much better in fact than the 2001 Bowtech Pro38 that I had last year in terms of durability at this point.

Upon first picking up the bow my immediate thoughts were along the lines of “Yes! They finally fixed the grip!” [J] The grip on my Patriot DC is worlds better than the one that was on the 2001 model . They narrowed the throat slightly more and the heel of the grip is drastically reduced in size. Though this new design might not be as aesthetically pleasing as its predecessor it is infinitely more functional and seems to help considerably with grip induced torque. The word “Bowtech” is carefully carved into it on one side.



The bow feels heavier than the advertised weight of 3 lbs 13 ounces. I attribute this to the unusual weight distribution of the bow. Because of the long riser design more weight is displaced to the extreme outer ends of the bow’s vertical plane. This provides more of a stable shooting platform as it is more difficult to cant a bow with this particular weight design. Measured specifications on the bow are as follows:

Brace height at peak draw weight: 7 7/8ths of an inch
Axle to axle length at peak draw weight: 35 inches
Mass weight: Approximately 3 lbs 14 ounces
Draw Length: Approximately 29.5 inches (29 inch modules), 30.25 inches (30 inch mods)

After thoroughly setting the bow to my typical specs and installing the normal accessories I proceeded to take a few shots with it. The bow was reasonably quiet though louder than what I am accustomed to shooting recently. That is to be expected though considering the amount of energy that this bow produces. All in all I think one could still call the sound level manageable for hunting with just the Bowtech hush kit installed. However, after finding an appropriate stabilizer, moving the Bowtech Vibrablocks down to the limb pocket and installing a set of solid limbsavers the bow is really quite quiet. I had several folks comment on this at the local 3D shoot this past Sunday. They couldn’t believe what the arrows were doing to the 3D targets while the bow was still so quiet.


Accuracy for the bow was very good for me overall. I had no problem stacking arrow after arrow next to each other at a distance of 20 yards. In fact, it was so good that I had a heck of a time removing the arrows from the target as it was difficult to get a grip on them. [J] My opinion is that the dual cam design coupled with the larger brace height and overall size and shape of the riser are the chief contributors to this.

Finally, we have the issue of speed. I had the opportunity to fire the bow through the chronograph a few times with my typical 430 grain Beman ICS 340 hunting arrow just to see how fast this puppy really was when using my typical setup of a 70 lb draw weight and with the 30 inch draw length module installed. Over a three day time period I shot the bow approximately 60 times through the chronograph. Average speed figures for the setup listed were between 294-296 fps. I did not have a lighter arrow that I felt comfortable shooting through this particular bow in terms of spine. But if we are to go about doing some quick calculations then we might be able to determine how the bow would perform set to what is commonly referred to as “IBO specs”.

- add roughly 18 fps for the 80 grain difference in arrow weight
- add roughly 4 fps for the brass nockset instead of the tied-in variety
- add roughly 4 fps for the rubber eliminator button
- add roughly 4-6 fps for the Bowtech string silencers on the string

That would be a total of 32 fps that should be added to my chronographed speed and would result in a speed estimate of approximately 328 fps. Yes, that is about four feet per second slower than the advertised speed for the bow but still is relatively close in my opinion especially when we are talking about speeds at this end of the spectrum.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, that particular setup is generating roughly 84 ft. lbs of kinetic energy. That is extremely impressive for any bow in my opinion not to mention one with a 7 7/8ths inch brace height! The only trade off in this regard is the bow’s draw cycle. It is “harsh” and when I use this term I simply mean that the bow attains its peak weight relatively quickly during the draw cycle and then maintains it for almost the entire length of the draw cycle before dropping smoothly into a short valley. The draw initially seems like a bear to pull through but I found that I became accustomed to it relatively quickly. The bow’s back wall felt relatively solid. Not quite as good as some of the walls found on draw stop peg equipped bows but much better than the two cam bows I have shot before.

Nitpicks(Jeff’s term)

My list of nitpicks with the bow is relatively short. First off, everyone has come to notice that the bottom cam sits very close the bottom limb when the bow is at brace. This was a big concern for me initially as I did not wish for the cam to start hitting the limb thus causing a great deal of potential damage to the bow and possibly myself. However, after repeated shooting the cam never moved a hair closer to the limb and no damage occurred. Regardless, I would like to see if this can be remedied for the 2004 production year provided the Patriot DC continues to remain in the lineup. At this point I cannot foresee a reason why it would not.

Second is the overall weight distribution. I thought the Patriot DC was not as top heavy as the 2001 Pro38. In fact the weight of the bow felt very good overall. However, I would like to see a slightly shorter length to the bow. Taking approximately 1-1.5 inches off the top of the riser and approximately a half of an inch off of below the grip. I understand that this would probably then lead to the need for the cam to be redesigned slightly in order for the same draw length range to be achieved. Speaking of draw length, I would also like to see the bow offered in a 31 inch draw length next year for those of us that are “low center of gravity-challenged”. I believe that the change to the riser design is a personal preference issue more so than any form of design flaw within the bow itself.

Finally, and most importantly, I do feel that the back end of the draw cycle needs to be worked on. My real only major pet peeve for the bow was the lack of what I feel is an adequate valley. It wasn’t super short as some of these bows with their adjustable draw stop pegs feel but I can only imagine what it would be like to be at full draw with this bow and be extremely nervous while a beautiful whitetail buck walks by at 10 yards. I don’t think that I could maintain my composure with a valley that short. So, my suggestion in this area is to add roughly a half of an inch to the valley of the bow and possibly also offer it in 75% letoff. I do realize that this will decrease the speed of the bow overall but I feel that is a fair enough trade off for the ability to hold more comfortably at full draw in a less than desirable situation. I think I can speak for quite a few bowhunters in stating that a bow with an attainable IBO speed rating in the 320-330 range in exchange for a slightly longer, and possibly deeper, valley would make for an excellent combination. But, if you want to make it even better then make a slight readjustment on the riser balance resulting in an overall axle to axle length of no more than 33-34 inches coupled with a slightly larger valley. That would make this the perfect hunting bow in my opinion.

In closing, let me say this. I found the Bowtech Patriot to be a refreshing dual cam experience. The bow itself is very well put together with every bit of attention to detail. I could find no fault in the overall design itself and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a bow of this nature. I think anyone expecting a “rat trap” speed bow will be pleasantly surprised with their Bowtech Patriot dual cam experience. Finally though, here is the challenge. Go ahead and make those improvements I mentioned and come next year I will be the first person to put my money down on the table for the 2004 Bowtech “Liberty”.