Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting So much talk of rifle modifications, here's a bow modification I recently did . . .

I traded for a Matthews Outback off the classifieds here back 6 months or so ago. Wasn't real happy with it, and, after some research, found a few mentions of changing to a Switchback cam. I also have a Switchback XT, and I am very happy with it. So I set out to find the right cam/string combo to put a Switchback XT cam on the Outback. Used a little trigonometry (yeah I still remember most of that stuff for some odd reason) to make comparisons between the Switchback XT and the Outback, picked up a used XT cam, and called up Bucknasty from the ArcheryTalk forum to get a string made to my dimensions. Voila, success!!! It is now a much better bow. No issues at all. Advantages? The main outcome is that the drop-off at the end of cam is more gradual and much smoother. The Outback would "take off" if you had any forward creep at all after full draw - not so with the XT cam. This also made the Outback very hard to let down slowly - not so now.

Investment - $40 for a used cam, a little time figuring things out, and it needed a new string anyway.

Cool.

There are no "free rides" in life, the reason a lot of bows have severe "valleys" is that the cam design is aggresive, hence more speed. Speed is not everything, and i believe comfort in a bow is very important, good job making the bow into a more comfortable platform to shoot.

Thats why i bought a Diamond Black Ice, very smooth draw, solid back wall,light and compact, no recoil or noise and fast enough for me

No argument here. The backwall/valley is not the only difference in the 2 cams though. The Switchback XT is a faster bow than the Outback, but there are other differences than just the cam, so no direct comparison there. I would have compared speeds on my chronograph if it would have been an apples to apples comparison (originally 30" draw, but changed to 28" draw). Bottom line, I may have lost a little speed or maybe not, but that extremely sharp valley made it a very poor bow for hunting. I love speed , but I would rather sacrifice a little speed for shootability in cases such as this one.

I like my Outback....I know what you mean about wanting to "take off" but that just helps me remember to keep good steady back preasure.Word I hear thru the grape vine is that Mathews is coming out with some thing "new and special" for '09 ...we'll see

New and special ... does that mean approaching the 1000 dollar range...

Of course. If it cost less people would think there was something wrong.

Good for you, TXRam. That takes some gonads and probably 100% more trigonometry than I could muster even with a textbook...

I think when most bows went to shorter limbs, forgiveness was forgotten. I like my Conquest 3 for that reason. Smooth, even draw and it doesn't try to jerk the string away from me as my mind drifts from one critical aiming/triggering/relaxing function to the next while my release does its thing.

Taylor

So along with a cam swap out, you also decreased your drawlength by 2 inches? If that is the case, a good bit of the positive "difference" you feel is no doubt due to a more appropriate draw length.

More often than not, folks opt for the max draw length they can pull (overextending their posture) in an effort to get more FPS out of their bow. For this reason, they find themselves experiencing a short valley/backwall due to improper sizing and ultimately, are more prone to string creep.

From the Mathews stable I have owned a Legacy, Switchback, and Outback and prefer the Outback of the three... but that is just my .02!