Bowtech Old Glory Review

Editors' review

The Old Glory is the bow a middle-schooler took his first two deer with - and the same bow a 3D shooter carried to the firing line on the weekend. That range is the whole story. BowTech built it in the mid-2000s as a forgiving, quiet, genuinely smooth crossover: a long-riser, big-brace target bow that hunts just as happily as it shoots spots. It is not a speed flagship, and it never tried to be - its pull is smoothness and stability, not headline fps. Both model years ride BowTech's Equalizer Binary Cam (a two-cam system where the cams share load and self-correct their own timing), but the 2006 redesign added something the 2005 bow could not do: interchangeable Speed and Smooth mods that let one owner tune the same bow toward top-end velocity or toward a butter-soft draw. If you already know the Constitution, the Old Glory is its faster, shorter, softer-shooting cousin from the same platform.

Finish

The Old Glory shipped in BowTech's Mossy Oak Obsession camo for hunters, and - reflecting its target-line intent - a set of high-gloss target colors for shooters who wanted the bow to look the part on the range (the 2006 catalog lists four target-color options alongside the camo). BowTech marketed it, together with the Constitution, as a bow built for either release or finger shooters, and the finish palette followed that split personality: dip camo for the treestand, gloss color for the 3D course. The camo coating is the durable dip finish standard for the era rather than the InVelvet soft-touch coating BowTech introduced later, so expect a harder, glossier surface than a late-2000s bow. For a used bow today, finish condition varies widely by how it was stored - the gloss target colors in particular show handling marks more readily than a matte camo dip.

Riser

The riser is machined aluminum with the open cutout pattern BowTech used across its mid-2000s lineup, tuned here for one thing above all: forgiveness. The Old Glory carries a long axle-to-axle length (37 1/4 inches in 2005, 36 3/4 in 2006) and a tall brace height (the distance from the string at rest to the grip - 7 1/2 inches growing to a full 8 inches for 2006), and both numbers exist to make the bow stable and honest for a shooter who is still building form. This is a pre-Center-Pivot BowTech, so the riser geometry is conventional for its day rather than the parallel-limb, center-mounted design the brand moved to at the end of the decade - but the long, big-brace layout is exactly what target and field shooters wanted, and it is the reason owners describe the bow as sitting still and pointing itself. The extra inch of brace over a typical hunting bow of the era is the single biggest reason the Old Glory shoots forgiving.

Grip

The grip is the slim BowTech target-style grip of the mid-2000s, a narrow profile that puts the hand into a low-torque, repeatable position - the kind of grip that rewards a relaxed hand and punishes gripping the bow tight. Owners who shot it for target and 3D consistently reported being able to shoot it with a light, open hand, and some ran it with essentially no grip pressure at all and let the bow settle on its own. For a shooter coming from a fat rubberized hunting grip, the narrower target section takes a session to get used to, but it is the correct choice for a bow whose entire design goal is a still, forgiving hold. There is nothing exotic here - it is a straightforward slim grip that does its job and stays out of the way.

Limbs

The Old Glory uses compression-molded limbs in the 50, 60, and 70-pound peak-weight options that BowTech offered across the Equalizer line - no 40-pound bottom rung like the Constitution carried, which quietly signals that this bow was aimed at adult target and hunting shooters rather than youth or transition setups. Peak weight adjusts the conventional way for the era, backing the limb bolts down from peak, and any weight change is a straightforward job at a shop with a press. The limb design is the same family BowTech ran across its mid-2000s bows, and its reliability record over two decades of used-market service is unremarkable in the best sense - these bows are still shooting. Paired with the long riser, the limbs store energy smoothly rather than aggressively, which is consistent with everything owners say about the draw.

Eccentric System

This is the heart of the bow. The Old Glory runs BowTech's Equalizer Binary Cam - a binary system meaning the two cams are slaved to each other and share the load, so they self-correct their timing instead of drifting apart the way an older dual-cam setup could. In 2005 the cam was a fixed-geometry unit: draw length was set by the cam itself, with no interchangeable modules, so a draw-length change meant a cam swap. The 2006 redesign is the important one - BowTech made the cam modular with a half-inch module system and, crucially, offered two mod personalities. The Speed Mod pushes the IBO speed (the industry-standard chronograph rating at a fixed 30-inch, 70-pound, 350-grain setup) to 308 to 316 fps; the Smooth Mod trades a few fps for an easier pull at 300 to 308 fps. That is a genuinely useful feature: the same bow can be a snappier 3D shooter or a velvet-draw target rig depending on which mod the owner installs. Let-off - the percentage of peak weight the holding weight drops to at full draw - is adjustable across a wide 65 to 80 percent band, so a target shooter can dial in a lighter hold or a hunter can keep more back tension. Real-world speed tracks the bow's forgiving character rather than any raw-speed ambition: an owner shooting 70 pounds at a 29-inch draw chronographed it around 318 fps, faster than the same-platform Constitution on an identical setup but still well short of the era's dedicated speed bows. That trade is the whole point - the Old Glory spends its energy on smoothness and stability, not on being the fastest bow on the rack.

Draw Cycle/Shootability

Drawing the Old Glory is where the bow earns its reputation. The cam builds weight gradually and rolls over the peak without the hard front-end spike that faster bows of the era used to hit their numbers, and what I keep coming back to is how consistently owners describe it as the smoothest bow they had ever drawn - even at 71 pounds, a weight where most bows start to feel like work. The valley is long and soft, especially with the 2006 smooth mods, so the bow settles and forgives a little creep rather than snapping the arrow out of your hand at the first drift forward. The back wall is a touch gentler than a modern limb-stop bow - this is a mid-2000s cam, not a 2020s one, so a shooter used to a flagship's brick wall will notice the difference and want to draw one first. At the shot the bow is quiet and dead in the hand: owners across both model years single out how little noise it makes and how it sits still through the shot with no felt recoil, the sight barely moving off the target. For a target or 3D shooter that combination - long valley, quiet, no jump - is exactly what puts arrows in the middle, and it is why the Old Glory still gets shot two decades after it left the catalog.

Usage Scenarios

The Old Glory is a genuine crossover, and the buyer it fits is the archer who does more than one thing. Picture a 3D club night: the long riser and 8-inch brace let a shooter hold steady on a foam target at 40 yards and settle into that long valley, and the quiet, recoil-free shot means no flinch creeping into the form over a long round. Then picture the same bow in a treestand in November - the middle-schooler who took his first two whitetails with one did it because the bow is quiet on the draw and quiet at the shot, the two things that matter most when a deer is at fifteen yards. It suits a developing archer especially well: the forgiving geometry covers a lot of form mistakes while a shooter learns, which is the opposite of a short, twitchy speed bow that amplifies them. It is not the bow for a hunter who needs maximum arrow speed for long shots on big western game, and a spot shooter chasing the tightest possible groups at 50 yards will eventually want a dedicated target rig with a longer riser still. But for the weekend 3D-and-field shooter who also hunts, or the hunter who wants a forgiving bow to practice with all summer, it covers the whole calendar.

Versions

The Old Glory was produced for two model years, and the two are worth telling apart because the 2006 is a real redesign, not a color change.2005 Old Glory (Equalizer Binary Cam, non-modular): 37 1/4-inch axle-to-axle, 7 1/2-inch brace height, 50/60/70-pound draw weights, 26 to 32-inch draw length, 307 to 315 fps IBO. Draw length is set by the cam, so changing it means a cam swap.2006 Old Glory (Equalizer Binary Cam, modular): 36 3/4-inch axle-to-axle, 8-inch brace height, 50/60/70-pound draw weights, 28 to 32-inch draw length, with interchangeable Speed Mods (308 to 316 fps IBO) and Smooth Mods (300 to 308 fps IBO), and 78 ft-lbs of kinetic energy. The half-inch modular system and the extra half-inch of brace make this the more forgiving and more tunable of the two years.BowTech did not sell package or hand-specific SKUs beyond finish; a cleanly documented launch MSRP is hard to pin down, and the Old Glory trades on the used market today.

Bowtech Old Glory vs Mathews Switchback XT, Hoyt Trykon XL

Bow	Bowtech Old Glory	Mathews Switchback XT	Hoyt Trykon XL
Version	2006 (Binary cam)	2008	2006
Picture
Brace Height	8 "	7.5 "	7.5 "
AtA Length	36.75 "	31 "	36 "
Draw Length	28 " - 32 "	25 " - 30 "	26 " - 32 "
Draw Weight	40 lbs - 70 lbs	40 lbs - 70 lbs	40 lbs - 80 lbs
IBO Speed	300 fps - 316 fps	315 fps	314 fps
Weight	4.3 lbs	4.25 lbs	lbs
Let-Off	65% - 80%	65% or 80%	65% or 80%
Where to buy Best prices online	$250 Compare prices	$300 to $575 Compare prices	$220.5 to $700 Compare prices
	compare more bows

All three of these are mid-2000s bows that now live on the used market, so the choice is about character rather than price. The Mathews Switchback XT is the era's benchmark for a smooth, quiet shot, but it is a shorter, tighter hunting frame - a 31-inch axle-to-axle bow built primarily to hunt, where the Old Glory's noticeably longer riser is what leans it toward forgiveness and the 3D course. The Hoyt Trykon XL is the closest match on paper: a 36-inch axle-to-axle, 7 1/2-inch-brace bow that, like the Old Glory, was built long and stable on purpose, though it runs Hoyt's Cam & 1/2 hybrid rather than a binary system and gives up the Old Glory's neat trick of swapping between speed and smooth mods on the same cam. If your priority is the quietest, most refined hunting shot in a compact package, the Switchback XT is the one people still chase. If you want maximum forgiveness and a long, stable riser for target and field work, the Old Glory and the Trykon XL are the natural pair, with the Old Glory's modular Speed/Smooth cam giving it a tuning flexibility neither competitor offers. The decision comes down to priorities: the Switchback XT for the hunter who values a tight, quiet package, the Trykon XL for the shooter who wants Hoyt's long-riser stability, and the Old Glory for the crossover archer who wants one forgiving bow to both shoot and hunt.

Summary

The Old Glory is BowTech's forgiving mid-2000s crossover - a long-riser, big-brace bow that shoots 3D and field on the weekend and hunts in the fall, built around the Equalizer Binary Cam and, in its 2006 form, a modular Speed/Smooth mod system that lets one bow lean either way. It is not a speed flagship: IBO speed tops out at 316 fps and a real 70-pound, 29-inch setup runs around 318, respectable but never the headline. The headline is the draw and the shot - owners two model years running call it the smoothest bow they had ever pulled, quiet on the draw, quiet at the release, and dead in the hand with no felt recoil. In my experience that combination of a long valley and a still shot is exactly what turns a good target shooter into a consistent one, and it is why these bows are still on the firing line two decades later. Without a cleanly documented launch MSRP, the Old Glory is a used-market buy today, and a clean one at a fair price is a lot of forgiving bow for the money. An excellent choice for the crossover archer who wants a single quiet, forgiving bow for both 3D and hunting, and particularly strong for a developing shooter building form. Buyers who prioritize the most compact, refined hunting shot should also look at the Mathews Switchback XT, while those who want a long, stable riser in the Hoyt idiom should look at the Hoyt Trykon XL.