Bowtech PBR Compound Bow

The BowTech PBR Limited Edition is the odd one out in the 2005 FreedomCam lineup - not a different bow but a dressed-up one, built to mark BowTech's Professional Bull Riders sponsorship and sold as 1,000 numbered, Tony Mendes-signed collectibles at an $849 SRP when it launched. Strip away the Mossy Oak Obsession finish, the PBR star idler, the engraved pockets, the carbon-look limbs, and the black-and-red strings, and what is left is a genuinely good 2005 hunter: a long 34-inch chassis, a smooth FreedomCam twin-cam draw, a firm post wall, let-off adjustable from 65 to 80 percent, and the quickest speed of its FreedomCam siblings at 297 to 305 fps. It asks for the occasional timing check a modern binary-cam shooter has to relearn, and its real value today lives as much in its serial number and signature as in its shooting - most of these are kept, not carried. What I keep coming back to is how little the FreedomCam draw fights back and how still the long riser holds, the two things that make this collectible a legitimate shooter if its owner ever decides to carry it. An excellent piece for the BowTech or PBR collector who wants a numbered, signed artifact of the mid-2000s. Buyers who want the same FreedomCam shooting for less should look at the Bowtech Liberty VFT, while those who want the smoothest, quietest premium single-cam of the era should look at the Mathews Switchback... read full review