Mathews TRX 38 G2 Compound bow review

Hi, I'm Stephen Hand from Arterisa Plays. This is the TRX-38. The TRX comes in a 38, 40, 36, maybe even 34 now. It's been on the market for a number of years and we're going to look at this one. This is the latest, this is the latest version. The latest version has a little dampener here, which is like a bit surprising to me. Like I kind of expected damper to be in here and in here, which is what Matthews used to do, but I've kind of gone for just a little dampener down there. Look, it looks very much like the old TRXs. The cam system is a twin cam with a cable either side. You'll see up here it's got like a little plastic thing. That's to stop the string touching the cam. In the early versions, this string ran so close to this cam that people used to complain about it, but there's a fair bit of, well there's a fair bit, there's a bit of space between the string and the cam in this version, and there's more space down the bottom. The TRX is a modular based bow, so you can use the modules to change the draw length or the lead off. So if you want to go from a 28 inch to a 28 and 28.5 inch module, you've got to buy the module. And it's kind of hard because it's like, well which module do you need for which bow? And it all gets a bit confusing. I don't know if that's the same now, but back when I was selling lots of Matthews, I needed modules for each bow. And then you've got, you know, hard, soft, different lead offs. There was just so many modules to carry. It was a bit of a pain for the dealer. This module is a 75%. It's a number E. I don't know what draw length that is. So this bow is a 60 pound bow, 38 inches axial axles, 7 inch brace height. IBO speed is 328. It's meant to weigh about 4.9, which is very similar to the PSE. Retail price in Australia is about $2,200. That puts it at the sort of the top end of bow manufacturers. Puts it cheaper than Hoyt, cheaper than Bowtech, kind of on par with the PSE Citation. $500 more than the PSE Supra and about $600 more than the PSE Remedy, than the Elite Remedy, the Elite Result. So I've got the Elite Result, I've got the Elite Remedy and the PSE Citation behind me, which we'll compare in this review, because I'm kind of interested to see what the draw cycle is like and the vibration. In the past when I've tested Matthews, they've always been very good as far as vibration. So very limited hand shock. Some adjustability issues are a bit harder on the Matthews than the other bows. Like on the Matthews, to go and replace the strings, you have to take the cams off, which is a bit of a pain if you're going to replace strings. To shim the cam left and right, you've got to use a top hat system. So you've got to replace the little spacers here. So that's a little bit of a pain. The Matthews have these little things at the top here. This is for the bow press to hold into. It also stops the limbs blowing apart if you dry fire the bow, hopefully. You can see here from the inside the riser how much thread there is left as you wind out the bow. This is quite nice here. It's engraved on the side. Metal limb pockets, which are quite nice. Short limbs, parallel limbs. Stop here. Only one stabilizer mount here with the PC. You get the double. You get one down lower. The bottom rear low is very, very low on the Matthews. So now I'm going to say there's always questions about which bow is the best. Look, you're going to shoot well with pretty much any bow. It's a matter of which bow you prefer, your budget, whether you want smoother shooting, what bow you like the look of, and which bow you like the color of. The Matthews comes in a painted finish. This looks kind of like a powder coat, black. This bow is secondhand and in very good condition. It shows sort of no signs, no marks. There's a little mark here and I'm guessing that could be from the customer's ring when he shot, or it could be the grip. Most customers who buy Matthews will fit an aftermarket grip to it, so just consider that. You cannot move the position of the sight up or down. Some bows you can, some bows you can't. It has two arrow holes there, which is quite nice. Most of the Matthews have a sticker on the bottom limb to tell you the poundage and lead off. This bow does not. So I did weigh this bow before doing this review and it weighed 59.98 pounds. So let's just try the draw cycle out. I really like the rollers here on the Matthews, although they're a bit painful to replace the strings because you've got to slide the strings through. So I'm replacing the strings. I'm going to say Prime's probably your hardest, Matthews your second hardest. After that, Elite, PSE, they're both pretty quick and easy to do. So let's just try the draw cycle out. So to start off with, it's very firm to start with. So I'm expecting this to be, like I can feel it all in my shoulders straight up, and I shoot 60 pounds. So the two bows behind me are both 60 pounds, the Elite and the PSE. It's quite hard just dropping into a valley there. The valley, the valley you can't even feel. It's very much like the Hoyt, like the Hoyt Altus. Like the valley hits and you're expecting it to go more and it doesn't. So there's virtually no valley. But there is a valley, it's obviously 75 percent. Can I say it feels like 50 percent. But I expect this bow to be quite fast because it is quite aggressive in the draw cycle. I'm going to say that the Elite and the PSE are smoother to draw. I'm going to, from, I'm going to say it's very similar draw cycle to the Hoyt. I'm going to say this is probably a little bit more aggressive than the Hoyt. I'm going to say the PSE EM cam is probably on par with the draw cycle, maybe a little bit more aggressive. I can't imagine this bow being faster than the EM. But let's shoot it. So this is a Victory VAP 350 grain. Weighs 390, 390 grains, 60 pounds. I'm hoping that's about 29 inches. 304. So I think from memory that's quite a bit faster than the Hoyt Altus which we shot in the last, I think in the last, one of the last reviews. Definitely faster than the Behr Paradox which was rated at 340 feet per second. I'm pretty sure the Behr did 270s. And with the arrow I'm about to shoot this is a Gold Tip Velocity. It weighs 327. I'm pretty sure the Behr Paradox did about 290. So this should do like 320s, 315s. It said 304 again so we're going to try that again. So I'm going to say with the Matthews in the past I have not liked the grip. This grip feels different than the Matthews I've shot before. It's more rounded, it's more narrow and I don't mind this grip. So Matthews have definitely changed the way they've done grips. 305. That's a bit weird. Let me just shoot another victory. I don't mind the draw. With the Hoyt when it dropped over it basically I shook. With this I'm not shaking at all when it drops into the valley. It's very smooth into the valley. Very little shock. I'm sorry 280. So the first one was obviously wrong. So 280 for the VAP and 304, 305 for the Gold Tip Velocity. This is the Elite Remedy. So we've been trying this one for the last few weeks. I gave it last week to one of my staff to shoot at the competition and he shot well with it. So I'm interested in how this compares in draw cycle, vibration, the air that stabilizes on it and speed. Oh this is, this is, this is at 60 pounds. It feels like a toy compared to the Matthews. It's just, it feels like 50 pounds compared to 60. It's significantly easier. 280. That's given that the chronograph is reading correctly, sun's going down, but it's the, the Elite is significantly smoother to draw. I think there's less shock in the Elite. Now it does have stabilizers on it, but when I did the review of this, of the Remedy when I first did it, it didn't have stabilizers. So you'd have to compare that. But quite, the grip is different. It's a flatter grip than the, than the TRX. The TRX is rounded, so more like the Hoyt Altus. This is the PSE Citations. It's set at 29 inches, set at 60 pounds. Yep, she's fully wound up. Now I found the EM cam quite aggressive and at 55 pounds I found the bow harder to draw than 60. So oh, this is just like, it's like nothing. It's like, I'm going to say maybe the Elite is smoother at 60, but it's like, I feel no pain at all in my arms, in my shoulders with the PSE or the Elite. The Matthews I can, I can still feel in my shoulder, in my arms. I can still feel the pain through here. So it's significantly harder. It says 280 again, so I'm guessing the chronograph doesn't have enough light. The bow is very smooth, the PSE. It's got a very nice draw cycle. I think it's one of the better draw cycles in the, in the market and you'd have to just check the review, just check the speed of that compared to the Matthews. I, I, I feel the Matthews is a very aggressive kind of draw, so I'm going to say probably the EM citation is going to be quicker. I feel like that was a hard draw. That, that hurt my body at 55 pounds. Look, the Matthews is not a bad draw. It's, it's not a bad draw. It's just, you're feeling the weight at the start and you're drawing back, you feel the weight and it's a very little valley. The PSE has a bigger valley and so does the Elite and the Elite can change the whole way through because it's adjustable valley link, like the PSE. The PSE can change the length of the valley and you can on the Elite. In fact, the Elite, I've shortened the valley. If you set it back to resetting, it's got a bigger valley. So with that, we'll go back to 18 and see how well we shoot. Okay, so I'm back at 18 meters and I've sighted the bow in, so hopefully they go in the middle. I'm going to say when I draw back the bow, I shake a little bit at the start because it's a bit heavier at the start than the other bows, the, the Elite and the PSE. But when I'm sort of back there at full draw, it's fine. The bow aims really well in the, the pin just holds in the middle. There's no movement with the pin at all. So it's a very nice bow to aim. I find the grip on the new TRX very comfortable, so a lot more comfortable than the older Matthews. In fact, so comfortable that I would not change the grip on this bow. I find it nice and I'd see no reason to change it. The vibration is excellent. I'm going to say the PSE has a little bit more forward vibrations, a little bit more feel when you shoot it, and that's the PSE Supra or the Citation. The Supra has more initial shock moving forward. The Elite is very, very similar and that's the remedy. I haven't shot the, well I have shot the result, but I haven't been shooting the result, so I can't remember. But it feels very similar. So I'm going to say the down points is the change in the draw length is an issue. So this is set with a knee and at, I'm assuming it's 29 inches because it feels spot on for me. So let's see how we shoot. I think I will shoot this bow very well. The seven inch brace height means that it's going to be very easy to aim and should be forgiving to shoot. So let's sort of see how that goes. I like the roller cable slides in the middle that that reduces the vibration. One of my viewers said why doesn't PSE use roller slides? Well the reason is it depends on the engineers. So as you draw the bow back the roller system doesn't move so it's meant to create more tension on the limbs. So with PSE they have the roller slide moving backwards and forwards and they say it basically creates more uniform pressure on the cables. That's why they don't use roller slides. That's what they say. PSE do use them on some of their hunting bows, the carbon bows, or they have in the past. But they don't use them on the carbon bows. Saying that one of the PSE pro shooters fits roller slides or roller system to his PSE. I don't know where he gets it from but anyway. I like the roller slide system because it creates less shock. One of the negatives as I said before it's a bit of a pain to change strings. I'm going to say the person I brought this bow from who treaded in on another Matthews, they own quite a few Matthews and they've shot all the bows that I've done in this review. They've shot the Remini, the Citation, they've owned the Citations and the Forms and Focuses and all that. They like this bow. The strings they weren't that happy with. They found that they had some stretching issues with the strings. So these are basically strings that have never been shot. Because when they get their new Matthews they fit custom strings to it straight away. I generally don't fit custom strings to a bow straight away. I generally shoot them but this is what they do. I'm just relaying their thoughts on the strings and the bow. How they've found the bow. Overall they like shooting the bow. They do like, they think the Citation SE is easier drawing than the EM. Although the EM was significantly faster and they like the Elite to shoot. So let's talk price point. So $2,200 compared to the Hoyt Altus which is basically $2,000. $200 more. It's a similar kind of riser. Twin cam system versus a hybrid cam system. The Hoyt has got a rotating module except for the SVX cam which is module replacement which is like this. So much of a muchness like to camp, to do, to tune the bows you've got to move the cams left and right. So much of muchness. Matthews $200 more. I'm going to say the wool on the Matthews is rock solid. I'm going to say the Hoyt, the DCX cam, last week was a bit more soft at the wool. The SVX would be more solid at the wool. But the Matthews is so solid at the wool because the drawstop is so far away from the module so it creates a more solid position. So the Matthews is going to be more solid. Less vibration. The Matthews is quieter than the Hoyt. I think the Matthews would have to be one of the quietest of all the bows. Really I'm liking the grip. Okay so let's compare it to the Elite Remedy or Elite Results. The Remedy has got a roller cable guard like this. It's got the ability to have a limb stop and a cable stop and you can tune the bow by rotating the limbs. About $1,600 versus $2,200. So there's $600 difference there. For a beginner archer I'm going to say that $600 is too much difference in price because $600 is going to buy your fancy sight which is what most beginners don't do. Most beginners with this type of budget will buy a bow like this. They'll put a $100 sight on, $100 arrows, some stabiliser and go shoot and upgrade later. So if you're an archer who's got all the money in the world and you don't really care about money and when I say that it means you've been shooting for a long time and it's like look I'm just looking for the best bow there is because I shoot every day. So look if something's $600 more it's $600 more. Look you're probably not going to be worried about you know the $600. I'm going to say the Matthews bows come in black, blue, white, red and I don't think their paint finish is as good as the Elite. The Hoyt have got a new finish it's also paint and look I don't know if you like the Hoyt versus the Matthews paint. The Piercy is an anodised finish so more durable I'm going to say with anodising. Piercy also have the white one which can be subject to you know chipping and stuff. I'm going to say with the Elite now I haven't sold a lot of Elites you know in numbers wise you know I probably sold 20 Piercy's to one Elite but I've never seen any paint issues with an Elite. I think the Elite paint work is pretty solid. I had a customer with a two-year-old Piercy in white complaining with paint chips. He's on a forum complaining about it and he complained to me and Piercy said well that's to be expected. Where an anodised finish that you get on your normal Piercy's that's pretty like like they're just rock solid. Very hard to damage, very hard to get chips in them and a lot of this will come back to the bow you like the look of. Which bow you like you know the hang on the wall and which bow you think look this is a cool bow I wouldn't mind shooting this. Look I find I'm aiming very well with this bow. It's definitely harder to draw I can feel it in my arms. I don't mind it like it breaks clean so when I take the shot because it's like 75 percent it's such a rock solid wall that I'm holding it hard against the wall and sort of firing. Saying that like I'm shooting a Piercy Citation I'm obviously shooting that Remedy I'm struggling to pick the difference between them and with the Matthews I think I'd be struggling to pick the difference between this and that although I'm going to say the Piercy and then and the Elite are easy to draw and this year at the Nationals and the state championship like last year I fatigued with 144 arrows shooting the EM cam so this year I've chosen to go I could have dropped back poundage but I've chosen to go for a bow that's easy to draw and you could shoot more to obviously build up your strength that draw felt different I could feel it was like something was rubbing through here or somewhere up here it was it shot all right we'll shoot just one more I'm going to see what the grip's like so my thing overall I can't see where my arrows are down there I feel like every shot's been good there's no wind it's completely still it's very it's a very warm night here so it's perfect shooting weather and if I hadn't left my quiver and finger tab down at the archery club after the competition on the weekend I'd be shooting recurve tonight but when you leave your quiver full of arrows and finger tab behind at the archery club look I I'm going to say with this with the TRX I started off feeling that this draw length was perfect for me at E I don't know what the draw length is at E but now I'm feeling like it's a little bit too long so if I had a rotating module I'd just shorten it back a little bit which is what I did with the Elite I shortened it back a little bit so I shot it in the review I did I sort of shot it for a bit and I changed the draw length I changed the draw stop one of my staff shoots um this particular bow and the same thing happened to him he had to buy I think he's in his fourth set of modules now the modules are not particularly cheap I think around a hundred dollars for a set of modules and there's the you know wait time to get them obviously so I think he's on his fourth set of modules because he's played around with lead off and draw length kind of trying to get it right um I would go a little bit shorter than this drawing for myself because I feel like I'm not applying enough back tension but let's go down the end and see how the arrows are like it's a obviously I need to move the sides um I did shoot in the 10 before I did this um that's what I normally do and I just like okay let's shoot the group the sun's setting um I can't get my hand around the whole group and it's not too bad a group left and right it's not too bad um but I've got up and down I've got a little bit of left and right so I think I'd go shorter draw length um look it wasn't bad it's not bad I enjoyed the draw cycle although it's more aggressive um I enjoy the bow is very quiet so I enjoy that and my neighbors would especially enjoy that because they can hear me shooting normally um so nice quiet boat um very little shock so the shock on the body is going to be good but the drawing is harder so I can definitely feel it through here um I can feel it in the back um adjustability is obviously one of the issues I suppose for me like all the top bows made are pretty amazing um and the bow I haven't mentioned is the Bowtech Reckoning which is that's a pretty amazing bow you can move the cams left or right you can change the lead off you can flip the modules to change the feel of it look a similar price point to the boat to the um Matthews TRX a little bit more expensive um but yeah your Bowtech's got an adjustable grip as well but it's a slightly higher price point um it's got a few more features the Bowtech um so kind of I'd like to see the Bowtech down a bit in price and then it kind of it's more appealing to more archers um I I'm a bit confused like it's a beautiful bow to shoot the grip's nice and comfortable it shoots nice so I think I'd shoot well with this bow however the down points which I've gone through um it just doesn't look flashy to me I think it needs to be more bling to the bow um I like lower stabilizer hole I'd like more adjustability and drawing and lead off and stuff so I don't have to buy modules because every time I'm going to buy a module I got to wait a week to get it and I've got to fit it and go I don't like changing strings on it because that means I got to drop the cams off so let's say you're going to drop your strings into a shop to have them fit it they've got to drop the strings they've got drop the cams off how long is it going to take to fit a set of strings to a Matthews maybe maybe 40 minutes I mean you've still got a time in the bow but you gotta drop those axles so I suppose overall and I think Matthews have a huge following in America I'm told like lots of the 3d shoots shoot them whether that's because they're given and whether it's because of prize money I don't know I'm not sure how the price points in America compare with Australia but to me I think it's a little bit overpriced compared to like the Elite and the PSE focus I think the PSE focus at 1700 versus 2200 500 bucks difference that's a lot the Elite that's a lot of difference when the Elite's got so many functions to it I think the draw cycle would be more appealing to beginners on you know the Elite and the PSE but I think if you're a top line archer so I mean a good archer I think the Matthews is a would be a nice shooting bow and I think in many ways it'd be very comparable to your Hoyt the whole feel of it but I think the wool's a lot more solid than the Hoyt so I'm going to say if you're forking out the money for a Hoyt one of the other issues is the PSE citation is a solid block of steel which they machine out and takes four times as long to make a citation as it does a PSE Supra so hence the extra cost with Matthews like you've got a big block of steel but I don't imagine the machine is as time consuming as the Hoyt Invicta or the PSE citation I like the way the bow shoots the grip is improved the spacing is improved between the wheel and the cam from before which people would have complained about Matthews make a really solid bow it's very rare that you're going to have a problem with the Matthews saying that I did have a problem with the set of limbs this week I'm going to say most of the most all the top end bows like they're just so like so rock solid I mean a person dropped their bow on a rock this week and they damaged the PSE set of limbs and he still shot it this week in a competition and he's like do you have any any spare limbs I'm like I don't think I've ever replaced a set of limbs on a Supra and I sold I would have sold a hundred of them and I don't think I've ever replaced a set of limbs so they are very very very solid generally the bows the limb pockets are good the finish is good I don't know about the quality of the strings I'm just giving my feedback I wouldn't have a problem shooting the Matthews springs and I definitely would not change the strings to aftermarket strings until I shot the bow but I'm just flagging the thing them not you did have this problem so as soon as they get their new Matthews they rip the strings off them and then fit custom-made strings I wouldn't do that because I've just added another $400 on the price of the bow $2,200 bow added 400 bucks to the price of it $2,600 oh expensive um anyway I'm Stephen Hand from Archery Supplies I hope that's been informative I do like the bow that's my summary I do like it I think it's improvement of the other ones and 38 is a nice length overall for shooting anyway thanks for watching bye