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This bow weighs 3.6 pounds and stacks arrows at long ranges

The post PSE Mach 33 DS Review: Is It the Best Carbon Bow Ever? appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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PSE wowed the Outdoor Life bow review team earlier this year with its carbon Mach 30 DS and it earned the 2024 Editor’s Choice crown.

But as good as that bow is, the 2025 offering is even better.

The new PSE Mach 33 DS has all the same features, but it also handles nicer, shoots a bit better, and — surprisingly — it weighs nearly the same. The one area where it falls behind its shorter brother is arrow speed.

   

   
      
      
   

The Mach 33 DS is the perfect bow for bowhunters who picked up the Mach 30 DS this year and thought, “Man, I wish it was a little longer.”

PSE Mach 33 DS Specs and Features 

            
         

            

                           
                              
                        
                                          
                           

      

               
         
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• Weight: 3.68 pounds (measured)





• Axle to Axle: 33 inches





• Draw Length: 25.5 to 31 inches 





• Draw length is adjustable in 0.5-inch increments using the rotating mod 





• Brace Height: 6.625 inches





• Speed Rating: 335 fps 





• Tested speed with 470-grain arrow: 286 fps (30-inch draw and 70-pound bow)





• Tested speed with 350-grain arrow: 328 fps (30-inch draw and 70-pound bow)





• EC2 Cam 





• Let Off: 80, 85, and 90 percent 





• Dynamic brace height 





• Dead Frequency Carbon 





• Made in the USA





• Price: $1,899

Weight

PSE carbon bows have long been among the lightest on the market, and the Mach 33 DS has a listed weight of 3.6 pounds. If you check PSE’s website, that’s the exact same weight as the Mach 30 DS, which is 3 inches shorter. 

I weighed both bows myself and found the Mach 33 DS to be 1.4 ounces heavier. For perspective, three quarters weigh 1.5 ounces, so we’re talking minimal weight difference. How can a bow that’s 33 inches long basically weigh the same as one that’s 30 inches long? I asked PSE’s CEO, Lonnie Workman, that very question, and he said it has to do with the way the carbon is set for the riser, but he also said he and his team were surprised by the weight as well.

One of the reasons why bowhunters choose longer bows is that they find them more stable, especially at distance. One of the reasons they choose shorter bows is for the weight savings for lugging a bow up and down mountains. So here is the rare instance where you can choose the longer bow and not have to worry about extra weight. 

Cam 

The EC2 is a cam PSE has been using for a couple of years. I’ve shot all the PSE flagships and each with the EC2 has been powerful, efficient, and easy to draw. At the axles, the Mach 33 DS utilizes the EZ 220 spacer system, which is a pleasure to work with. 

Essentially, the spacer system employs sets of plastic spacers of varying thicknesses. By changing sets, or swapping spacers, you can adjust the cam position left or right as you tune the bow, while maintaining a consistent distance between the limbs.

The spacers are connected to the axles by horseshoe ends, so they simply snap on and off using the tool included in the spacer kit. You don’t have to pull the axle to change them out, which is a massive time and stress saver.

Dead Frequency Carbon 

The carbon riser is made of a proprietary material PSE calls Dead Frequency Carbon. It’s ultralight and super quiet at the shot, both in terms of noise and vibration. Carbon doesn’t really vibrate, so the vibration people talk about with carbon bows is actually hand shock, which is the thump you feel when the string is released. With this bow, that thump is minimal.

Most manufacturers of carbon bows get their risers from overseas. Not PSE. These risers are made at PSE’s plant in Arizona.

Accessory Mounting 

For accessory mounting, the Mach 33 DS offers nearly every option. For mounting a sight, there are the standard threaded holes on the side of the riser as well as a Picatinny rail on the front. For mounting a rest, there’s the standard Berger hole at the shelf, a dovetail on the back that accepts integrate-style rests, and the threaded holes drilled into the dovetail that allow for mounting Hamskea’s version of the integrate rest.

There are threaded holes on the side of the riser for mounting a quiver, and the cable arm has cutouts to accept PSE’s proprietary quiver. 

There are two stabilizer bushings on the front of the bow. One is in the typical location directly below the grip, and the other is lower, just above the limb pocket. In that bushing, the bow co*es with a Killshok dampener, which soaks up some of the vibration as soon as it co*es off the limbs. For different balance, you can move the Killshok up and move your stabilizer to the lower hole, or remove it altogether and simply run a stabilizer in either bushing.

Full Draw Stability 

Something built into every PSE flagship hunting bow these days — including the Mach 33 DS — is a not-too-well-understood feature called “full draw stability.” PSE talks about it a bit, but I don’t think they talk about it enough to let bowhunters know what it is and how it’s helping them.

The way the bow’s limbs flex and the cams roll over make it harder for the user to torque the bow. In essence, the bow’s dynamic brace height gets bigger.

We know brace height is the distance between the throat of the grip and the bowstring. The bigger the brace height, the more forgiving the bow. To measure the dynamic brace height — brace height at full draw — you put the bow on a draw board, crank back the string and then run a length of string straight from string track to string track in each of the cams. The string imitates the position of the bowstring when the bow is at rest.

The distance between the grip’s throat and the string running straight between the cams is the dynamic brace height. On the Mach 33 DS, that distance is just under 8 inches, as co*pared to the resting brace height of 6 5/8 inches. On other, non-PSE, bows the limbs and cams flex inward and so the dynamic brace height often is shorter than the resting brace height. The Mathews Lift 29.5, for example, has a brace height of 6 inches, and a dynamic brace height of 5.25 inches.

Again, this is a feature that bowhunters seem to have trouble co*prehending, but it’s why PSE bows with full draw stability feel so solid at full draw, as co*pared to other bows.

Testing the PSE Mach 33 DS

I shot a PSE Mach 33 DS that was sent to me for testing indoors and outdoors to get a sense for its accuracy. But first, I set it to 30 inches, with a 70-pound draw weight. With the bow at those settings, I shot a 350-grain arrow over a Garmin Xero C1 chronograph to measure arrow speed. My bow shot that arrow at 328 fps. That’s 7 fps slower than the rating, but here’s something to know about bows and speed ratings.

First, I wasn’t shooting the bow PSE used to obtain its ratings. Sometimes one bow is just a little bit faster than another at the same settings. Second, my bow had a peep sight and D-loop installed. Anything you put in the middle third of a bowstring reduces arrow speed. So the 7 fps difference between the arrow speed I got and the 335 fps spec for the Mach 33 DS really isn’t far off. To give you a sense of how it shoots with a hunting weight arrow, I shot it with my UV 1K arrows, which weigh 470 grains and it produced 283 fps.

For testing the abilities of the Mach 33 DS, I had the good fortune of spending several weeks behind the bow I shot. My time with that bow prompted me to do something I don’t normally do with hunting bows. Try to shoot a perfect 300 Vegas round. 

A Vegas round involves shooting 30 arrows at a bull’s-eye target from 20 yards. A perfect 300 means every arrow must hit the 10-ring, which is about the size of a silver dollar at 1.56 inches in diameter. This is a co*mon round shot by indoor target archers using indoor target bows, fat arrows, magnified scopes and on and on. It’s not one that I typically shoot with a hunting bow set at 70 pounds, bearing a hunting sight, hunting stabilizer, and skinny hunting arrows. 

A 300 round requires precision archery. Bowhunting rigs typically aren’t used for that. But in shooting the Mach 33 DS, I felt like a 300 was possible.

The draw — even at 70 pounds — is buttery smooth and it feels more like it’s 60 pounds. Even with just a 10-inch front stabilizer carrying only 4 ounces of weight on the end, the bow holds incredibly still — almost like a target rig. 

And so I hit the range on several occasions shooting the Vegas target face. I never did get that perfect 300, but I did manage a couple 295s and one 296. The latter means my arrows in that round hit the 10 ring 26 times and the 9 ring four times. Again, this was with my UV 1K hunting arrows and not fatter “liner cutter” arrows. At least two of my four 9s were just outside the 10 ring, and might have cut that line if I’d been shooting fatter arrows.

So why is this relevant for bowhunting? This is a bow that I was able to shoot with consistent, precision accuracy. That’s just as important for bowhunting as it is for target archery. All 30 of my arrows hit within the 3 1/8-inch-diameter, yellow 9-10-ring area on the Vegas target face at 20 yards. That’s infinitely smaller than the vital area on a deer and easily equivalent to 30 heart shots.

Read Next: Best co*pound Bows of 2024

PSE Mach 33 DS vs 30 DS

The closer a bow’s axle-to-axle measurement is to your draw length, the steeper the string angle gets and the more likely it is for the bow to feel unsteady at full draw — like it wants to tip side to side. And that can spell trouble when shooting targets beyond 50 yards.

Now one of the reasons the Mach 30 DS won the Editor’s Choice title for 2024 is because it didn’t feel like that. It felt solid at full draw, which shocked the three of us on the test team. It shouldn’t have shot as well as it did, especially at distance.

Nonetheless, you don’t always know something’s missing if it doesn’t exist. The Mach 33 DS didn’t exist last year. This year it does. As steady as the Mach 30 DS feels to me at full draw, the Mach 33 DS feels even steadier. When I shot both bows side by side, I could tell the Mach 33 DS sat just a little bit more still.

Bowhunters who have the Mach 30 DS certainly don’t need to trade them in for the Mach 33 DS. But I’m sure there are folks out there like Western hunters or Total Archery Challenge enthusiasts, who love shooting long range and balked at the Mach 30 DS because of its relative short length. Well now it’s safe to pull the trigger.

That doesn’t mean the Mach 33 DS is for everyone. If you have a shorter draw length, prioritize speed, or need to make a shot in cramped blinds, the Mach 30 DS is the better option. Also not everyone needs a bow that’s highly stable for long distance shooting.

Final Thoughts 

So if the Mach 33 DS is even better than last year’s bow, which was OL‘s best bow of 2024, it should be a shoe-in for the crown this year, right? Not necessarily. While the Mach 33 DS is a total dream to shoot, it is simply a longer version of last year’s bow. There’s nothing new about it besides the length and the bigger brace height. If other bows introduced this fall shoot really well and have new technology, they’re likely to have the advantage over the PSE Mach 33 DS.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a great bow. It is. And you won’t be sorry if the Mach 33 DS is the one you decide to take home for your next hunting adventure.

The post PSE Mach 33 DS Review: Is It the Best Carbon Bow Ever? appeared first on Outdoor Life.