Types of Compound Bows

April 12th, 2009
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Compound bows are classified by the type of cam system they use (called the bow eccentric.) The most popular types of compound bows on the market are Single Cam (sometimes also called One Cam or Solocam), Hybrid Cam, Dual Cam and Binary Cam. Less common designs like Quad Cam and Hinged are a little harder to find.

Here’s a quick reference for the most popular design types:

Compound Bow Type Features The Good The Bad
Single Cam
  • “idler wheel” at the top
  • elliptical “power-cam” at the lower end
  • Easy to use
  • Quiet
  • Harder to tune than other designs
Hybrid Cams
  • Control cam on top end
  • Power-cam at bottom end
  • Easy to tune
  • Requires less maintenance
  • Reduced nock travel
Twin Cams
  • Uses two cams which can be round or elliptical, on each end of the bow
  • Accuracy
  • Level nock travel
  • High velocity
  • Highly complex design translates to frequent maintenance and tuning
Binary Cams
  • Similar to twin cams but top and bottom cams are slaved to each other instead of the bow’s limbs
  • Very high velocity
  • Level nock travel
  • Highly complex design translates to frequent maintenance and tuning


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