Which Cougar? String lengths?

[remolino]

Can someone please help me identify the year and model of this Cougar?

I have a Cougar compound, set at approx 52lbs, fury cams no 3 - 29" draw with Elite recurved limbs. No details on sticker. Going through old catalogues it looks like the 2002 Cougar Elite M-2000 XRG. Bought off ebay 2 years ago, new, from Quicks archery shop as end of line product.
Shoots like a dream, just the archer can be a plank sometimes! Easily gets 1st class scores and often just shy of Bowman.

However, noticed some problems while setting up and re-tuning. Needs new strings. Not knowing which year bow was produced, looked at Martin charts.
Fury cam 3 on a cougar at 29" draw length gives M-2000 Cougar 2000. Measured split strings at 43" and Elite limbs gives M-2000XRG Cougar 2000 Elite, which should be 30" draw. Also measured shooting string at 57.25" which is halfway betweeen both bows.

The cams roll over perfectly in time but are not at rest as per Martin pdf file on line. The cams do not roll far enough over. Instead of the straight edge on the cam being vertical, they only go as far as the angle of the limbs.

Would I be right in assuming that if the shooting string was longer to match the Elite setup the cams would roll over further as specified and also give the extra 1" draw? Or should all the strings be shortened for the normal Cougar setup?

[Robert58]

Looks like the previous owner short strung it to get it down to 29" draw. The cams look preloaded. I'll bet that you are not getting the speed out of it that you should.


Looks like a 2001 bow to me.

Robert

[remolino]

Looks like the previous owner short strung it to get it down to 29" draw. The cams look preloaded. I'll bet that you are not getting the speed out of it that you should.


Looks like a 2001 bow to me.

Robert

Many Thanks. The bow was new as in unused even if a couple of years old when bought. It had no string wear or marks on it of any kind. Probably had the wrong string fitted from the start.
I think now I am convinced that this is the M-2000XRG Cougar Elite. The year could either have been 2001 or 2002. According to the Martin charts the shooting string should be either 58" for 2001 or 58 1/2" for 2002. I will need to make up strings in both sizes and check the cams to be sure.

Thanks again.

[Robert58]

Let me say first, that I am not a Martin Tech. But I don't think the 58 1/2" listing in the 2002 chart is not correct because all of the other lenghts are the same on both charts.

I think your bow is a 2001 because they started putting the Gold Martin Medallion in the risers in 2002 and your bow doesn't have it, and 2001 was the first year for the Cougar Elite with Fury cams, or so it says on the Martin Website. My 2002 Elite has the Medallion.

Robert

[remolino]

Hi, thanks for your help.

I made a fastflite 58" string but that was still a shade short so I made another 1/2" longer. The cams are now positioned correctly.

I will leave the string on the bow for now but it should not stretch noticeably.

That makes it the longer string which according to the charts should be a 2002 model.

Cheers.