I recently purchased a Bear Patriot. 50# at 28". I've been shooting it for a few months; however, as I am new to the sport entirely, I was hoping to get somebody that has some experience with this bow to give me some advice. I've change to a B50 string and that seems to help with quite a bit of the noise and I've read a few books but  I am wondering what brace height or other tuning tips you guys might have for this specific bow.

JDL,

 The Bear Patriot is a very nice bow.  I had one for several years and was very happy with it.  Mine was also #50.  I draw a little over 28 so I shot 2018 arrows with 150 grain tips.  It also shot .500 spine carbons well with 200 grain points.  Initially my bow was noisy too.  I believe that most of it had to do with the factory string.  I had a flemish string twisted up using D97 and that helped a lot.  I do not remember the exact brace height, but I think it was around 7.5  I put a rubber "Sure Grip" on it.  I thought the grip on that bow was great.  I did experiment with different silencers on the bow, but settled on beaver balls located at about 12 to 14 inches from the limb tips.  That made my very quiet.  Just a very small thump at release.  Overall, I liked the bow, but sold it to finance an ILF rig.  I did spend a lot of time tuning and adjusting on the Patriot to get it to shoot the way I wanted.  Please feel free to pm me if I can help.  Good luck!

I've had a Patriot quite a while, I'm convinced it's the sleeper in Bear's line up and a very under rated bow.

It took quite a bit of fiddling with mine before I figured it out.  If you were using the factory string that was your biggest hindrance from the start.

I'd suggest a skinny D-97 string from SBD bowstrings and I find the Patriot like most hybrids shoots very fast and quiet at a low brace.  Mine is at 6 1/2" and is super sweet.  The shelf cut out on the Patriot is also very shallow (at least it is on my 04) and the bow requires less spine that you would expect for one that performs so well.

Thanks guys! Yeah... from what I noticed the min. brace height I could get on the factory string was 8.5! When I originally bought the bow it had some of those huge limb silencers that are meant for a compound. They worked fantastic, absolutely no noise, but they looked awful. When I took them off the thing sounded like a tuning fork!

ISP- I actually have some 2018's on order so thats fantastic! I typically do endless loop with b50 but thats mainly b/c I've got a spool I need to use up and a jig that I'm familiar with. I'll look into the D-97. Would you happen to know what type of string came on it? Just curious.

BowinMO- I've yet to go that low on the brace... I think I'm twisted up to 7.5 from 7 at the moment. Maybe I'll work my way back down and see how it goes.

Thanks guys!  

I am not sure what the factory string was made of.  I do remember that it was very fat and rope like.  I believe it was something like 20+ strands with a large diameter serving.  I do rememberr that I had to work on my arrow nocks just to get them on the string.  I usually use 450+ on my bows, but a friend made the string for my Patriot out of some D97 he had on hand.  Once you get that bow shooting the way you want it, you will really enjoy it.  It is a much better bow than most people think.  I won a couple of 3D shoots with it.

I had a Fred Bear Byron Ferguson Signature Patriot 55# at 28". It was great. I let a buddy shoot it at a stump (15" in diameter). We were 15 yds away. He hadn't shot a bow in years. Both shots were dead on. I probably should not have sold it.

Thanks for all the help guys. Here are the manufacturers stats I got from Bear Archery in case anyone else needs a reference.

Brace Height: 6.5"-7.25"
Shelf is cut to center.

I really like the bow, but the 60# I got is a little much for my shoulder.  
 I beleive my brace is 6 3/4", and I think they're underated too.