I have a friend who is in your situation , he has an Excaliber . He says he went with Excaliber because he liked the simplicity of a recurve crossbow that delivers the power of a compound model without the quirks . He used to be a competition archer , compound , recurve and longbow.You should go to a shop that carries a selection of brands and shoot a few before deciding what you want . I definitely reccomend a rope cocking device and a stringer .