Well for deer, any quality crossbow will be more then enough bow for you. Heck when I bought my crossbow 24 years ago, the Relayer 150lb bow, I was told that it was more then enough for moose. But you know that WITH todays people, POWER POWER POWER & more POWER mentality, they say you need more, but in actuality you do not (record crossbow moose in Ontario was got with a vixon a few years ago) as many moose are shot with 150lb bows.

Remember that with crossbows, that it is the crossbow that holds the bow at full draw, it is you that must load that power into the bow. Power means speed, but it also has costs in the line of dependability, reliability, maintaince and longevity. Most people have also found out that the higher poundage, faster bows are more loud, but with crossbows, you really do not need to worry about noise as long as you keep shot distances respectable. With the higher poundage bow, some have found that it is a lot of work just to load the bow, so they tend to not shoot it as much as they did when they had lighter bows (not as much practice).

Most of your quality crossbows (recurve or compound) are dependable and will be there for you when that buck comes by. The reason I prefer the recurve is that I want a bow that I can work on in the field if I need to. I am not saying that you will ever need to, but everyone that has shot bows knows that things can happen, espically to strings, and with a recurve, you can change a string in the field in less then 5 minutes (a bow that needs to go to a proshop for repairs can ruin a hunt).

Recurves are a little wider then compounds, but not much (usually less then 3 inches), but compounds are usually more front heavy as well as more over all weight. I just like the fact of less moving parts means less that can go wrong. The extra wheels and parts of a compound, just do not give you the advantage with crossbows as they do with the vertical bows.

Now for your choice, it is now up to you to find out what it the best fit for you. Which bow is best balanced and which is easiest to bring to a shooting position. I would recommend you to go to a proshop or a couple and test fit a few once you narrowed yourself down to a short list of bows.

The last piece of advice is to go with a manufacture that has a record of dependability and reliability. These people have already proved that their products are good.