Man! My God, I'm glad this doesn't go on over at the other forums. I find it trulyamazing that anyone can bash automatic safeties on crossbows.One of my crossbows is a Vortex andI like it for 3D shoots. The other 9 crossbowshanging in my shop have auto safeties and anti-dry fire mechanisms. I also shoot centerfire rifles quite a bit so I have to deal with what I'm shooting at the time. No matter WHAT I'm shooting,my intent is to double check to make sure the safety is on after loading a cartridge or arrow. I'm 66 years old :-) for God's sake! AlthoughI consider myself a thinker andcanhandlestuff like re-engineering triggers, etc., I forget sometimes.Just weigh the chances of a safety mafunctionvs. the chances of a forgetful "seasoned" crossbow hunter forgetting to push the safety on and not realizing it until an arrow is fired.......somewhere
I'll trust the mechanical auto safety over a forgetful old fart anytime.
Another thing, after tearing through many triggers andsafeties in crossbows of all brands, the Excal trigger parts are not the most sophisticated as compared with TP's andBowtech's crossbowsbutExcal's are reliable with nicely hardened parts. My point here is that I believe the reason we still don't see auto safeties and anti-dry fire mechanisms on Excal's is that they would be quite a bitmore expensive to produce. Simple as that. JMO
BTW, I dropped my Vortex out of a tree at 17 feet with no damage done to it so I know the durability factor for these crossbowsis second to none. "Simplicity" is alsoeasier to maintain than "complicated". IMHO, there is no one best crossbow. They all have their good and not so good features...............even Excals.