Rodeo, if you are looking for a crossbow to replace your rifle for archery season, it aint gonna happen. The range of a bow or crossbow has nothing to do with how far an arrow can be effective, if you mean by effective will it kill. A reasonable person would not try to kill an animal with them at range that would not be within their confidence level. What is reasonable? As for me, it is 35 yards, I do not practice further than that and if you hunt elevated you should practice elevated. There are people who shoot further than 35 but not me and I prefer closer shots, the closer the better. I once in my much younger years while walking back to our vehicles with friends stuck an arrow in the center of an oak tree in the middle of a field at a range of over 100 yards with a bear Grizzly recurve bow, 50 lb, just to see if I could hit the tree at that range. I held in the canopy and let fly. The Gods were with me. The arrow, a wooden shaft with a bear razor head hit the tree with a resounding thunk about 4 feet from the ground. I could not pull that broad head out of the tree so it probably would have killed a deer had I been so foolish to pull a stunt like that with a deer. There is a good reason native Americans went to rifles as soon as they could lay hands on them. Bows are not long range arms and neither are crossbows. I think your question should be how far can you be effective with a bow and cross bow because they will kill further than most people are capable of making a clean humane shot. Practice, practice, practice, at various ranges from the ground from elevation at the height you stand and then you will know how effective you can be consistently, at various ranges. Only you can answer that question for yourself. Then, don't exceed your capability.
Last edited by Oldtimr; 09-30-2015 at 07:33 AM.