whitetailbowhunter

Hi everyone,

I want to start hunting with a crossbow bow wanted to know what brand you recommend and why?

Many thanks

Mat

Dnk

Any of the Excals. The Vixen and the Phoenix are just about perfect. I have both as well as two other Exocets. The are by far the best combination of accuracy, price, speed, reliability, resale value, longevity, durablity and many other things. Now if you want a compound crossbow then I believe the best is the Ten Point. I truly believe that the best bow come from those that only make crossbows because their survival depends on their reputation and the quality of service.

GrumpyTom

Before we really can give you a good opinion on what crossbow you should get, we should get a few ideas on what you might want with a bow. What hunting would you be doing. Is arrow speed very important to you. Do you demand wheels (a compound) or is a recurve ok for you.

Me personally, I like the Excalibur brand crossbows because they are very dependable, relyable, light and very accurate. I have used my bow for over 24 years. These are a recurve style bow which makes them very user friendly. You can do your own maintaince and do not need proshops for that. You can shange your own string in 5 minutes.

captainron62

thats pretty right on advice. I would put hands on both brands and you will know what is right for you. also check the features, one may have something that is important to you, but insignifigant to someone else.

Hotburn76

Copied this from the last time, To tired to type alot and would feel bad for ignoring it. So this may look familiar to some.

Any will do. Excal for the do-it-yourself type. Top end Horton's are fine, Ten point for some newer ideas and safety features. There seems to be some guys come in lately that seem pretty happy with Parkers. Bow Tech is currently new in the game and are still working out the bugs. The recurve design of Excal will be easy to maintain if you do a bunch of shooting. If you do not do a bunch of shooting, like say more than 500 shots a year then a Compound style will be ok, any thatI mentioned. Compounds require a press to do a serving on. I have not had to reserve my Excal since I am on my forth string this season. Not that I am having a problem with strings, but have been trying the different types, something you will not get to do with a compound, at least not readily available to most. Also welcome to the forum!

scpatterson

You need to go to a bow shop that sells crossbows and one that has several brands and try them all. They all have qualities that are good but for me it is the Excalibur.

whitetailbowhunter

Well i'm going to be doing some deer hunting and possibly turkey. i want something that is reliable and will last for a long time. Speed is always good.. As for a compound or recurve doesn't really matter as long as it still shoots fairly fast and i can depend on when that big buck comes by. I will be shooting quite often.

Mat

Dnk

The more you shoot the more you need an Excalibur (there are hardly any moving parts). The Excal is also the one least likely to ever be brought iinto a bow shop as well because unless there is really nothing to do other than adjust brace height which can take a minute or less.

GrumpyTom

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.

BigTiny

I shoot a Vixen, it is my first crossbow and my first piece of archery equipment. It was very simple to set up and easy to maintain. I got the Vixen for 2 reasons; a back and neck injury prevents me from using a traditional vert bow and the Vixen has the lowest draw weight, also it was the most inexpensive of the Excaliburs, so if I didn't like bowhunting, the financial hit would be minimal. Now that I have the Vixen, I don't think I want a faster bow. It's size and weight make it easy to carry and shoot, and the low draw weight make it easy to shoot for longer periods of practice. The only drawback is that it comes in brown only, while all the others come in camo. I recommend getting the right stuff package with the vari-zone scope if you get the excal.