Well im going with barnett sooner or later they will smarten up and build perfection but im still barnett. The predator is in my sights but warrenty scares me.

take your 22 inch arrow on your quad 300 and put on the BLAZER 2 inch vanes at 3 degree.

for the 50 cal ,use the 295 POWERBELT and the 348 is close second for deer.
i use rd ball on my hawkins .50cal with 80 grs of 2 fg and wonderwad i make out of felt and fuller flints.

Excaliber

are hortons any good? im trying to find a crossbow fow under 400 dollars that is as good or almost as good as the excalibur vixen

"im trying to find a crossbow fow under 400 dollars that is as good or almost as good as the excalibur vixen"

"As good as" is a relative term. Excals are very simple, very well built, and very reliable. The issue is that for $400 you get basicly just the bow and nothing else. You can easily get into $6-700ish range by the time you are done outfitting it. IMO, the Parker Buckbuster for a $400ish bow is a great deal and comes with everything you need in one package, but it is not a comparable bow to the Excal as IMO, recurves and compounds are two diferant animals. Direct package comparison, the Parker is a better "value" since it is a good little bow and comes with everything. As far as performance and such it is also IMO fairly comarable, but the simplicity of the Excal is a big factor. The size of the Excal may be an issue depending on where you hunt, but they are also alot lighter than any of the compounds. I would recomend you shoulder every bow you can get your hands on and see which one fits best. Once the arrow is on its way they will all take down deer very efficiently. but unless you have a bunch of extra bolts and a scope and such, keep in mind to add that to your budget with any bow you look at.
Wyvern

so do you like hortons?

Sorry, I did go off on a tangent...Yes, Horton makes a good bow and they have some very inexpensive units, but they tend to be a tad loud for me (my opinion) and their safety is solid, but loud to go from safe to fire. Their higher end units are actually pretty good, but it was more the "dollar for dollar" thing I was looking at.
Wyvern

so pretty much what crossbows should i stay away from? my price range is up to 400 maybe a little more but hopefully 300-350 range

if you are going to hunt deer,i feel HORTON is fine,is compact .if you are going to practice a lot,like put 200 or more shots ,the HORTON could be more expensive down road.

you have cams,cables,string which needs press to get off.

i just replaced my limbs,they were 125 dollars,bow was hardly shot.

maybe i did it when i broke my cocking rope,horton said AGE did it, bow is 10 years old.so, AGE will destroy your limbs too.

if you get horton,make sure you have dealer near you that can change strings for youand send it back to the company for repairs or have parts to fix it..

my HORTON is deadly out to 30 yds which, if i did use it for deer,would be max i would shoot.it will put arrow in same hole over and over at 20 yds.

if i was to buy another bow it would be a EXCAL.

Wyvern, thanks for the post. Makes alot of sense. This what "is the best" comes up fairly regularly like there is a simple answer. THERE IS NOT!! The uses these bows will be subjected to is a varied as the number of posters here. You "seekers of the secret" need to do your homework, read the posts on the forums, adapt that info to your PERSONAL adaptations and go from there. Easy to say, I know. However, the upside of that is if you get a bow from a known quality mfgr and aren't happy w/ it or want to experiment, the re-sale values make it as painless as possible learning experience. Most of us have done this, to one degree or another.