![]() ![]() Master that scope, and it certainly provides an advantage, but it’s the crossbow, more than the scope, that I’d compare to a vertical bow. I’m not discounting it because I didn’t get to use it long enough to call it a real evaluation, but I don’t think it’s the system every crossbow hunter will gravitate to, either. But my 45 minutes of experience with the smart scope setup showed there to be a learning curve, with more buttons and features than I’d personally care to mess with in the field (and a reticle that was tough to see in bright sun). The TenPoint Vapor RS470 XERO with the added Garmin XERO X1i rangefinding scope is way cool-and the bow itself is more than capable of tight 100-yard groups (it finished runner-up in last year’s test). On the other hand, a 500 fps crossbow is roughly 170 fps faster than the fastest hunting compound bow we tested last year(at IBO specs), and it produces more than double the kinetic energy. Mine was at 48 yards-a shot that I wouldn’t try on a turkey on my best day with a vertical bow, much less from my belly, after crawling through the brush, while holding a turkey fan, with Hurteau arguing with me the whole way (because that’s what he does). One spring, Executive Editor Dave Hurteau and I fanned up two Nebraska gobblers and killed them with crossbows. Meanwhile, outside of testing them, I was playing with these crossbows at long range because I suspected they might help me kill more critters out hunting. Otherwise, we learned, we’d break all our bolts after about two groups. As crossbows continued to get faster, they also became so accurate that as part of our accuracy testing procedure, we began shooting all of our groups on paper targets with a single bolt, and then measuring the groups with a digital caliper. In 2016, the Scorpyd Ventilator Extreme clocked 430 fps. In 2014, we tested an Excalibur Matrix Mega 405 that handily broke 400 feet per second on the chronograph. In the face of steadily declining license sales (at least up until about April of 2020), nobody wanted that.Īnd then crossbows just got better and faster. But they were easier for new hunters-and aging hunters-to use, and therefore excluding them from bow seasons was counterproductive to hunter-recruitment efforts. The argument was frequently made that crossbows, like compound bows, were short-range tools that offered no significant advantage to bowhunters. Excalibur Crossbowsīack in 2013, when I started reviewing crossbows for Field & Stream, it was still OK to ask things like, “Should we really be using these things during bow season?” Full inclusion of crossbows into archery seasons was becoming more common by then-but there were still embers glowing from the raging debates of the mid-2000s, and compound bow hunters still easily outnumbered crossbow hunters.īut the push to legalize crossbows for bowhunting continued, and it was largely spearheaded by crossbow manufacturers. Putting the Best New Crossbows in Context The new Excalibur Twinstrike is basically a double-barreled crossbow. The TenPoint Vapor RS470 Xero is a 470-fps crossbow that we tested last year, but now paired with a Garmin XERO X1i digital range-finding smart scope that, with the press of a button, will range game to 250 yards and automatically provide an aiming point.The Excalibur TwinStrike is a truly manageable and practical 2-shot crossbow that’s scantly bigger than its single-shot predecessor.The Ravin R500 has an electronic cocking device and promises 500 fps speeds with a 400-grain bolt.The new Ravin R500 is the first hunting crossbow to break the 500-fps threshold. Three radically innovative crossbows from three of the biggest players in the game all promise game-changing performance and capabilities. Would it be a crossbow that shoots 500 feet per second? Or maybe one with a digital range-finding smart scope? What about an over-and-under two-shot repeater? In 2021, crossbow manufacturers may get their answer on what the public (and state agencies) are willing to accept, because we now have all of the above. ![]() (Maybe longer if you count the Medieval Ages, when legend has it Pope Urban II banned the unholy things from being used in combat.) But particularly in the past five years, during which time crossbow developments have accelerated at breakneck speed, some have asked, “Where is the line we’re unwilling to cross if we want to still call this bowhunting?” Arguments between vertical-bow hunters and crossbow hunters over what qualifies as archery equipment have been going on for 20 years. ![]()
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