Excalibur crossbows - do not buy

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Originally Posted by MihajloSimsic

Honestly excal took a dive off a cliff when they started trying to compete for speed with a recurve design. In my humble opinion, a crossbow should never have a draw weight higher than 200lbs out of convenience and safety. Power stroke is what gives velocity, not draw weight (still does but much less than PS). Just look at medevial crossbows, 400lbs+ draw weight and none of them go near the slowest of todays crossbows. The only way to achieve draw length with a recurve is to make the limbs cartoonishly wide like the Excal assassin that's 30" wide uncocked!!! Sorry but the compound design is simply superior, all you hear about recurves is "you can change the limbs and string easily!" or "You can break it and hunt in the same day!", which is ironic because you only ever hear of recurves snapping or breaking because of the obscene draw weight. Regardless, who throws their bow off a truck? Even if the bow survives your scope sure as heck wont.

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The compound crossbows are not necessarily superior. You're comparing apples to oranges. They each have their advantages and disadvantages just like any 2 different products. Personally I like that I can change my bowstring with some paracord and a recurve will never have the accuracy issues a compound can have. Compounds are lighter and faster, 2 qualities that dont make it or break it for me when shooting a deer at 30 yards.

I believe a simpler design is superior based on my needs from a crossbow. Same with guns I like simple hard to break designs (im clumsy). Compounds are awesome too, I own both but my excal comes hunting everytime.

The constant need for speed will eventually be the demise of the recurve crossbow, and that will be a sad day. I can see ,in the near future, compound crossbows reaching 500 fps and most will want one......sadly

I had a limb crack this year on my excalibur micro. Excalibur was excellent to deal with. Sent me limbs in the mail, no questions asked.

I love my Micro 335 and Excalibur has stood behind both bows that I have owned without fail. Great product and I have has nothing but top shelf customer service!

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Originally Posted by huntnmachine

The constant need for speed will eventually be the demise of the recurve crossbow, and that will be a sad day. I can see ,in the near future, compound crossbows reaching 500 fps and most will want one......sadly

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Anything 500fps or faster needs a PAL,you know,courses,investigations,daily CPIC checks............. That's the #1 reason people gravitate to archery. They don't want the hassle,besides,the seasons are longer.

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Originally Posted by trimmer21

Anything 500fps or faster needs a PAL,you know,courses,investigations,daily CPIC checks............. That's the #1 reason people gravitate to archery. They don't want the hassle,besides,the seasons are longer.

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You are kidding ...right !!

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Originally Posted by rick_iles

You are kidding ...right !!

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Busted!! Damn,you're quick.:moose::moose: Only barreled firearms fall under the 500 fps rule in the Firearms Act. This was a real bad attempt at sarcasm.Sorry.

Recurve crossbows are not made for speed. That's just a simple fact of archery physics. Every single time Excal has attempted a crossbow above 400fps it's always trigger failures and limbs cracking. Doesn't exactly fit their "our crossbows are more reliable than anyone else's" model huh? They make great recurve crossbows, when they do it right you get a simple, compact, lightweight, and reliable piece of equipment.
You just have to accept the fact it will be 380fps or lower, which is perfectly acceptable. To increase speed on a crossbow you need a longer power stroke, simple as that. What excal often ends up doing is trying to compensate for that short power stroke by adding obscene amounts of draw weight. Because to get a good power stroke with a recurve xbow you need to make the limbs as wide as an umbrella. They also try to sell their xbows off in an odd way, like "you can unstring your xbow with ease", which is odd because I never found most compound xbows to be difficult to unstring, plus you wouldn't need to unless changing the string. When your string has as much tension as a bridge cable uncocked then definitely you'd need to unstring it during off season.

You make a good point.
I have always said that Excalibur should not get caught up in the speed game and stay with a mid range 300 to 350 ft/sec bow and market the accuracy, reliability and "in the field string changeability". I bought the Matrix G340 for the wider limbs and I am guessing 320 ft/sec speed (using the 150 grain bolt cutters).
The last thing I want to hear when cocking my Xbow is the sound of fibreglass cracking. I understand they have the best customer service but it doesn't do you much good if you split limbs in a hunting situation.
The older wide limb bows are still killing game today.....just sayin

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Originally Posted by huntnmachine

You make a good point.
I have always said that Excalibur should not get caught up in the speed game and stay with a mid range 300 to 350 ft/sec bow and market the accuracy, reliability and "in the field string changeability". I bought the Matrix G340 for the wider limbs and I am guessing 320 ft/sec speed (using the 150 grain bolt cutters).
The last thing I want to hear when cocking my Xbow is the sound of fibreglass cracking. I understand they have the best customer service but it doesn't do you much good if you split limbs in a hunting situation.
The older wide limb bows are still killing game today.....just sayin

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I agree with huntmachine and MSimsic, Excalibur should just stick with what its been good at for so long, easy to operate and maintain and long lasting crossbows and not get into the speed game.

To tell you the truth we have to be careful what we wish for, these crossbows start getting 500 FPS or more and were going to get seperate seasons like a "controlled week" and will be excluded from bows only seasons..thats my fear and maybe I am wrong...besides many deer have fallen from 300 FPS crossbows like a Phoenix or Vortex, etc...