Head-to-Head Review: Top Crossbows of 2015

July 24, 2015 By Keith Wood

Not many years ago, crossbows were seen as a novelty among hunters. You were more likely to see a crossbow in a low-budget action movie than you were in a deer blind, but with the widespread legalization of crossbows during archery season, all that has changed.

While not as "rifle-like" as some would have you believe, crossbows offer several advantages over traditional compound bows. They can be cocked indefinitely, so they don't need to be drawn when a target presents itself; they are fired from the shoulder and equipped with optics, so obtaining lethal accuracy requires less of a learning curve; they are capable of faster velocities than vertical bows; and they can be operated by hunters who cannot draw and hold a traditional bow, including smaller individuals and the disabled. Tradition aside, the crossbow is superior to the bow in nearly every technical aspect.

Crossbows are everywhere, but many of us don't know one from another and base purchasing decisions on less than complete information. Velocity and price are good indicators, but they don't tell the complete story. Our goal was to perform meaningful tests on some of the most popular crossbows on the market to help readers make informed decisions before shelling out cash.

We gathered seven crossbows from top makers and evaluated them using a list of standardized criteria. We shot these bows until we physically couldn't cock them any longer at ranges from 10 to 50 yards.

As always, we kept our testing as fair as humanly possible — what you see is what we experienced, warts and all.

Horton Storm RDX

horton

The Horton is noticeably different as soon as you pull it out of the box. The reverse limb arrangement makes the bow one of the narrowest models that we tested, and it's obviously effective since it is also the fastest.

With an average velocity of 374 fps, the Storm is actually slightly faster than the company's literature suggests — a rare quality. The high velocity results in a flight time that was noticeably faster than the other models that we tested at longer distances.

Though the Storm's 30-yard accuracy was on par with others, the 50-yard groups were incredible. This bow was tough to cock, so the optional ACUdraw crank system would be a good investment for the non-Crossfitters out there.

Hit: Fastest and most accurate bow tested.

Miss: Somewhat tough to cock, high price.

Velocity is important in this context for three reasons: higher velocity results in a flatter trajectory requiring less holdover correction, decreased flight time resulting in less wind drift and making it tougher for game to react to the shot, and terminal performance on game meaning a faster and more ethical kill.

Each bow was fired over an Oehler 35P chronograph at a distance of three yards. Three shots were fired from each bow, and the results were averaged. If you're not familiar with crossbows, you'd be amazed at how consistent the velocities are — none of the bows varied more than two feet per second from shot to shot.

This consistent velocity is a key factor in the excellent accuracy that we saw across the board during our testing. The Horton produced the fastest velocities by a wide margin — a full 80 fps faster than the nearest competitor.

Ergonomics

In this "catch all" category we measured the intangibles such as ease of cocking and loading, handling characteristics, safety features, noise level, and overall design. To eliminate as much personal preference as possible, emphasis was based on the cocking and noise categories.

Sighting In

Watch these crossbow sighting tips from Petersen's Hunting TV as Kevin Steele and Mark Sidelinger with TenPoint sight in their crossbows before they head out for a mountain lion hunt in west Texas: