Well after a few years of trying I could never get my wife to shoot her compound bow good enough that I felt it ethical to put her out in the woods with it shooting at living things.  She likes shooting it but not enough to commit enough time to really get proficient.  Plus with her draw length and poundage ability to judge yardage would have to be REALLY on point for her.  Just not happening.  IF she had really got to it this summer the best I could hope for would be limiting her to 20 yard shots or less only.  That can get very frustrating, especially for a new hunter.  So I said f*** it, I'll buy her a crossbow as a gift for passing her hunters safety course(last week).  Considering our extremely tight budget at the moment and what is available I decided to keep it at or under 400 dollars.

Found a CE Piledriver 390 for a really good buy between the sale price and a 50 dollar rebate for any CE item I'd been waiting to find someone to use on that I won at a shoot.  Read up on it and mostly good reviews but a few split limbs and a lot of negative reviews that it shoots under IBO(well if you bought a bow without first looking at actual real world tested speeds... come on doods).  The only big red flag I saw was one review that stated theirs would shoot quite a bit low in cold temps so we will be testing that out before we hit the woods.

I did get it set up right away and we put about ten bolts through it.  At 25ish yards it drives tacks.  I got it sighted in and then took one more shot on a fresh target to verify.  Like an idiot when I handed it over to my wife I said to just go ahead and shoot at the center bullseye even though I already had a bolt there because she's not going to be that good of a shot with it right away, right?

Wrong, blasted the knock off my damn bolt on her first shot...  Took us all of 6 shots to ruin some equipment.

Despite it being a wee bit heavy(Well, crossbows in general are) she shot it pretty good offhand as well.

The scope it comes with is shit so that might get replaced before hunting time.  My wife can cock it ok with the rope but she's pretty close to her limit.  The trigger pull is...different.  There is quite a bit of travel but it's extremely smooth with pretty light pressure(i'd say 3lbs max) and there is no catch or stop at the end.  You don't really take up the travel and then slowly squeeze at the end, you just slowly squeeze it through it's travel and it just goes off.

There is literally NO wall that I can tell.  The trigger feels like it's all take-up but at some point it just goes off, never could find any wall or creep.  Maybe this is just how crossbows are vs. firearms, I wouldn't know.

So far for 215 dollars I'm quite happy.  She loves.  Can't wait till opening day to sit around waiting for her text that she dropped one.

On another positive note after sticking up the woods getting my trail camera up last week I'm starting to get a shitload of activity as of tonight.

I have thought about getting one yet I would have to have something other than rope to cock it. I have looked at those with the ratcheting crank system. Got a buddy that wants to take me bow hunting in OK and that is what I would use it for. Other than that kind of just want one for the hell of it.

This comes with the rope as well as the hand crank.  The hand crank has no loud ratcheting system.  I haven't tested it yet but reviews say it's extremely quiet and works great for hunting.  I'll try out the hand crank tomorrow and let you know how it goes.  Here's a video of it in action.



Right now Dunham's has this particular model on sale for 270 for the ready to shoot kit.  Like I said though the scope isn't terribly impressive.  It works fine but in low light conditions you might find yourself wanting something illuminated.

edit:  one more thing, unless you take the time to flip the safety off the "right way" it is LOUD.  It's an ambidextrous safety at the top of the receiver, or whatever the fuck you call it on an xbow, but if you just use your thumb to flip it on one side it lets out quite a loud click.  If you put your index finger and thumb in the shape of a C and pinch it from both sides, then "ride" it down to off it's very quiet.

Something you would need to keep in mind when in the woods.

Do they have that price online? If so and has a crank I might check it out for that price. The ones I looked at were around $1000-1200. And that is before the scope. Since never have shot a crossbow guessing that they need a scope like a BB rifle does to handle the recoil going forward instead of backwards.

Ah... no dunhams in Texas...  Unfortunately I think that's in store with coupon only.

Check out some of the online retailers.  Lancaster archery has a few solid crossbows for 3-500 dollars that come with everything you need to get shooting(be aware, not all of them come with the hand crank cocker though).  I'm not seeing much on there right now that's beating the dunhams sale going on at the moment.

Honestly it doesn't take much these days to get a decent crossbow that will be more than enough to hunt with.  I don't think the bow I got is that much better or worse than most of the other stuff in this price range, I just went with Carbon Express because I had that 50 dollar rebate I needed to burn up.

Are you otherwise a hunter or would this be something new for you?

I have a 50 yrs old Wammo...steel body and prod..100 lb pull. Shoots spot on with aluminum bolts.

Don't understand the "sin" part. Xbow is simply a more effective arrow delivery system. Faster, more accurate, increased range. Only downside is weight. And before you start whining about how it "makes it too easy" remember that overall hunter numbers are in decline; if we want sport hunting to be around for ourselves and future generations we should not create artificial barriers to entering the sport.

Make sure to do some shooting with broadheads; sometimes they can show some issues you didn't know you had. Working on find a good combo myself at the moment

Nothing wrong with a crossbow. I recently bought one myself, the added hunting season I get when coupled with a disabled hunting permit make it worth it all by itself. ( in Kentucky you have a short crossbow season, but with disabled permit you can use it the entire archery season ) last year I had approx. 30 days of hunting season. ( gun combined with muzzleloader). I bought a crossbow, and got a dr note, so this year im looking at 4.5 months of hunting season. I really only plan to use it during cool / cold weather, so, that's the week before gun season starts, the 2-3 weeks between gun and muzzle loader season, and the last 6 weeks after muzzle loader ends.

I also have issues with my woman getting enough practice, but with the crossbow shes dead on everytime. I love mine, it kicks ass.  I have the pulley type cocking system, but I plan to replace it with the ratchet / crank system, as that's much, much easier to use when sitting in a deer stand, should you want to reload while on stand. which I damn sure will, as I have killed MANY deer by not moving after shooting one, and another one shows up seconds / minutes later.

I sold off some guns I didn't use, and bought a ten point stealth.

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I don't have any problem with people hunting with crossbows per say but there has been a noticeable decline in activity at local archery events since the laws changed in WI.  That I don't like.  I also don't like that crossbow season is just as long as archery season.  IMO traditional guys should get opening weekend, then the following weekend open up to compounds, then the weekend after that to crossbows.

There's no love lost between me and the crossbow hunting community around here though.  The DNR specifically stated they were going to open up crossbows for a few years for all of archery season and then after that sit down and discuss what the season length should be after the trial run.

Well after said trial run we all sat down at local meetings and discussed it.  Simply suggesting that the season should be shorter, even by one week, unleashed some of the worst crying out of grown men I have ever seen in my life.

I have no problem with how easy it is, any weapon that can be used to ethically harvest a deer should be allowed, but the difficulty should dictate the season length.

Where we will be doing most of our hunting you get one buck tag and that's it so follow up shots aren't much of a concern unless you miss.

I do have a stand set up already though that I'm going to have her practice handling/operating the new weapon out of before I send her out alone to slaughter and murder.

Bought a CX 390 today...