At the Crossroads

Crossbows are deadlier than vertical bows—but you can learn to like them both.

- Will Brantley

WE HAD TWO HOURS before dark on the eve of Wyoming’s archery antelope opener—plenty of time to check the zero on the new crossbows that were supposed to be waiting for us at camp. They were there all right, but still in their factory packaging and not assembled as we’d expected. After a frenzy of hex-wrench and Leatherman work, we finished putting them together and mounting scopes with 30 minutes of daylight to spare. No problem. In 10 minutes I had my bow—a Barnett Razr Ice—hitting bull’s-eyes with broad heads at 60 yards.

The next day, when a big pronghorn buck stopped for a drink at the water hole I was watching, I drilled him through the heart at 40 yards. Everyone else in camp killed a buck that day, too.

Had we arrived to find new-in-box vertical bows, we would’ve spent opening morning over a bow press, tinkering with draw lengths and tying in peep sights instead of hunting.

For way too long now, hunters have been arguing over which is the deadlier hunting tool: vertical bow or cross bow? The truth is that for anyone who’s actually hunted much with both, the debate is over. It’s the crossbow, hands down. Yet for newcomers researching crossbows, especially online, the b.s. still runs deep.

Some of it comes from crossbow manufacturers, of all places, who routinely downplay their product’s effectiveness because they want inclusion during archery seasons. But they’re not the only ones: Many hunters and outdoor communicators still claim that crossbow hunting is just as challenging as hunting with a vertical bow. Others even insist that short crossbow bolts lose too much energy downrange for humane kills—and that they aren’t as accurate as vertical bows anyway.