Compound Bows vs. Crossbows vs. Rifles

[Shangobango]

Not desiring to derail the thread on the political shenanigans by some politicians looking for preferential treatment, I thought I would throw this up. As someone who has taken a few animals with a crossbow that I bought due to an injured shoulder, I find the topic interesting.

My contention is that saying shooting a crossbow is just like shooting a rifle is very much overstating a crossbow's abilities. I also contend that saying shooting a crossbow is not much different than shooting a compound is very much understating a crossbows abilities.

The main reason I take issue with saying shooting a crossbow is like shooting a rifle is physics. That statement completely ignores the difference in the velocity, weight, and size of the projectiles involved with the two weapons.

I also contend that lugging around even one of the narrow axle to axle crossbows is tedious. I think they are pretty impractical for spot and stalk hunting in the vast public lands of the west because of this, especially if you want to carry around some sort of trigger stick or monopods to have a readily accessible solid rest, which is all but required to make some of the fantastical shots some believe the crossbow consistently capable of.

Thoughts?

 

[D_Walt]

one of my hunting partners took a crossbow on our Wyoming hunt last fall. He has some vision issues due to diabetes and was having trouble focusing on a bow sight but could focus on the crossbow scope. It was a real pain in the rear to deal with, I guess it could be advantageous if you carried it cocked all day but that didn’t seem like a good idea. Long story short, he decided that 70 yards was the absolute max he’d take a shot, mostly due to concerns on penetration. Unfortunately, even with the magic crossbow he still couldn’t quite get a shot on a bull - crossbow or not they’ve got to come into a shooting lane. Again, maybe the crossbow would have been an advantage had we sat water all week, but if you’re on the move they are not that great. My .02

 

[rogerthat]

When I say it’s like shooting a rifle I mean it’s point and shoot. Definitely not meaning that it has capability similar to a high powered long range rifle. I would say more like a really low powered rifle say like a large caliber air rifle?

 

[rogerthat]

The point I was trying to make was that a crossbow has more in common and similarity to a gun than a bow simply because you don’t have to draw it. That simple movement has hosed a chit ton of archery hunters over the years that being said I can see others point about the unwieldy ness and weight of a crossbow.

 

[MTGomer]

I know almost nothing about crossbows. However, two years ago my father-in-law had a shoulder reconstructed and for one year had a permit to hunt with one in Arizona. I watched him take it out of the box and shoot a paper plate size group at 60 yards having never shot one before.

i think there’s a big difference. But there’s also a big difference between traditional archery and modern compounds.

 

[Nameless Range]

The crossbow discussion is one of thresholds, and threshold discussions are difficult. Do I believe crossbows exceed the threshold? Yes. Compounds? Likely. All this knowing that the threshold is being considered in a multivariate sense insofar as we also have to consider season structures, quickness and stealthiness of deployment, tags, etc.

I have hunted with trad gear, a compound, and rifles, but never a crossbow, though I think a premise that is easy to accept is that crossbows are no more difficult to become adept at than compounds, and are actually easier, thus pushing them down the "units of difficulty" scale .

I have long held that the difference in terms of difficulty, between success with a compound vs success with a recurve, is greater and more meaningful than the difference between success with a rifle vs with a compound. Getting from 40 yards to 15 is something that has a sort of exponential increase in difficulty with every yard.

Something like this:



I am not holier than thou, and hunt with a compound, but I agree with others that crossbows are a reckoning and much harder to argue against due to the technology of compound bows, which seem to be the same genus, albeit different species. If I could snap my fingers, it would be traditional archery only across the board.

 

[BirdManMike]

The learning curve and difficulty separating crossbow and modern compound is far closer than that separating a traditional bow from a modern compounds. Plus, the crossbow and compound are much closer in terms of both accuracy and effective range than a stick bow is to either.

Previously, Ive always been on the side of 'no crossbows during archery seasons', but I never really thought about it until Buzz pointed it out in the other topic. Today's compound bows with all their advancements no longer hold with the original spirit in allowing special archery seasons.

 

[utah400elk]

I have a crossbow, compound bow, muzzleloader and rifle. They each have there place and there are not a ton of similarities to me.

I have used crossbows for whitetail hunting. I will admit that I thought it would be a game changer…it wasn’t. I can shoot my crossbow very accurately to 100 yards. However this has to be off a bench.

I am much more accurate with my compound past 30 yards than with my crossbow. They are heavy and cumbersome in the woods. There is quite a bit of movement with a crossbow and you can’t hold them as long. They are loud but can be extremely accurate off a rest.

To me there is a give and take with them. If you really want to be very accurate they take a fair bit of practice. I believe they all have there place but for those that say they are closer to a rifle than a bow…Have you ever really used a crossbow?

I will not give up my compound bow and will sell my crossbow when I leave a dedicated whitetail area.

JMO as a guy who has used them fairly extensi

 

[HighDesertSage]

I am not a fan of crossbows, both for the advantage they give the user during the archery season, and because they are a PIA functionally and to lug around. For a guy in a treestand I see an advantage. You can point and shoot at your target much more efficiently and accurately than a bow. I found the loading/unloading and trying to move around with them obnoxious. I have a shoulder injury that would allow me to use one this year, if I chose to do so. So I borrowed one to try it out. Hard pass. I got my shoulder healed up and I am able to draw again with a lower draw weight. If I am being honest, and this is just my opinion, if I had to use a crossbow, I would just stop hunting the archery season, and hunt more rifle seasons. That being said, I 100% support somebody with a disability being able to use one. I would not support the general public being able to use them in archery season.

 

[Bob-WY]

I am NOT a fan of crossbows being considered archery, and that includes physical reasons. Archery season comes with physical requirements, be they draw weight based or other. If you aren't physically able to meet these, whether due to age, size etc, then you shouldn't archery hunt. Simple. I know that goes against public view, but that's how I feel and I believe when I can't draw back the weight needed, or I get a shoulder injury, I won't bow hunt.

That said, I consider a crossbow a valid hunting weapon, but I'd like to see it have it's own season. We have archery, gun, muzzleloader (varied names for each), and in each some states have restrictions (gun may mean no rifles, just shotguns, muzzleloader may mean no in-lines). Assuming the biologists for an area say the game can handle the increase kill, then I 100% support a different tag/season. Dates can overlap etc, but make the hunter decide the tool.

I do have some experience with crossbows, never hunted, but have set them up and shot them. They are more like a gun, but not in distance/power, but in the point and shoot. If you want to compare them, it's more like a shotgun with slugs, than a rifle. Though even that has slanted with sabots and scopes on shotguns, but its close. For me, where I draw the line is a bow has to be drawn and held, a cross bow doesn't.

 

[rogerthat]

The learning curve and difficulty separating crossbow and modern compound is far closer than that separating a traditional bow from a modern compounds. Plus, the crossbow and compound are much closer in terms of both accuracy and effective range than a stick bow is to either.

Previously, Ive always been on the side of 'no crossbows during archery seasons', but I never really thought about it until Buzz pointed it out in the other topic. Today's compound bows with all their advancements no longer hold with the original spirit in allowing special archery seasons.

I find this assertion that the modern compound is some kind of fantastic game changing weapon fascinating. I started bow hunting in 2000 with a browning compound bow that had 65% let off and shot aluminum arrows. Was this a modern compound bow? The Mathews bow I use today has not been a game changer in my hunting. My max effective range on an elk was about 40 yards than. 20 years later I would stretch that to 50 but honestly that’s asking for problems. Had a bull jump the string at that range one time that resulted in a wounded bull. The longer I archery hunted the better shot I have gotten on paper but my effective range hasn’t increased due to the awareness of all the failure mechanisms. For me the technology advancements in compound bows over the last 20 years just really hasn’t changed much. I have shot a crap ton of stuff at really close range. That’s how I keep from being a screw up. However I would support trad only as the archery threshold. I think many really experienced archery hunters would agree with me but maybe I am out to lunch

 

[The Hedgehog]

The hoopla around crossbows is humorous in the grand scheme of things by bowhunters using compounds. I started shooting a browning wood riser deluxe nomad compound in the early 80s - out to 40 yards max. But even over 20 years ago, I was shooting within a pie plate group on a calm day at 140 yards with a matthews compound bow (Zmax). Although I would never fling an arrow at an uninjured animal at 100 yards, I do have a 100 yard pin on my bow today. if it's calm out, I can hit the bullseye at that range quite a bit. Can a crossbow really do that much better?

 

[rogerthat]

The hoopla around crossbows is humorous in the grand scheme of things by bowhunters using compounds. I started shooting a browning wood riser deluxe nomad compound in the early 80s - out to 40 yards max. But even over 20 years ago, I was shooting within a pie plate group on a calm day at 140 yards with a matthews compound bow (Zmax). Although I would never fling an arrow at an uninjured animal at 100 yards, I do have a 100 yard pin on my bow today. if it's calm out, I can hit the bullseye at that range quite a bit. Can a crossbow really do that much better?

For me its the act of drawing the bow that is the big difference not the accuracy.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

While I lean toward efficacy and success rates as the primary metric of interest in these things, it's hard to untangle it all from wounding loss across different user groups, weapon technologies, etc. Then you have success rate reports that are only as good as the data that goes in and I'm not sure we have much solid info to work with.
A lot of the archery hunters I know (I am not one, just shoot bags) wound and miss quite a bit. A lot of the rifle hunters I know wound and miss quite a bit. I know one crossbow hunter, and he only misses ha. Then you have the guys that spend the time, and kill with whatever you hand them.

 

[Irrelevant]

There are some pretty amazing archers out there I guess. Or I'm just terrible.

I don't think I could hit bulleyes with my rifle free hand at 100 yards let alone a freakin bow!

 

[rogerthat]

There are some pretty amazing archers out there I guess. Or I'm just terrible.

I don't think I could hit bulleyes with my rifle free hand at 100 yards let alone a freakin bow!

Haha. Yeah I am the craps too I guess.

 

[TheTone]

The most wounding and missing people I personally know are a group of trad bow shooters. The hatred they have for compound shooters is flat sad and comical when held in context to their actions

 

[timmy]

There are some pretty amazing archers out there I guess. Or I'm just terrible.

I don't think I could hit bulleyes with my rifle free hand at 100 yards let alone a freakin bow!

Add me to the crappy shot club. My range of shots reflects that and I do just fine.

 

[The Hedgehog]

For me its the act of drawing the bow that is the big difference not the accuracy.

At 60-100 yards, is drawing a bow going to make a difference?

This is last week. 2 arrows with broadheads, from 100 yards. I shot them before this, it was pretty calm and both hit to the right - there was a slight breeze. I held about a foot for wind.

 

[The Hedgehog]

First try with the broadheads, before holding for a little wind.