Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Modern crossbows no longer ‘primitive’
Many years ago, the Pennsylvania Game Commission established what some referred to as a “primitive weapons” season intended to appeal to fans of the flintlock and bow and arrow. It was a late deer season that opened up after Christmas and stretched for a few weeks into the new year (this year’s statewide edition ended yesterday on Jan. 18 but local hunters have through Jan. 23 here in Wildlife Management Units (WMUs) 5C and 5D to bag their deer). The late season initially was a time set aside exclusively for flintlock and archery hunters to pursue their buck or doe without competition from rifle and shotgun hunters.
By the same token hunters toting flintlocks or bows and arrows were free to use their weapons of choice throughout the traditional firearms season. Flintlock hunters were also free to burn black powder during the early antlerless only muzzleloader season in October. Bowhunters also enjoyed a generous archery season that ran this year from Oct. 3 through Nov. 20 statewide and from Sept. 19 through Nov. 27 here in WMUs 5C and 5D.
When their respective late seasons were first established, flintlock hunters were limited to using patched roundballs as their classic, traditional ammo while bowhunters were restricted to longbows, recurves, and compound bows. Crossbow use during regular archery or late seasons was confined to archers with doctorcertified disabilities. But these hunting regulations have evolved, becoming more inclusive over time. For example, today’s flintlock hunters are no longer restricted to using only roundballs at the end of their ramrods.
Flintlock regulations found in the 2020-2021 edition of the Pennsylvania Hunting and Trapping Digest state that, when it comes to the flintlock muzzleloader season, “Flintlock ignition, single-barrel long gun 44 caliber or larger or 50 caliber or larger handgun, using single-projectile ammunition. It is unlawful to use telescopic sights. Peep sights are permitted.” While traditionalists may still be loyal to the patch and roundball, many more are likely to opt for the far more accurate and modern CoreLokt bullet with sabot.
But a much more significant change was in store for archery buffs when the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) made crossbows legal fare for everyone, disability or not, and granted permission to use it throughout the standard archery seasons. It was a bow and arrow game changer. No longer restricted to a simple string and stick, deer hunters by the thousands soon gravitated to state-of-the-art crossbows. Vertical bow hunters (longbow, recurve, and compound) were not pleased with the PGC’s change. Since crossbows became legal for all hunters in 2009, the sale of resident archery licenses has increased every year. The first year crossbows were permitted archery license sales jumped by more than 14,000 over the year before. No doubt the sales of crossbows also spiked.
But the concerns about legalizing the crossbow from organizations like the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania were well founded.
Crossbow opponents argued that making crossbows legal archery gear changed the definition of a bow from a hand-held, hand-drawn in the presence of game hunting implement, to include a device that is hand-held, but actually in the condition of and as a fully loaded, locked, and cocked device, requiring no concern for physical movement or mental training to accomplish the task at hand, much like a firearm; the crossbow.
In other words, the most critical moment for a bowhunter occurs when drawing the bow in close proximity to the quarry. The action of drawing the bow creates motion which, even when done with extreme care and stealth, will often be detected by the wary whitetails and send them bounding away with nary a shot being fired. The pre-cocked crossbow, on the other hand, requires no such caution. You just point and shoot like a gun. As a result, the crossbow essentially eliminates the greatest, most challenging obstacle of hunting with a vertical bow.
I’ve been a dedicated bowhunter since the mid-1970s and have taken dozens of bucks over the years courtesy of my compound bows. But I now have two crossbows in my archery arsenal with which I’ve bagged two of my most recent bucks. The advantages a crossbow gives you over a compound are legion, but one of the greatest is that, once you’ve sighted the crossbow in, there’s no need to practice, something generally required with any traditional bow in order to stay sharp and on target. The telescopic sights most modern crossbows are paired with represent another distinct advantage as do phenomenal arrow speeds a crossbow can generate, pretty much taking the “arch” out of archery.
PGC data indicates that bowhunters accounted for about a third of Pennsylvania’s 2019-20 overall deer harvest, taking 145,908 deer (74,190 bucks and 71,718 antlerless deer) with either bows or crossbows. The 2018-19 archery buck harvest was 54,350, while the archery antlerless deer harvest was 56,369; unseasonably warm weather and rain impacted many fall bowhunting days in 2018.
“That bowhunters added 35,000 more deer to the overall archery deer harvest suggests bowhunters continue to improve their harvest success,” noted Christopher Rosenberry, Game Commission Deer and Elk Section supervisor. “Overall, though, bowhunters still are responsible for about a third of the statewide overall deer harvest, which is similar to the 2018-19 seasons.”
It’s likely such improving success can be traced to the proliferation of crossbows among archery hunters. There’s no data indicating how many of these archery deer were taken with crossbows, but it’s safe to assume that crossbows account for a growing percentage of them, especially with an aging population of hunters and younger, mentored junior hunters favoring the convenience and ease of the crossbow over the more demanding challenges posed by a vertical bow.
In the twelve years since the PGC lumped the crossbow in with traditional archery gear, great strides have been made in crossbow technology, making them lighter, quieter, and faster. Another development has been something called reverse draw configuration. Reverse-draw style crossbows have seen a rise in popularity over the past few years. The reverse-draw design yields certain advantages over its traditional forward draw counterpart when it comes to balance, performance, and overall quietness of the shot.
My current compound bow is a Hoyt Carbon Spyder, a compact, lightweight model that is a pleasure to shoot launching arrows at around 330 FPS. It weighs in at 3.6 pounds, about half the weight of my crossbows.
Both of my crossbows are reverse draw design. My most recent acquisition is a Wicked Ridge RDX 400 that spits arrows downrange at speeds of 400 feet per second (FPS). Paired with a Hawke scope it is deadly accurate. I can consistently bust a balloon (about the size of a deer’s vitals) with it at ranges exceeding fifty yards. It performed flawlessly back in December and brought down a hefty 8-point buck for me during the regular firearms season.
And while my crossbow may be super reliable, it’s hardly top of the line. That niche is filled by faster, pricier crossbows like the Ravin R29X with an arrow speed of 450 FPS and a price tag of about $3,000 and the Ten Point Vapor RS470, so named for its 470 FPS arrow speed. It sells for around $4,000.
These are supremely sophisticated devices brought to you by advanced technology that helps make crossbows in today’s world lean, mean, arrow launching machines. You might say there’s nothing remotely primitive about them at all.