By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
October 1st is opening day for archery deer hunters in all of Michigan and that means there is little time to finish necessary preparations. The yellow snow, provided by the local whitetail population in February, has been cold filtered and packaged neatly in 8-ounce pump-spray bottles for truly unique cover scent. Old treestands have been inspected and secured with new ratchet straps and new pull-up ropes. All that was left to complete prudent readiness was to sight in the new crossbows.
My friend, Joe, and I began the session shooting at a Block target from a benchrest. Crossbows have several advantages over vertical bows (and some shortcomings, as well) and one of them is the ability to be fired from a solid rest, as can be done with firearms. There is no better means to make critical sight adjustments than from a rest to minimize the human wobble factor. So, we began at 30 yards with 100-grain practice points.
The 30-yard mark used to be my maximum range with my vertical compound bow but no longer. In fact, I learned early on with the Horton Vision that shooting multiple arrows (or crossbolts, if you will) at the same target was a bad idea. (Don’t ask me how I learned.) Another thing I discovered was that the aluminum arrows, that came with the crossbow package, were slower than advertised. And, to top it off, one of the inserts with point attached was disengaged from the arrow and left inside the layered Block target. So that little bit of misfortune led to an upgrade with a new set of Carbon Express Red Hot crossbow arrows with built-in weight forward design.
When we weighed the new arrows, we found that they were somewhat lighter than advertised but all were within fractional grain differences. It was time to let ’em fly. Whack! A little scope adjustment and the next one was in the center of a 3-inch circle. And then the moment of truth: The first shot with my chosen NAP Spitfire, 100-grain expandable, 3-blade broadhead. No difference! A few more shots and the new broadhead had been promptly converted to a practice-only test device. It sure was hard on that expensive Block target, as a few cut layers of the material came loose behind it. Oh, well.
Joe was using a new Reign 100-grain broadhead and had similar results powered by his 352 feet-per-second Parker powerhouse. At 40 yards both of us used the third horizontal line on our range-finding reticles and kept all shots in the 3-inch circles.
Because neither of us anticipate a lot of hunting from the ground, it was onward and upward some 20 feet to a roomy tree ambush platform. We ranged the target at 30 yards and slammed the arrows into the tiny bull’s eyes. At 40 yards same thing. Of course, the tree fort has a shooting rail and all we had to do to duplicate results from the benchrest was to put a sandbag under the forearm section of the bows. Since 40 yards was more than a satisfactory distance for me, my testing was concluded. But Joe took it to the next level: 50 yards!
Once again, the arrows flew true. By using the fourth aiming line on the scope, Joe whistled 2 arrows one inch directly above the black circle on the target – still within our self-prescribed 6-inch kill zone.
Before we left, we staked out perimeters of 30 and 40 yards around the tree so that yardage estimates will not pose a problem.
This getting-ready business couldn’t have culminated more perfectly. All that is left is for the precision aspects of the new hunting tools to prove themselves afield.
