I have had a pile of crossbows both compound and recurve and IMO Excalibur is the way to go, they are light and tough and very easy to work on and unlike most compounds you can decock them, that is a big plus cause its a real pain to have to shoot your bow to unload, its means either shooting an arrow into the ground (this is hard on arrows even the dummy discharge arrows usually dont last long) or having a discharge target around somewhere........Good luck .....Hb
The center point sniper can also be decocked without shooting. That said I really don't understand the big deal with decocking. I just throw my x-bow target in the back of my Jeep when I go hunting and decock by shooting an arrow into it at the end of the day.
You can also decock a Stryker Katana 385, it has the Tenpoint anti-dryfire system.......I think some Mission bows may have a let down feature but Im not sure......I have owned many brands of crossbows that I had to carry a decocking target with me when I went hunting ( I got tired of ruining arrows by shooting them in the ground) this means you must carry your still cocked bow out of the woods... Many times I had to carry my unloaded but cocked crossbow a few miles in rough terrain back to my truck. I did this one time only to find that someone had stolen My unloading target from the back of My truck. A buddy of mine was not so lucky, the thieves in his case actually busted out the back window of his Toyota 4Runner to steal his target ( this happened in Ohio) so this meant he went the last 4 days of our hunt and the 5 hour drive home with no back window....(PVC plasteek and duct tape back window) ....Now I only buy bows that have a decocking feature.......Good hunting.....Hb
Decocking really does not matter. If you can cock the bow by hand, you can decock it by hand. It is quite simple, and I do it all the time. Just set it ready to fire, no arrow, aimed down, foot in the stirrup, grab the bow string with one hand firmly and put some tension on it. Fire the crossbow, it will jerk some, but not badly, let it down by hand. My crossbow is a Horton or a Barnett (I have 2) and I do it one handed every time I am done shooting and need to decock.
