Budget crossbow (ongoing review)


Blackhawk45hunter

Blackhawk45hunter

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I recently stumbled over this crossbow and decided to buy one. A very good friend of mine already owns one (3 years now I believe) and has taken several deer with it.

Given what I’ve seen so far, I believe it’s very much worth doing a public review on the long term and not just some unboxing review. So far I’ve only had a chance to shoot a few bolts through it as I just received it yesterday. This will be an ongoing review so this OP will get updated as I get more to say about it.

It’s called the Jaguar and I bought it for $69 on Rural King’s website. It sells for a lot more than that elsewhere on the web, as much as $150.

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It comes with the quiver and 4 16” bolts with field tips. The bolts are extremely low quality and I knew this when I ordered the crossbow so I went ahead and bought 3 20”Carbon Express bolts from Walmart for $4.22 a piece.
The bow is a recurve, which was appealing to me as I know at least one friend who had a failure with his compound crossbow pulleys and axles. A recurve just seems less likely to fail when buying low cost.

This bow pulls at 175lbs and is advertised to fire at 245fps, which is pretty accurate from what other folks have found. It’s a real bear to #### on its own so I’ll be investing in a good cocking rope soon.

The safety resets itself every time you #### it which is a cool feature, and the trigger pull is pretty smooth considering the price of the crossbow, I’d guess it’s around 7lbs but I have no real way to measure it.

UPDATE 11/22/17

I managed to fine tune the red dot sight zero and shoot out to 20 yards this morning. I learned some cool stuff. If you zero for 3” high at 10 yards it will shoot dead on at 20 yards. If you subscribe to Jack O’Connor’s ‘shoot to a zone’ technique, this is pretty nice to know. I can’t shoot to 30 yards in my driveway so I don’t know what the impact will be at that range but I assume around 4” low.

I also found out that while the included literature instructs to lube the rails every 5 shots, it shoots far more accurate when nearly dry. Freshly lubed up, it shoots all over the place, but 10 shots after lubing, it stacks bolts like nobody’s business.

This group was shot offhand at 20 yards:
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Well, that’s all I have for now. I’ll keep this post updated as I get time invested with it. I’m hoping to get some time in the woods thanksgiving day, maybe I’ll get some venison down.
 
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I like the simplicity of a recurve, but I still do not own a crossbow because they just weigh to much.
Or should I say, I'm not willing to pay the price to get one that weighs just a little bit less.
They recently became legal here, I sorta want one.
At least at this price point it makes it a reasonably priced experiment.
I'm curious to see how you like it after a little more time spent with it.
 
J. Pierce said:
I like the simplicity of a recurve, but I still do not own a crossbow because they just weigh to much.
Or should I say, I'm not willing to pay the price to get one that weighs just a little bit less.
They recently became legal here, I sorta want one.
At least at this price point it makes it a reasonably priced experiment.
I'm curious to see how you like it after a little more time spent with it.
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This one is under 8lbs, which is around the same as a sporting rifle before adding the weight of a scope.
 
Blackhawk45hunter said:
This one is under 8lbs, which is around the same as a sporting rifle before adding the weight of a scope.
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That caught my eye when you posted the weight of it.
I would've probably ordered one to try, but I've been on a real spending kick since Friday already, it would probably be rather adult of me to stop for now.
 
J. Pierce said:
That caught my eye when you posted the weight of it.
I would've probably ordered one to try, but I've been on a real spending kick since Friday already, it would probably be rather adult of me to stop for now.
Click to expand...

Haha yeah. ‘Tis the season to be spending.

I actually bought two, one for myself and one for my dad as a Christmas present.
If you spend over $99 you get free shipping so I saved money in the long run.
 
Hope you don’t mind if I contribute.

I’m actually sitting on the ground in the woods behind my house with my Jaguar in hand as I type. A relative is 100 yards from me with his Jaguar. I’m hoping for a nice buck—passing on does for another week.

One piece of advice is keep the serving string and rail very lubed. Apply liberally. The serving string will break otherwise. I like the idea of filing down the part that holds the string back.
 
hlydon said:
Hope you don’t mind if I contribute.

I’m actually sitting on the ground in the woods behind my house with my Jaguar in hand as I type. A relative is 100 yards from me with his Jaguar. I’m hoping for a nice buck—passing on does for another week.

One piece of advice is keep the serving string and rail very lubed. Apply liberally. The serving string will break otherwise. I like the idea of filing down the part that holds the string back.
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Contribute away brother! I hope you get something
 
hlydon said:
Just to testify to the effectiveness of the Jaguar, my friend took his first deer ever with a Jaguar which I gave him for Christmas last year. The Jaguar makes a great inexpensive gift. I took my first deer with a Jaguar also.

I posted about his deer here: https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/first-deer.208623/
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Heck yeah man!

I think we all get very caught up in foot pounds of energy, velocity and range sometimes. We forget that while that Ravin crossbow and 300 win mag are awesome, 120 years ago folks were dropping elk with 30-30’s and wood longbows pushing arrows along at 140 fps.

I absolutely love my magnums, don’t get me wrong, but it’s easy to forget sometimes that you don’t need a howitzer to tip over a whitetail.





Unrelated, but I’m thinking a small pouch mounted to the stock to carry a small sharpening stone, rail lube, a spare string and a cocking rope. Anyone have a pouch suggestion?
 
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I got an Excalibur Ibex for $449 sale price at a Bass pro 2 xmas ago. I was very happy with that price although I have not got to use it in the field yet, but this looks like a great bargain you got there. Congratulations. Good luck hunting with it.
 
Thanks for the update.

I lube the heck out of mine, and it shoots consistently. I guess we all need to make sure we know our tools well. Although essentially the same, there can be variances.

Do you notice a difference between shooting the 16” and 20” bolts? The aluminum 16” it comes with shouldn’t be relied on for hunting. They start to bend after a couple of times firing them. I bought the carbon 16” and they work incredibly well.
 
Thanks for posting this. I have had a recurve crossbow on my list for a long time. I just don't know enough to spend the $.
I have seen these on the net but never in person. I shall be watching.
Thanks again.
 
hlydon said:
Thanks for the update.

I lube the heck out of mine, and it shoots consistently. I guess we all need to make sure we know our tools well. Although essentially the same, there can be variances.

Do you notice a difference between shooting the 16” and 20” bolts? The aluminum 16” it comes with shouldn’t be relied on for hunting. They start to bend after a couple of times firing them. I bought the carbon 16” and they work incredibly well.
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I haven’t shot the 16” bolts much, I just keep a few in the quiver to decock the crossbow after hunting since they’re not quality enough to last long anyway. The 20” carbon bolts I have seem to shoot great so far. It seems like most of the online stuff I’ve read where folks compare bolt lengths claim that the longer bolts are more stable with a small decrease in velocity.
 
I bought a similar model on ebay and thought it was a great crossbow for the price. Very strong but I need much more practice to get its accuracy to the point that I would feel comfortable taking a kill shot. I'd rather spend less than 100 instead of over 400 for a tool that I may not be proficient at right off the bat.
 
I hope these don't get okayed for deer here. I switched to bowhunting to get away from Red Dot sights and lots of Doo dads. That being said those do look like a lot of fun.
 
Duncsquatch said:
I hope these don't get okayed for deer here. I switched to bowhunting to get away from Red Dot sights and lots of Doo dads. That being said those do look like a lot of fun.
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From a traditional bow hunting viewpoint I can understand what you mean.... But as a single father who has very limited time to practice for the next few years, I have to say that the crossbow gives guys like me a chance to take advantage of the insanely long bow season to hunt deer. Gun season is only one week here in Ohio, but archery season is 4 months. No matter how crazy my schedule is I can find a few days to hunt and put venison in the freezer with archery season now on my horizon. Being a crossbow I don’t need to spend hours every week staying ‘in shape’ with a bow, I can shoot a few bolts to make sure I’m still zeroed and then hit the woods.
 
Blackhawk45hunter said:
From a traditional bow hunting viewpoint I can understand what you mean.... But as a single father who has very limited time to practice for the next few years, I have to say that the crossbow gives guys like me a chance to take advantage of the insanely long bow season to hunt deer. Gun season is only one week here in Ohio, but archery season is 4 months. No matter how crazy my schedule is I can find a few days to hunt and put venison in the freezer with archery season now on my horizon. Being a crossbow I don’t need to spend hours every week staying ‘in shape’ with a bow, I can shoot a few bolts to make sure I’m still zeroed and then hit the woods.
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I hear that modern rifle is only about 2 weeks here.
 
Archery season closes during gun season in the state I'm currently living in yet crossbows are allowed. The farm I hunted almost alone last year was way too crowded this year and more frustrating than relaxing. With my crossbow I hunted the 5 acres we rent without anyone around.

I prefer vertical bow and hope to have the time to get into trad someday but I still enjoyed the hunt and put a young doe in the freezer with it.
 
Finally got mine after having it back ordered twice. Got to wait for a day off to go shoot it.

No, it is not top of the line but a couple of older gentlemen in the local area, who are on fixed incomes have these and are happy with them. They both filled their tags the last two years with these.

As for me I did not want to drop lots of money into something I might not like. Time to go take my budget entry level crossbow and see how it does.
 
I own a crossbow of my own and before my health stuff that is all I use to hunt with. One of the best things I got for mine was a hard case to keep it safe. And for the tools and other stuff you well get like arrowheads I got a cheap toolbox and I keep all that in there. The arrowheads I keep old medicine bottles to put them in that way know one well cut there hands on them. Have fun with yours there lots of fun. Prov 27 : 17
 
If you will use a rope device to #### the xbow....you will notice an increase in accuracy. Reason being you will get a even pull on the limbs and the very center of the string will be the contact point for the trigger mechanism. If you do not have a rope cocking device, while the xbow is in the relaxed position, Take a sharpie and mark the serving on the string where it meets the forearm rail. That way when you #### it by hand you can keep it pretty much centered. When cocking by hand, it is human nature to pull stronger with your dominate arm thus setting the string either more to the left or right. The rope prevents this. Just something I learned the hard way. Good luck
 
I just bought a Center Point Amped 415 for $279. Best price I have seen anywhere. I have yet to shoot it, but it has mostly great reviews and is supposed to be very accurate.
 
My buddy with two growing boys was researching crossbows. He was ready to spend major bucks on top shelf crossbows. At my insistence he bought two Jaguars, and the have been knocking over deer ever since. They are a great product!
 
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