Cabela's Equalizer Crossbow Review

Cabela's makes very good decisions about whom to partner with, and they turned to Excalibur for their store-exclusive Equalizer crossbow. The recurve is extremely fast, at one point hitting 374 fps on the chrono in our tests.

Like an Excalibur, it has a burly-man draw weight of 250 pounds. Reviewers found it resistant to being cocked, but what do you expect with no cams?

Test Results 

Speed: 373 fps

Sound: 108.27 dB

Trigger-Pull 

Weight: 2.93 pounds

Hunting Weight:

8 pounds, 13 ounces

What We Like: Extremely fast. Great trigger. Cabela's Zonz camo.

What We'd Change: We'd look into a Limbsaver kit if we were to hunt with this bow. It's loud.

MSRP: $899

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This is probably the best part of our job here at Crossbow Revolution.  We assemble a pile of the latest crossbows from the best companies and shoot each one —  a lot —  recording the results all the while. There are always surprises —  some good, some bad.

Like how awesome it was to shoot a 440-fps crossbow! But who knew that it would be that hard to cock, and I'm no cocking sissy! And then there was the bow that had so much going for it, but the trigger felt gritty and hesitated, like someone had dragged it along a beach.

At the end of the day, it's tough to go wrong with any of these 2015 models. Really, it's all about what you want in your hunting tool — speed, low price, a small package, a quiet bow, smooth trigger?

We hope our play...I mean, work...helps you when you're in the market for a new crossbow.

How We Tested

Because of the large number of variables involved, some of which are extremely difficult to control, we will not be purporting this to be a scientific test, but, instead, a general hands-on report so you'll have information if you are looking at buying a new crossbow.

We test right out of the box, as any consumer would receive it. While crossbow companies send them to us to use free-of-charge, we also send them back to the crossbow companies after any hunting and testing.

Trigger

Three trigger releases, with the arrows and field points that came with the crossbow, measured by an RCBS Trigger Pull Meter, and averaged to give one number in pounds.

Sound

Three shots fired, measured in decibels by a Vernier sound level meter 6 feet from the crossbow, averaged for one final dB number.

Speed

With arrows and points that came with the crossbow, we released three arrows through a Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph and averaged the three to get one number in feet per second (FPS).

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