When I found myself recently invited to prepare for an African Safari, I telephoned Anne Reeve and told her I already owned a good pocket knife but, as I did not want to use a rigid knife on this trip so I wanted a really strong folding hunter, very high quality but not too big and able to be stripped in the field. It had to be a Sebenza, a working tool and the benchmark against which all others are judged.

Anne is a charming conversationalist; the generous result of our discussion was two Sebenza 21 models for review, one large one small, both named to commemorate twenty-one years of manufacture.

These knives are plain and in photographs which could not possibly convey their subtlety, frankly look it. However, to see them in reality is to see how they came to be the recipients of so many prestigious design awards. The underwhelming illustration on the page manifests incarnate as an eloquent expression of precision, robustness, functionality and understated elegance. The grind-lines of the heavy-gauge blade are perfectly symmetrical in exquisite hollows which curve down to a perfect edge.

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Reviewed By Geoffrey Toye, HBM European Correspondent

Bad River Outdoors offers bow-type open sights for field or hunting crossbows, with mounts tailored to suit the crossbows made by the principal bowyers. When I was invited to test one I requested a mounting to suit my Excalibur. This is my favorite bow for shooting with the open sights with which it is already fitted, so I am use to how it performs without the now ubiquitous telescope sight.

The Tagged-Out aperture sight is a simple, robust peep, adjustable for windage and elevation and which mounts onto the rail normally used for the telescopic sight option on the Excalibur. Immediately I could see a practical advantage in this in that, were a telescopic sight to receive serious damage in the field, perhaps a far and foreign field, the aperture could be ready to replace it on the scope rail.

The rear-sight is well finished, perhaps too well for the incautious that could actually slice a finger on the dovetail so precisely was it machined. So fine was the tolerance, when I fitted it to the rail, it needed a drop of gun oil to allow it to slip on. Once in position, it was anchored with an interference grub screw. This set the screw well down in its own threaded hole, and I would have like to have seen the option of a slightly longer screw to take into account dovetails with a deep valley, as is the case on the Excalibur...

Read the rest of the "Tagged-Out Bowsight Review.....

This British made sight from Hawke Optics is the one Jim Kempf selected for his Scorpyd crossbow. It is a conventional multi-reticle sight with a particularly nice image quality and evidently, as you will see, robust build.



To the uninitiated, it might seem that a telescopic sight is just a telescopic sight, but actually the application for which it is intended has critical implications for the design, one size done not fit all. For a crossbow, parallax adjustment has to be within the same parameters as the normal shooting range of the bow, units of adjustment for elevation have to be realistic and the delicate innards have to be protected from vibration and done so specifically with regard to the directions from which impact will arrive – the recoil patters of a crossbow may feel like a medium bore rifle but are actually quite different.

Read the the rest of the review of the Hawke Optics 3x32 Multi Reticle Crossbow Scope...

The GT Flex crossbow is made by U.S. Crossbowyer TenPoint, but they label it “SixPoint” a logo type reserved for bows marketed within the lower finish of their price range. Interesting as that may seem, somebody who reads my reviews will know that I recognize & applaud high quality; what is less widely known is that I warn companies to take care over what they send me. If they need a nice review it had better be a nice product. & there, on my doorstep, I see an cheap bow from a company famed as the marketer of the Cadillac of crossbows. Cheap is a relative term, but the GT Flex is around a third of the price of some.

The box felt light. In it was a crossbow in three main parts, a recurve prod & a mainframe with stock attached, & some bits & pieces.

A striking feature is the fact that fact of the barrel of the bow being in three separated sections with the deck & the lower part (to which the fore-hand is attached) secured only at the latch finish, & otherwise free-floating, like a giant tuning fork. SixPoint or not, all of the machining & general quality of the engineering were up to normal TenPoint standards & a joy to behold.

Click here to read the rest of this review of the Sixpoint GT Flex Crossbow by Geoffrey Toye...