by Geoffery Toye, HBM European Correspondent

With ever more states in the USA encouraging the use of the crossbow for hunting, an enormous market has opened up.Crossbow sales have increased on an unprecedented scale, so much so that crossbowyers can scarcely keep up with demand.Predictably, in a society driven by free market forces, and with material and sourcing cost increasing, the retail price of hunting crossbows has increased apace; for some of us, perhaps prohibitively so.

Canadian Crossbowyers Excalibur have responded with their new crossbow, the Axiom.This is offered as a hunting crossbow of high quality, but with costs pared where possible without compromising that quality, which has made the company a world leader.

I have previously reviewed Excalibur bows and in my personal bow collection there are two, which I often shoot.I have found them to be robust, delivering excellent and dependable performance qualities which have seen them used in some of the hardest conditions on earth, and at sea, notable for scientific work, wildlife management and whale tagging.They are uncomplicated, recurve designs which have stood the test of time and not been found wanting.The founder of the company, Bill Troubridge, accidently drove a truck over one of his bows after which he reportedly dug it out of the dirt and shot it at a target only to discover that it had not lost its zero.He thought that would be a great thing to advertise his bows so he drove over it again, this time with a camera running, and filmed it all, including the same result.Do not try this at home; but you have to be impressed.

When I asked Bill what the Axiom was like he replied, “Like the Phoenix, but without the lipstick and high-heels.Want us to send one over?”Of course I did.

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Todd Graf has been a good, personal friend of mine for a decade and a half; and over the course of those years he has established a reputation within the industry as a serious bowhunter as well as a very competent business man. In recent years, he has entered into the field of hunting DVD production and I am here to report that he maintains his personal level of excellence in this endeavor as well.

I must confess that Todd presented me with a copy of his first production at the 2009 Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo and asked me to check it out. A year later at the same show, he asked what I thought of the DVD. I sheepishly had to admit that I had not taken the time to watch it in the past twelve months as I don’t spend my spare time watching hunting shows or videos. He admonished me, clucking in disapproval and then presented me with another copy of Volume One and as well as a copy of the newly released Volume Two. Culpably, I promised him that I would take the time to watch them sometime before the 2011 Expo.

Several weeks after returning home I sat down with a note pad and a inserted Volume 1 into the DVD player for a quick look. I settled in and spent over two hours delightfully entertained and at times even on the edge of my seat, watching one bowhunt after another as Todd and his friends pursued the wily whitetail deer with a stick and string. Read More......

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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My curiosity about TenPoint’s new Defender CLS immediately went off the scale the moment I laid eyes on it at the 2009 SHOT Show. My first thoughts were: this looks a lot like my TenPoint Phantom CLS, minus the camo pattern on the riser and barrel. When I read the specs on this new crossbow, I knew I had to have one. My test sample arrived at home base not to long after I had finished unpacking my bags after returning home from the SHOT Show. I eagerly opened the box, and began to assemble the crossbow. It was still early enough in the day to take it out for a test run. I quickly laid down a layer of string wax and rail lube, grabbed my chronograph and headed outside to the test range.

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For 16 years I have been “confined “to a wheel chair following an ATV accident. Being an avid hunter & outdoorsman prior to my accident it's been very hard for me to “settle” for the very limited access to the outside that I loved & still love so much. Tim Swenson from Action manufacturing is now selling an item that redefines more than just confinement, it redefines life for me.

The Action Track Chair by action manufacturing in Marshall Minnesota has come a long way in removing common obstacles from the person wanting to be outside. Though not capable of going anywhere, it definitely makes most places & terrains obtainable to the ambulatorily weakened individual. From the elderly person that basically has trouble getting around the yard or garden. To the paralyzed folks that require to go to that place they used to go. Hunting spots, fishing holes, hiking trails, beaches, swamps, etc. are accessible again with the Action Trak....

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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...

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