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Barnett Recruit Compound

John A.

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Oh, man !!

What a nice, compact crossbow.

At 300+ fps and 80 ft lbs. from a 130 pound draw weight from about 16 1/2 inch width. 6 1/2 pound carry weight.

Package had everything needed from 3 Easton carbon Blood Line arrows, quiver, string wax, rope cocker and even a red dot sight all for about $220 to my door. What is not to love?

Except maybe the solid black color. But other than that, this is going to make one heckuva tree stand rig for me and my youngest son.

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Sweet!!! Nice work on the paint.

This bow has the same physical dimensions as my Raptor which is a great bow for tree stands and smaller enclosed blinds.
 
Thanks for the compliment.

The size is the reason we got it. The Wildcat is too heavy for my youngest son, and the last place I want to see him get off balance is 18 feet up in a tree. The fact is with it having essentially the same power as the wildcat, there were really no trade-off's buying it.

I'll still use the wildcat, especially at ground blinds and things, but the recruit will still see a lot of time in the field too.
 
Was able to zero the scope this evening and break it in some.

Shoots really well.

Straight out of the box, it just needed about 3 inches of windage adjustment and it was done. Wow.

We even had a few complete pass-throughs on the styrofoam block target plus an old sheet folded over 7 or 8 times with field points.

It is easier to cock than the wildcat, and is extremely quiet despite not having any split limbsavers on it.

@MikeD Do you have limbsavers on yours? Did they make it quieter?

Looking' forward to hunting with it.
 
The only thing I have installed is a TenPoint String Dampening System. It is made for a TenPoint bow but is easily modified to fit the Raptor/Recruit stock. Not sure if it reduced noise but it took a lot of vibration away and chaned the noise from a twang to a thud. Ill post some pics for you when I get to my PC.
 
Pics would be great.

What did you have to modify?
 
No modifications to the bow, although I've seen some installed where the user did. I don't know about merely installing them but actually modifying the bow will void the warranty so I did not want to go that route.

I had to grind a little off the top and bottom of the part that fits in the cable slot to make it fit easily. I then had to grind down a portion of each end piece to that it would close tight against the rail. It's pretty obvious when you test fit it to see what needs to be shortened. Otherwise I followed the instructions that came with it for getting it configured.

Be careful grinding the top and bottom. There is not much metal around the screw holes and you don't want to grind through. I did mine using a drill press and a drum sanding wheel as it was all I had a the time so anything that slowly removes metal will for if you are patient and take your time. I had it installed in under an hour even with my tools.

If you are curious the other things I have mounted there are a Strikemark mount for my Contour Roam camera and a Parker offset quiver bracket that I attached to the rail using the lower half of an extra scope mount I had in the box. I prefer the quiver mounted parallel to the bow as opposed to the cross mount that Barnett provides.

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Thank you for the pictures Mike. Explained a lot.
 
I know this topic hasn't been updated in a while, but I wanted to give my opinion after using it for a while now.

In short, the compact size is great. The weight is leaps and bounds better than my old Wildcat. It handles pretty well for a crossbow.

I added a shotgun recoil pad on the rear of the stock, because being a youth stock, was too short for my length of pull, and the pad helps add some length without adding a lot of weight or being cumbersome.

Even after being used many times, and while hunting, leaving the bow cocked for hours on end, it is still launching arrows at the advertised speeds (300+).

I use 20 inch aluminum arrows because I don't like carbon arrows because they have a tendency to have catastrophic failures, but not wanting to risk damaging my expensive hunting arrows and Rage tips into the ground, I used the Caldwell chrony to test a 22 inch carbon decocking arrow and even it was doing 302 fps. The hunting arrows will gain some speed because they're shorter and lighter.

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Glad its working out for you. I'm still digging that camo job
 
Thanks.

This one is just a sponge camo in fall colors.

Krylon camo tan base coat
Brown Boots
Ruddy brown Primer
Nutmeg tan
 
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