Bulldog 400 Chronograph Results

[Excalibur Marketing Dude]

....what i don't get in marketing is why can't you guys use what an "average person" uses to come up with your data....why does it "ALWAYS" have to be what the average person does not use or do...and don't say you guys DONT KNOW what the average person does under average circumstances....

....just my take on the whole concept of marketing...people buy based upon marketing and then are disappointed...to me it should be, "under promise and then over deliver"....word of mouth will get the truth out !

I do agree Anthony but the truth is our crossbows can shoot 350 grain total weight arrows with no issues. The problem is we send 150 grain tips with the crossbows which people mistakenly assume they have to shoot. We just found more front of center weight helped with accuracy when shooting fixed blade heads. But, you can shoot 100 grain mechanical broad heads to get the full arrows speed and still maintain great accuracy and not hurt the crossbow. Maybe we need to show expected speeds with various arrow setups?

The archery industry has pushed the speed thing since it sells bows. The truth is arrow speed is really not the most important aspect of a crossbows performance, accuracy really is. But, if a crossbow is advertised to shoot 400 fps it really should do that and our products are typically pretty close. I know of 405's that shot over 410 fps!

We are planning on taking a video of a new Bulldog out the box and shooting it through a chronograph to see what we get...stay tuned!

[Boomer81]

....what i don't get in marketing is why can't you guys use what an "average person" uses to come up with your data....why does it "ALWAYS" have to be what the average person does not use or do...and don't say you guys DONT KNOW what the average person does under average circumstances....

....just my take on the whole concept of marketing...people buy based upon marketing and then are disappointed...to me it should be, "under promise and then over deliver"....word of mouth will get the truth out !

I do agree Anthony but the truth is our crossbows can shoot 350 grain total weight arrows with no issues. The problem is we send 150 grain tips with the crossbows which people mistakenly assume they have to shoot. We just found more front of center weight helped with accuracy when shooting fixed blade heads. But, you can shoot 100 grain mechanical broad heads to get the full arrows speed and still maintain great accuracy and not hurt the crossbow. Maybe we need to show expected speeds with various arrow setups?

The archery industry has pushed the speed thing since it sells bows. The truth is arrow speed is really not the most important aspect of a crossbows performance, accuracy really is. But, if a crossbow is advertised to shoot 400 fps it really should do that and our products are typically pretty close. I know of 405's that shot over 410 fps!

We are planning on taking a video of a new Bulldog out the box and shooting it through a chronograph to see what we get...stay tuned!

It would be nice to have a small chart in with the manual that would have typical speed results with various weight setups for the quills/diablos/firebolts and tips that can be purchased from Excal. That way it would take a bit of guesswork out of things for new crossbow owners.

[foofoo]

speed can = accuracy. helps with yardage guess work . thats why some like myself purchased the fastest recurve xbow and wanted the crossbow to shoot what they paid for. most of my old Excaliburs ive own except my 1st year Micro 335 shot under advertised with a 350 grain set up. took me a few sets of limbs to get the 405fps with my Mega 405. Excalibur always took care of me.the process is a little frustrating though. if someone wants speed id pick up a new old stock Mega 405 and add a front picatinny handle to it. it balances near as good as the Bulldog only faster

[georgiaboy]

My best average speed with my 350LE is 321fps shooting a 421 gr arrow and using the stock string. I have a couple of custom strings and they are 2-3fps slower than the stock string, my guess is they are a little heavier. From every thing i read the 350LE was supposed to be a little faster than the 355. I was expecting to be in the high 320's with this set up but all is good.
That's still plenty fast with a slightly heavier than average arrow and she will put arrow's in the same hole all day. And besides the full camo rail is just plain dang sexy!!

[typical10]

My bull dog shoots 10FPS slower than my 380 426gr arrow~ Probally only own it this year, 380 fit more comfortable also. jeff~

[racking up points]

As a Matrix 410 owner, I wondered how the BD400 would perform through a chronograph. Just looking at the slightly longer PS and the relaxed angle of the BD400 versus the M405, I didn't think the BD400 went long enough to exceed its advertised speed. From reading the experiences of others, it appears as though very few of them do.

I shot one and liked it a lot, but nowhere near enough to sell my Matrix 410 to finance its purchase. Now that limb overheating issues have been addressed, I have zero qualms about the "old" riser geometry.

[L. E. Carroll]

WOW, let's look at it this way... I got a bow that performs like a BD 400, but draws 20#'s easier, only weighs 5.9 # which is .3 lb's less weight than the BD, and is $ 150 less when looking at MSRP of each....... :

And it's called a Matrix 380.... YES ! I'm a happy camper !

Gene

[steven in England]

I agree, no point changing to a Bulldog if you already have a 380, it seems the Bulldog is no quicker. I do like the concept of the Bulldog, however, I am very interested to see what speeds Excalibur come back with from testing only one bow.
Steven

[bob watkins]

Anthony that's my biggest gripe they should test maybe starting at 380 gr 400- is even better people would less disappointed because thats what most people hunt with the bulldog should have a built in crank also

[nchunterkw]

I think they would have to switch away from Easton to get heavier Quills etc. Or at least have them start making 0.300" ID arrows for them. Neither Easton nor Gold Tip offer really heavy (100ish gr) brass inserts that I know of. Usually around 60.

[amythntr]

WOW, let's look at it this way... I got a bow that performs like a BD 400, only weighs 5.9 # which is .3 lb's less weight than the BD, and is $ 150 less when looking at MSRP of each....... :

And it's called a Matrix 380.... YES ! I'm a happy camper !

Gene

......yep, yep, yep, yep and yep!

Anthony

PS: Me and my Jelly Belly and "....Bada Bing " happy together!

[ThunderXB]

My bull dog shoots 10FPS slower than my 380 426gr arrow~ Probally only own it this year, 380 fit more comfortable also. jeff~

Well, the Bulldog is my first ever crossbow.

BUT, I am a long time competitive shotgun shooter and understand shooting dynamics, fit issues, etc.

As a new Xbow user, the speed seems pretty good to me (without a chronographing), but I did buy it with the understanding that it would be a 400 FPS baseline bow.

SO far my biggest gripe would be the fit of the stock & trigger.

Now in all fairness I'm a big guy, 6' 7", 285 lbs, so a lot of things "normally sized" don't fit me, but the BD stock seems way too short and clearly the comb height is too low even with the optional cheekpiece.

Those are 2 issues that Excal could easily fix by having adjustible cheekpieces and stock lengths. (Are you listening?? )

Without going to a triggertech the original trigger was abysmally poor, but I just got the rail and stock back from warranty service on the trigger and rear stock/rail screw issue (rest of bow is up at cabin, will put back together & shoot next week to see how fixes worked out).

From what I can see, in the BD they moved away from a direct lever link to the trigger box and added a linkage system so they could move the lever/trigger guard forward.

No matter how you cut it, adding a linkage set up vs. a direct attachment will add/increase trigger creep/stiffness issues (again, in all fairness, still waiting to try the "new" trigger fix).

I'm not normally a new adopter, usually waiting to see things settled out with a new product first, after all, "leading edge" sometimes equals "bleeding edge", but I jumped into the BD 400 based on initial reports and Excals reputation.

I've already paid a premium price and invested a pile of $$$$ into add ons to improve the performance, etc., including having a custom stock extension piece made.

I'm sure I can get it to an acceptable shooter, but what I am starting to worry about is that if I ever want to sell it and move to another model, I'll be stuck with a Xbow regarded as a "turkey" and it will have little resale value.

From what I've experienced already, I think if that is the case, Excal will take care of me in some manner (I hope), if necessary.

For me there will be more to the story once I can reassemble and shoot.

[Excalibur Marketing Dude]

As promised here is a short video showing the speeds we achieved with a stock Bulldog shooting a Diablo arrow with a 100 grain tip. The video was done with my phone so not perfect but gives you the idea. The first shot shows the speed at 397.3 and the second shot was 399. One thing we did notice with the swept back riser is higher brace height gives you more speed since it tends to pre-load the limbs more. We got the above speeds with 1/4" off the bumpers. We tried the string almost touching and got about 8 fps slower.

https://youtu.be/D7sYrt23csM

[Excalibur Marketing Dude]

'm sure I can get it to an acceptable shooter, but what I am starting to worry about is that if I ever want to sell it and move to another model, I'll be stuck with a Xbow regarded as a "turkey" and it will have little resale value.

I don't see how you can call the Bulldog 400 a "turkey"? To date we have had ZERO limb failures! We have also received rave reviews for this new crossbow from many users so although I do understand your frustration with the issues you've had I don't think its fair to rate the crossbow as having a poor resale value.

When you assemble the new items I would be interested to hear how it shoots.

Thanks,

Peter

[Boomer81]

I'm wondering if the issues of speed is also due to where the chrony is setup when testing?