Excalibur Exocet 200 Varizone Review – Recurve Crossbow

Model	Draw Weight	Stroke	Velocity	Suggested Arrow Length	Crossbow Length / Weight
Excalibur Exocet 200 Varizone Check price on Amazon.com	200 lbs.	15.5"	330 FPS Crossbow Academy: ballistics, sighting, tuning	20"	38.5" / 6.4 lbs.

What Comes In the Box?

Welcome to our review of the Excalibur Exocet 200 Varizone. Each package delivered by Excalibur includes the following items:

• The Excalibur Exocet 200 crossbow
• Fiber optic sight
• Assembly hardware and tools
• Owner’s manual
• Warranty card

Assembling Your Crossbow

Once you’ve unboxed your crossbow, it’s time to put it together. Fortunately, this is a quick and easy process for the Exocet 200, since the riser comes pre-strung and ready to attach. To assemble your crossbow, you attach the riser to the stock and then attach the foot stirrup. Next, mount the fiber optic sights and you’re ready to go. Unless, of course, you’ve ordered any extra accessories, like a quiver, in which case you may want to mount your quiver before you head to the archery range. I went barebones on this one, so I had my Exocet 200 ready to shoot in under ten minutes.

Testing the Accuracy and Power

Once assembled, I took the Exocet 200 to my archery range to sight in and test the accuracy. I was quite pleased, because the Exocet 200’s fiber optic sights were already sighted in straight out of the box. Usually, even for simple open sights, there is some tweaking and fine-tuning that needs to be done to hit the bull’s eye, but that was not the case with this crossbow.

The Exocet 200 flings out the arrows at speeds approaching 330 fps, with almost 85 ft. lbs. of kinetic energy. This is assuming you are using 350-grain arrows, but there was very little speed drop-off using 400-grain arrows. The crossbow is fast and accurate at shorter ranges, but longer ranges really stretch the capabilities of any open sight.

From 10 yards, I was able to bull’s-eye consistently with every shot, and even split a couple of my arrows in half. From 20 yards, I could maintain a 3/4″ grouping, and from 30 yards I was able to keep my pattern at just under an inch and a half. When I stepped back beyond 30 yards, though, the accuracy fell off tremendously—my 40 yard pattern had a diameter of 3”, and from 50 yards I was only able to maintain a 5” grouping.

For safe and ethical hunting, I would recommend either attaching a scope or keeping your hunting to ranges of less than 30 yards.

Use our arrow ballistics calculator for more valuable information.

Ballistic Data For The Excalibur Exocet 200

Your actual results will vary slightly depending on weather, and significantly with arrow weight change. See our Crossbow Ballistics Guides section for a complete understanding of how we conducted our tests and why this data matters.

Will Hunters Enjoy the Excalibur Exocet 200?

This x-bow is almost 39” long, which makes it very long and awkward to carry through the bush. If you don’t mind this, however, the light weight and excellent shooting characteristics of the Exocet 200 make it perfect for hunting. You can see kinetic energy approaching 85 ft. lbs. from this crossbow, which makes it a more than adequate strength for tackling any legal quarry in North America.

I added a sling to my Exocet 200, making it much easier to carry, and took the crossbow moose hunting. The crossbow snagged a few times on passing brush and branches, but not as badly as I thought it would. The light weight of the crossbow made for a pleasurable carry otherwise, and I did not suffer any fatigue or soreness from carrying the bow. Once I got to my tree stand, I watched carefully for a passing moose, and was rewarded with a large cow moose coming within 15 yards of my spot. I took careful aim through the fiber optic sight, and took the shot. My arrow penetrated the moose’s heart and a lung, dropping the cow within 10 yards of where I spotted her.

Cocking The Excalibur Exocet 200

If you try to cock the Excalibur Exocet 200 by hand, you’re in for a real adventure. The 200# draw weight is bad enough, but add in the extremely long length of the stock and you will find that unless you are very tall, you either have to dig the stock into your gut to reach the string or hold the stock at an awkward angle to cock the x-bow. I don’t recommend cocking by hand, anyways, because using a cocking device allows for much better consistency of the draw and more accurate shooting.

Even with a rope cocking device, which Excalibur has neglected to include in the base package of the Exocet 200, you’ll be pulling back a hundred pounds worth of string. If you splurge, though, and get Excalibur’s hand crank cocking device, you’ll find drawing and cocking the crossbow will be quick and easy.

The Crossbow Sight

The fiber optic sight that comes included with the Exocet 200 is simple and easy to use. It was sighted in right out of the box, and has held true through many months of shooting without any problems. If you plan to do any crossbow hunting beyond 30 yards, though, you would definitely benefit from adding a scope to the crossbow. The open sight does not provide the pinpoint accuracy beyond 30 yards that is necessary for longer range hunting.

See our detailed guide on how to sight-in your crossbow

Bolts

In the basic package, the Exocet 200 does not include arrows at all, which is unfortunate for new shooters. Excalibur recommends 20” arrows with a weight of at least 350 grain, so my standard Firebolt 400-gr arrows were my obvious choice for use with this x-bow.

You can also learn more about crossbow arrows and take a look at our broadhead recommendations

Safety and Design

This crossbow is built to last, with a sturdy and basic design devoid of any tricky bells and whistles that might fail early in the lifetime of the bow. The trigger pull is a nice, light 3 lbs. pull, which makes for a very easy shot each and every time. The safety is a manual safety, which I disagree with including on a crossbow, so make sure you engage the safety after drawing the crossbow.

Warranty

Excalibur provides a limited lifetime warranty for the lifetime of the original owner on all of their crossbows, and they stand behind that warranty. Excalibur’s customer service people are some of the best, the brightest, and the most knowledgeable in the industry.

What Crossbow Case Fits the Excalibur Exocet 200?

The Exocet 200 is a rather long crossbow which limits the case options quite a bit. For $53 the Barnett Case (Model 17083) is a good soft case choice. For an affordable hard case option look to the Plano 1133-00 Manta Crossbow Case. There is always the SKB Hunter Series Crossbow Case, if you are looking to spend nearly $300 for a hard case.

Crossbow Review – Summary

Thanks for reading our crossbow review. If you are looking for a basic crossbow without any bells and whistles, or one you can build up the way you want it, the Exocet 200 might be a good choice. Its only real drawbacks are the very long length of the crossbow and the absence of an automatic safety. Take a look at today's amazon.com price on this crossbow and check out our top 10 crossbows rankings for more.