2025 Hunting Bow Shootout

Hello, ArcheryTalk. It’s time for the culmination of months of testing… the 2025 ArcheryTalk Hunting Bow Shootout. This year I received a total of 6 new-for-2025 bows. Here are the bows involved in this year’s shootout, in the order I received them. Mathews Lift X 33, Prime Form, Bowtech Proven 34, Xpedition XLite 32, Elite HNTR33, and Darton Sequel 35 ST2. Please know that I reached out to five other manufacturers that either didn’t get a bow to me in time or chose not to participate this year. Hopefully we can get test bows from some or all of them in the future. I’ve broken down this comparison into several different categories - each with a winner and each affecting the final choice for my hunting bow of the year: Draw Cycle, Speed, Stability and Accuracy, Noise and Vibration, Grip, Tunability, Fit and Finish, and Price and Value. This is one of the longer videos I’ve ever put together and it’s got lots of what I’m hoping is useful information in it that can help you decide which bow you’d like to buy this year…even if it isn’t the same one that I picked. I want to give a huge thank you to the folks at Canada Archery Online for letting me record all my videos at your shop this past year. It’s been a massive help. If you are in the Toronto area and want to check out a truly awesome archery shop, you can’t go wrong. https://www.canadaarcheryonline.com/