| Model | Draw Weight | Stroke | Velocity | Suggested Arrow Length | Crossbow Length / Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SA Sports Vendetta Check price on Amazon.com | 200 lbs. | 14" | 375 FPS Crossbow Academy: ballistics, sighting, tuning | 20" | 38.5" (w/o foot stirrup) / 8.5 lbs. |
| Pros: - Includes everything you need to get started - Very fast and powerful - Insanely accurate, even with the included arrows Cons: - Scope has limited low light capabilities - Very heavy crossbow - Short 1-year warranty | Small Game Hunting? |  |
| Deer, Elk Hunting? | |
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| Moose, Bear Hunting? | |
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| Target Shooting? | |
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| Also Recommended: | Best SA Sports Crossbows |
How Hard Is It to Put Together?
The owner’s manual that comes with the SA Sports Vendetta does a great job of showing how to put the crossbow together, and you should be able to assemble your crossbow in a matter of minutes. You install the cable slide, then attach the riser to the stock. Mounting the quiver and scope are easy, and for an added bonus you have a padded sling to attach to the swivel studs.
It took me about 15 minutes to have the Vendetta assembled and ready for the archery range. Then the real fun started: sighting in my new crossbow!
What About Accuracy and Power?
With a blistering arrow speed of 375 fps, the Vendetta shells out almost 125 ft. lbs. of kinetic energy. This is plenty powerful enough to ram the arrows completely through my target block, knocking it over in the process. This is not your kid’s toy crossbow—it is a powerful beast of a crossbow ready to help you win your vendetta against an empty freezer.
Accuracy is fantastic with the Vendetta. After a brief sighting-in period, I started testing the crossbow at various ranges. From 25 yards, I could maintain a quarter-inch grouping, and that grouping only increased to about 3/4-inch from 50 yards. Beyond that got dicey, with 3” groupings at 70 yards, but I’d expect that from any crossbow, let alone one as inexpensive as the Vendetta.
I Hunt: Is This a Good Crossbow for Me?
The SA Sports Vendetta is powerful enough to take down any game legal for hunting in North America, even bears and Cape buffalo. However, whether you want to take this on your next hunting trip really depends on how much weight you want to carry around. At 8.5 pounds, the Vendetta is one of the heaviest crossbows I’ve carried.
What the crossbow lacks in lightness, however, it almost makes up for in compactness. While the bow is very long, the limb-to-limb width is only 19” when the crossbow is cocked. This makes for a crossbow that is very easy to carry around in thick brush or forests, since you don’t have to worry about the bow snagging on every limb or branch you happen to walk past.
I had the opportunity to take this crossbow on a Cape buffalo hunt, and the crossbow performed just as well as my buddy’s thousand+ dollar crossbow. I had the shot, I aimed carefully, and I took the shot. My bolt went straight into the buffalo’s lung, and the gargantuan (but delicious) buffalo stumbled just a handful of yards before he expired. What a rush!
Cocking The SA Sports Vendetta
The quad limb SA Sports Vendetta has an outstanding cam system for a 200 pound draw bow. Using the included rope cocker, the actual draw weight felt more like 50 or 60 pounds, and the let off near the end of the draw is as close to perfect as I think you can get for a crossbow.
The draw is smooth and clicks nicely into the safety and anti-dry fire mechanism, engaging perfectly with every shot. This crossbow might be inexpensive, but it has a quality to it that rivals more expensive crossbows easily.
The Included Crossbow Scope
The crossbow is really the only drawback to the SA Sports Vendetta. It’s a halfway decent scope, but nothing special. It sights in easily, and holds true almost forever, but it has poor light gathering capabilities and tends to suffer from glare on the eye lens in bright sunlight.
Arrows for the Crossbow
SA Sports includes 4 20” carbon arrows with the Vendetta, and these arrows are very good quality. I shot with them when testing the accuracy of the bow, and used one of the to take down the Cape buffalo I mentioned before. If you would rather shoot your own arrows, though, any 20” arrows at 400-grain will work perfectly.
Safety and Design
The Vendetta is very well made, with a machined aluminum riser and precision-machined aluminum radical cams. The limbs are compression fiberglass, and the trigger pull is a nice, light 3.5 lb. pull.
The anti-dry fire mechanism works perfectly every time, and the safety does as well. SA Sports has clearly taken their time designing and executing this crossbow, and it is a very good investment for target shooters and hunters alike.
Warranty
SA Sports provides a 1-year limited warranty on the Vendetta, and the customer service representatives at SA Sports have always been very helpful. I didn’t have any problems with this crossbow, but problems I’ve had with other SA Sports’ crossbows were always dealt with promptly and to my complete satisfaction.
What Crossbow Case Fits the SA Sports Vendetta?
The SA Sports Vendetta is rather long; however, there are still a handful of cases which will accommodate it nicely. The Barnett Case (Model 17083) is a soft case for $53 which will house it. The Plano 1133-00 Manta Crossbow Case for $120 and will also accommodate the Vendetta, if you prefer hard cases.
Vendetta Review – Summary
Thanks for reading our crossbow review of the SA Sports Vendetta. This is an excellent buy for target shooting or hunting, with just a few minor drawbacks. I would not hesitate to pick this crossbow out of a lineup of equally priced crossbows, or even crossbows that were slightly more expensive. Take a look at today's amazon.com price on this crossbow and check out our top 10 crossbows rankings for more.
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