First Impressions of Excalibur Mag Air
I really like how the engineers of Excalibur managed to keep the recurve crossbow's design very basic, it is efficient and the crossbow is pleasant to the eyes, the black color gives the Mag Air a killer look.
The Excalibur Mag Air is a small and compact recurve crossbow with a full length of 31 inches, that is with the foot stirrup included. Optimizing length can provide better balance while shorter crossbows can be better suited for maneuverability and tight spaces. The Mag Air has an axle-to-axle width of 25.5 inches uncocked.
The Mag Air has a Gen2 synthetic mainframe that is specifically engineered to reduce weight while maintaining maximum strength. Its poly rail/stock has cutouts which reduce the crossbow's overall weight.
The Excalibur Mag Air weighs 4.9 pounds bare, this is up to 1 pound lighter than most competitors' bare crossbows in this class. With all accessories (scope, quiver, and bolts) attached, the crossbow weighs just 6.7 pounds, which is a perfect weight for this model. These dimensions and weight make the Mag Air ideal for use in stands and blinds.
Assembly
The Excalibur Mag Air comes in a ready-to-shoot package. This means that it only requires a few steps to set up this crossbow. It can be done without effort and it takes little time, which is great if you are a beginner and never set up a crossbow before in your life.
The Mag Air comes with a so-called one-bolt assembly system. This means that you only have to connect the limb assembly to the mainframe. Now you'll only have to install the fixed power scope and the 4-arrow quiver which takes little time and effort, and you're ready for sighting in!
Optics
The Mag Air comes with a good fixed power scope that suits a crossbow of this class perfectly. A fixed power scope is a scope that has a fixed or non-adjustable magnification setting. The scope has a 1-inch tube and is optimized for 350 fps speeds. The scope is easy to calibrate and functions perfectly. We encountered no issues.
Cocking
Excalibur crossbows use attachable cranks, integrated cranks, and rope cockers to achieve as little as 12 pounds of draw effort. Cocking the Mag Air with the package included rope cocker is easy and requires little effort.
The rope cocker cuts the crossbow's required draw weight of 136 pounds in half. So you'll only have to pull 68 pounds to cock the Mag Air. The foot stirrup has good size and helps with cocking the crossbow.
The Excalibur Mag Air is also compatible with a cocking crank; the Excalibur Charger EXT. The crank is sold separately and can be bought on Amazon. With the crank, you'll be able to reduce the draw effort to only 12 pounds. If you don't want to strain you're back too much then we definitely recommend one.
Trigger and Safety Features
The Mag Air's trigger assembly contains a safety switch that is positioned above the pistol grip, this makes it easy and convenient to engage or disengage the safety switch whether you're a right- or left-handed person.
The crossbow has safety wings on the foregrip to ensure that your fingers don't accidentally end up in the string's path.
Performance
The Excalibur Mag Air's 12.4-inch power stroke and 136-pound draw weight propel the included Quill arrows at velocities of up to 305 fps. These speeds are more than enough to hunt deer and turkey. The crossbow could even take a bear down!
We took the Mag Air downrange to speed rate the crossbow ourselves. The hunting crossbow with the included arrows reached the advertised speeds. We measured this with our Caldwell G2 Ballistic Precision chronograph.
We also tested the crossbow with some hunting broadheads. We used a special broadhead crossbow target for this. We had good broadhead accuracy. We used Exalubur's Bolt Cutters with the Quill arrows.
The Mag Air is a remarkably very well-balanced crossbow and quite accurate. We had nice tight arrow groupings after some fine-tuning and sighting in the scope.
Arrows
The Excalibur Mag Air utilizes 16.5″ quill arrows. These are good quality carbon hunting arrows. They have a .003 straightness and 2-inch offset blazer vanes and Rhino Nocks. These flat nocks are specifically designed to work in conjunction with models equipped with CeaseFire Anti-Dryfire Technology but can also be used on all Excalibur crossbows. They primarily ensure better contact with the string.
Quill arrows have no designated cocking vane so it doesn't matter which vane you slide into the flight groove. The arrows have a heavier front insert which increases front-of-center weight for enhanced accuracy. These arrows are also very effective when matched with the appropriate broadheads. They are designed to ensure good broadhead accuracy.
Recommended Accessories
Arrows and Broadheads
We recommend using the 16-inch 250-grain Excalibur Quill arrows. You can buy them cheap on Amazon.
We recommend pairing the arrows with 150 grain Excalibur Bolt Cutters with a cutting diameter of 1 1/16 inches. These heads feature tunable alignment blades so each broadhead flies identically. The blades on each individual broadhead are aligned the same way when loaded in your crossbow. The Broadheads allows you to do just this with a simple wrench and hex key.
Storage and Transportation
We recommend buying a crossbow case to keep the Mag Air secure and safe. Guide Gear makes great universal cases that fit this crossbow perfectly. The soft crossbow case allows you to transport and store the Mag Air securely. The universal crossbow case comes with a backpack strap and is easy-going.