Southwest Archery Scorpion

The Spyder line was designed by the same team behind the original Samick Sage, and the community treats it as the Sage 2.0 — same basic architecture with rounded riser edges, cleaner finish, and tool-free limb bolts. The XL is the one hunters with long arms should care about: the same riser as the 62" Spyder wearing longer limbs for a 64" AMO length that keeps the draw cycle smooth past 29", where the standard Sage and Spyder start to stack. The riser is white oak, Dymondwood, and padouk with threaded bushings for sights, plunger rests, quivers, and stabilizers; the hard-maple/fiberglass limbs get reinforced tips that are Fast Flight and Flemish string compatible. Draw weights run 25-55 lb (including an odd 29 lb step), so 45-55 lb hunting configurations are available off the shelf. Southwest sells it directly for $164 with 107 store reviews, and the Amazon listing has years of positive feedback. Like the Sage, the limb fitting is proprietary — Spyder and Sage-pattern limbs interchange, but ILF limbs do not. A 1-year warranty (with online registration) is unusual at this price.

Substituted for the requested 68-inch Black Hunter: the only Black Hunter longbow verifiably sold in the US is a 60-inch takedown, so the SAS Pioneer fills the budget one-piece 68-inch slot — and it's the bow budget-minded trad forums actually recommend there. The Pioneer pairs a makore and cassia siamea hardwood riser with maple-laminated, fiberglass-faced limbs in a classic American flat-bow profile. At 68 inches it is exceptionally smooth and forgiving, with no meaningful stack at normal draws, making it a favorite first longbow on ArcheryTalk and Trad Talk. Reviewers on Southland's own store rate it 4.7/5 across 18 reviews, and the consistent refrain is 'great quality for the price.' The equally consistent advice: bin the stock endless-loop Dacron string. With a Flemish twist replacement the Pioneer picks up speed, quiets down, and sheds most of its reported hand shock. The shelf is a simple non-center-cut window with a stick-on rug, so expect to spend time on spine and brace tuning, and the fit-and-finish is honest $190 work — visible tool marks and a chunky grip some shooters sand to fit. With 40-55 lb limbs it is genuinely deer-capable, and at this price it's the cheapest legitimate hunting longbow in the class.

Substituted for the requested Bodnik Slick Stick, which is sold out at Bearpaw's US store with a stated 10-12 month production backlog — the Quick Stick is the same German maker's most popular hybrid and is still in retail circulation. Designed by Henry Bodnik as his personal favorite, it marries a longbow's profile and quiet manners to near-recurve performance: a 60-inch reflex-deflex hybrid with a bubinga-and-rosewood (or merbau, by run) riser, bamboo-core limbs under clear glass, multilayered Mycarta tips, and a radiused, cut-on-center shelf — a genuine rarity among longbows that makes arrow tuning almost recurve-easy. It ships with Bearpaw's Dyneema-blend Whisper string, may be stored strung, and carries an extraordinary 30-year warranty. Owners at Kustom King rate it 5.0/5, 3Rivers has logged 13 reviews, and Pete Ward's long-form test praised its dead-in-the-hand shot with essentially no hand shock — the reflex-deflex geometry sheds the thump that plagues D-shape longbows. Caveats: Bodnik weights are known to run 3-4 lb heavy, Bearpaw mandates 8 grains-per-pound minimum arrow weight, and pricing swings widely ($449 on sale at 3Rivers, $699 at Kustom King) with limited in-stock weights. As a compact, shock-free hunting longbow, it's the premium pick of this class.

In the Bear lineup since the late 1990s, the Montana is the longbow most American trad hunters start with — a 64-inch, slightly reflexed D-shape design with a hard-rock maple riser, white maple limbs under black or grey fiberglass, and a supple leather grip with matching leather shelf rug and side plate for shooting off the shelf. The slight reflex and tapered limb laminations give it more zip than a straight-limbed Hill-style bow, and the 64-inch length keeps finger pinch and stacking away for draws up to about 29 inches. Lancaster calls it a longbow that 'performs well above its price-point,' and Amazon buyers rate it 4.4/5. Community feedback on ArcheryTalk and Trad Talk is largely positive but honest about longbow realities: there is some hand shock — mild by longbow standards, and mostly tamed with a properly tuned brace height, heavier arrows, and the included Dynaflight 97 string — and the sight window is not cut past center, so arrow spine selection matters more than on Bear's recurves. At $460-530 street it undercuts custom longbows by hundreds while delivering a genuinely huntable, quiet, lightweight package that carries all day.

The Prism is the Edge platform scaled down for developing archers: 5 to 55 pounds and 18 to 30 inches of draw on a 31-inch frame at 3.2 pounds, with a genuinely forgiving 7-inch brace and 80 percent let-off. Its standout technical feature at this price is the synchronized binary cam system - both cams are slaved together, which means better nock travel and easier tuning than the single-cam bows that dominate the budget tier; BowAddicted's hands-on review called it a well-rounded pick for youth and small-framed adults alike. The roughly $299 price buys a package, but a slimmer one than its rivals: 3-pin Octane sight, arrow rest, peep, and nock - no quiver, no stabilizer, no arrows, so the true kit-out cost lands closer to $400. Be aware of its lineup status: the Prism no longer appears in Diamond's promoted range in 2026, making it a legacy model, though it remains widely stocked at Sportsman's Warehouse, Bass Pro, and Amazon in multiple colors. Against mid-range bows it gives up speed (295 fps IBO is sedate), the 55-pound ceiling is fine for deer but marginal for elk, and the bare-bones kit undercuts its value versus a Cruzer or Royale RTH. As a tuning-friendly trainer that can still kill a whitetail, it holds up.

The Uprising is PSE's answer to the Edge and Cruzer, and it undercuts both on price: the Ready-to-Shoot package (3-pin sight, whisker-style rest, 5-arrow quiver, 6-inch stabilizer with sling) sells around $300 street, with sale prices dipping into the $260s. Adjustment range is legitimate - 14 to 30 inches of draw and 15 to 70 pounds, all module-based with no press - and at 310 fps ATA it out-runs the Edge XT on paper. Sportsman's Warehouse buyers rate it 4.8/5, and Women's Outdoor News praised how it grows with a shooter. The honest knocks: 70 percent let-off is the lowest in this class, so you hold roughly 18-21 pounds at full draw on a 65-70 lb setting - noticeably more than the 75-80 percent competition, which matters to new hunters waiting on a deer. The cam has a firmer hump toward the end of the cycle than the buttery Diamonds, and Amazon reviewers specifically call out the included rest as frustrating for beginners. Arrows and a release are not included. As pure bow-per-dollar, though, nothing name-brand beats it at $300, and PSE's lifetime warranty travels with a real dealer network.