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.