Parker Tornado XXT Review

Hey, my name is Patrick and I am not a crossbow expert at all, but I am a gun guy and I have done some videos about guns. So Crossbow Nation called me and said, hey, Patrick, would you like to give the Parker Tornado X-Extreme a shot as a crossbow newbie? I said, heck yeah, why not? Let's give it a go. So that said, it does have a 165 pound draw weight and an axle to axle width uncocked of 20.625 inches. And when it is cocked, it's reasonably compact 18 inches wide axle to axle. Now my chief complaint about the crossbow is the weight at 8.9 pounds with just the scope mounted. Now, once you throw four arrows, a quiver in there, a sling and whatever have you, you are now at 9.2 pounds and hauling this thing around the woods is kind of a pain in the butt if you've got to walk away to your stand. Now, if the weight doesn't bother you, it is a really quiet shooting crossbow based on the other ones that I did here when I went and shopped for some stuff. And you get things like these pre-installed limb silencers, some inverted cams and this cavity back riser, which makes, you know, getting a big muddy boot in there to cock the bow really, really easy. Now they do ship it with four of these Parker Red Hot 20 inch crossbow arrows. One of the other arrows did become damaged throughout the course of me shooting the Tornado Extreme and I was no longer able to use it. So there's that. I'm now down to two arrows. Now I've got to say these 407 grain arrows do seem very, very nicely made for kit arrows. Now, like I said, you do get a 20.625 uncocked axle length. That means you have a 21 inch cable and a 44.75 inch string. Now you also do get a split limb array, which makes this a lot more compact. Now it does have a rated speed of 365 feet per second. And when I put it on the chronograph, I saw 375 feet per second several times, but mostly 360 feet per second. That's really moving those 407 grain bolts downrange reasonably quickly and is more than enough to take whatever game that you might be hunting. Now, the trigger on the Tornado Extreme is something that they call a G2 bullpup trigger. And I found it to be pretty darn good, but still capable of excellent levels of accuracy with it at pretty good distances because it included three power scope does have graduations out to 60 yards. And I tried every bit of those 60 yards and then some. Now you do have an ambidextrous safety, which is on the back of the bow. And that's really kind of annoying. I did like the fact that it auto-engaged because I wouldn't have remembered to put it on otherwise. You also have an auto-engaging dry fire mechanism that prevents you from dry firing the bow. And, you know, whenever you insert the arrow, it kind of pushes this little finger down deactivating that, which is really, really nice. Now the camouflage stock does have a full comb, which allows you to get a nice cheek weld on there and, you know, be able to get a good picture in the scope. I've got to say shooting from, you know, just about any position with this thing is pretty darn comfortable. Now I'm going to say it's a little bit more of a chin weld for me, and I would have preferred some slightly lower rings on the scope, but as it sits, it's extremely serviceable and I'm very, very happy with how it was out of the box. That said, Parker does factory install these scopes on here for you, and they are laser sighted at the factory. And the one that I got was within about an inch and a half of point of aim at 20 yards out of the box, which I will say I'm pretty darn happy with. It also is red and green illuminated, and I've got it on the green illumination setting because I know you can see it. It's so wicked and cool looking with those green dots. There we go. Now it does have several settings in terms of brightness. And you also have red in there as well, which I think you can see that, which would be really cool if you could. That said, I really did like this. It does have graduations out to 60 yards, like I said, and you also can go out further if you want to take a guess at things, which I did do. Now, Parker did include their patented inverted cam technology on this bow, and that makes drawing it and getting the thing cocked just a little bit easier, which my wife quite appreciated when she wanted to try it out in the backyard. You do get a lifetime warranty on the bow itself, and for a guy like myself who has a habit of losing and or breaking things more along the lines of breaking things, a lifetime warranty really is pretty darn nice, especially when you have to take into consideration that it is a 100% USA made bow, with the exception of a couple of bits and pieces like the scope, which has a giant made in China label on the bottom. And I'm willing to bet that the rings are also Chinese made. Now, fit and finish on the bow is very good. It is what I would expect out of a $1,000 bow, and I've got to say that a firearm of comparable value or cost would probably not have the same level of attention to detail and quality about it that this bow does. Shooting the bow, I found it to be reasonably accurate out to about 60 yards, and once I got past 60 yards, I had to start guessing at things. That said, I think that this thing would make a phenomenal hunting companion. Drawing the bow is reasonably easy with the rope cocker thing that's not attached to the bow like it should be, because this is just maddening having to keep up with this thing and not forget it in the hunting blind, which I did reasonably often. Now, like I said, it does have a rated speed of 365 feet per second, and I did see 375 feet per second on the chrono, but more often I saw 360 feet per second on the chronograph. So, overall conclusion on this, if I were looking for a crossbow, would I purchase this bow? Yeah, I absolutely would. At about $900 street price, it seems to be a pretty darn good value for what you get, and I gotta say that the quality really is quite amazing. Now, full disclosure, I did go to Cabela's and look at several other models of crossbows, and nothing really stacked up to the level of machine quality on here. The machining is just quite nice on this. You know, the attention to detail on how the bow is put together is really, really nice. Now, I can't recall what the MSRP of this bow is, but I do know it has a street price of about $900 to $1,000 depending on what retailer you go to. That said, if you want to learn more about the Parker XXXtreme, head on over to their website at parkerbows.com and tell them that Crossbow Nation told you that their bow was pretty rad.