Excalibur’s public identity is the recurve crossbow rather than the compound, and the recurve layout carries a wide, open limb span that dominates every carry decision you make. Width is what catches doorways, gates and brush, and it is also what keeps the bow standing off your back instead of lying flat against it. None of that is a defect, but it does mean a sling that works fine on a narrow bow can be genuinely awkward on a broad one. Before you buy any sling or mount, inspect your own bow and read its manual, because that is the only reliable source for what your particular bow can attach to.
Width is the whole story
A recurve crossbow puts its energy into two long, sweeping limbs that stay relatively wide even when the bow is cocked. That is the architecture, and it is the reason recurve shooters tend to have strong opinions about carry that compound shooters find slightly baffling.
The practical effect is that the bow occupies more horizontal space than your body does. Slung across your back, a wide bow reaches past your shoulders on both sides. Everything you walk past is now a potential contact point, and worse, contacts happen at the far ends of the limbs where you have the least feel for them. You will hook a branch you never saw and never felt coming, and the bow will lever against your torso with a long moment arm behind it.
There is a second, subtler consequence. A wide bow will not lie flat against a curved back. The limb tips contact your shoulders or your pack before the centre of the bow reaches your spine, so the bow stands off you slightly. That standoff is what makes a wide crossbow feel unstable when a narrow one feels planted, and it is the single thing your sling setup has to solve.
An open frame: what is out of the way, and what is not
The recurve layout has one real advantage over a compound for carry purposes, and it is worth stating plainly. A recurve limb assembly does not carry the cam and cable hardware that a compound layout does, so there is meaningfully less machinery around the limbs for webbing to foul on and less moving hardware sitting where a strap might want to route. Fewer things to snag a strap on, fewer things a careless routing decision can damage.
That does not make the bow a blank canvas. What replaces the cam and cable hardware is a longer, more exposed string span and limbs that sweep out where a strap can very easily end up crossing them. On a recurve, the string and the limbs are the accident waiting to happen, and they are exactly the parts a beginner is most tempted to route webbing around because they look convenient and structural.
No strap, loop, clamp, hook or adapter goes on a limb, across the string span, in the string path, or on any surface that flexes or moves when the bow fires. A strap that touches the string when the bow is at rest will be in the string’s way when it is not. Route webbing to the stock and the forend only, and only to surfaces the manual identifies as load-bearing.
The second half of the open-frame trade is visibility and clearance. With less hardware clustered around the limbs, you can see and reach more of the bow while it is slung, which makes hand placement easier to keep honest. Use that. Every time your hand goes near the bow, you should be able to see the rail and the string span clearly and keep well away from both.
How a wide bow distributes weight against your body
A compound crossbow tends to concentrate its mass in the middle of a compact chassis. A recurve spreads mass out along a long limb span, and that changes what the bow does when you move.
What the wide frame gives you
- Mass spread over a longer span damps the quick, sharp swing a compact bow gets on a loose sling
- Less cam and cable hardware around the limbs for webbing to catch on
- Easier to see the rail and string span while the bow is slung, which helps you keep hands clear
- Sits stably across a pack when carried horizontally
What the wide frame costs you
- Limb tips reach past your shoulders and hook things you cannot feel or see
- The bow stands off a curved back instead of lying flat against it
- A long moment arm means a snag levers hard against your torso
- Doorways, gates, blind windows and vehicle doors all need conscious management
The damping is a real benefit and it is under-appreciated. On a wide bow the sling has to control a slow, heavy sway rather than a quick snap, and slow sway is far easier to manage with tension. Tighten the carry and a wide bow settles down noticeably. What tension cannot fix is the standoff, which is a geometry problem, not a slack problem.
The fix for standoff is angle. Carried perfectly horizontally across the back, the limb tips fight your shoulders. Carried at an angle, one limb rides high and one rides low, the bow contacts your back over a longer diagonal, and the effective width across your shoulders drops. Diagonal carry is the single most useful adjustment a wide-bow shooter can make, and it costs nothing.
Attachment provisions and the part you must verify yourself
We are not going to tell you what attachment points your bow has. There is no trustworthy public dataset of crossbow attachment provisions, stocks and forends change between configurations and production runs, and a confident claim about one bow is routinely wrong about the next one on the rack. Being upfront about that is more useful than a list you would have to check anyway.
So check it yourself. With the bow de-cocked, in good light, work front to back and identify which of these categories apply:
- Integrated accessory holes or slots. Some stocks and forends are built with provisions intended for a carry strap. If yours has them, the manual will name them and usually specify the hardware.
- Stock and forend attachment provisions. Threaded inserts, swivel studs, loops or webbing pass-throughs on the butt, along the underside of the stock, or on the forend ahead of the trigger group.
- Rail or accessory sections rated to bear load. Some bows carry an accessory section the manufacturer rates for a load-bearing attachment. A rail intended for a light or a quiver is not automatically rated to hold the entire bow, so confirm before you trust it.
- Aftermarket clamp adapters. These exist for bows with no factory provision and they are a legitimate answer. They are also the option most often fitted to the wrong surface. Clamp only to rigid structure on the stock or forend, never to a limb, never near the string span.
- Nothing at all. A normal result on plenty of bows, and it has a good solution. See below.
Then read the manual before you buy hardware, not after. It tells you which surfaces bear load, which fasteners are safe to remove, and what the manufacturer says about accessories. If the manual is silent, ask the manufacturer instead of guessing. Our crossbow sling fitment guide runs the same inspection in more depth, and our general sling for crossbow overview explains how webbing routes once you know what you have.
Cocked carry, rail direction and the string path
A cocked crossbow is loaded. Putting it on a sling means giving up direct hand control of where it points, and that trade only works if the carry setup is disciplined.
Never dry fire the bow, and never release the string without a bolt seated into a target. Keep your hands, thumb and fingers entirely out of the rail and the string path at all times, including while slinging the bow, unslinging it, adjusting webbing or reaching past it. De-cock or discharge into a target before transporting the bow, before climbing anything, and before fitting or adjusting any hardware. Inspect the string, the limbs and any cables your bow uses for fraying, separated strands, cracks or damage before every session. When a cocked bow is slung, treat the rail exactly like a muzzle: know where it points at every moment, keep it off yourself and off anyone near you, keep the safety engaged, and keep your body, clothing and gear out of the trigger guard.
Width makes rail direction harder to keep track of, not easier. A wide bow standing off your back has more freedom to rotate, and a small rotation at your shoulders becomes a large change in where the rail is pointing. This is precisely why the standoff problem is a safety problem and not just a comfort problem. Tension and a deliberate carry angle keep the rail where you put it.
Check your state and local regulations on carrying and transporting a cocked crossbow before you assume any of this is legal where you hunt. The rules vary and they are not optional.
Managing width in motion: brush, gates and doorways
Everything above is theory until you are walking. Here is where the width actually bites, and what to do about it.
| Obstacle | Why the width matters | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Thick brush and timber | Limb tips reach past your shoulders and hook branches you never see | Carry diagonally, sling tight, slow down and turn your whole body rather than your shoulders |
| Doorways, gates and blind windows | The bow is wider than the gap your body fits through | De-cock, take the bow off your body and pass it through separately |
| Vehicle doors and cabs | Limb tips catch the frame on the way in and out | Cased and de-cocked, always. Never sling a bow to get into a vehicle |
| Fence crossings | Long moment arm makes the bow lever hard when you lift a leg | De-cock, hand the bow over or set it down, then cross |
| Climbing to a stand | Width catches the ladder, the trunk and your steps | De-cock and haul on a rope. Never climb with the bow on your body |
| Sitting in a stand or blind | Limb tips intrude into shooting lanes and knock on rails | Hang the bow deliberately, rail in a chosen direction, tips clear of your lanes |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
The habit worth building is a width check before every constriction. Doorway, gate, blind window, treestand ladder: pause, decide whether the bow goes through with you or separately, and default to separately. Our tree stand crossbow carry post covers the haul-line sequence and hanging a wide bow in a stand without eating your shooting lanes.
When there is no attachment point at all
Plenty of crossbows leave the factory with nowhere sensible to hang a sling, and on a wide recurve frame the temptation to improvise is stronger than usual, because the limbs look like such obvious anchor points. They are not. Do not use them.
Two honest answers exist. The first is a padded bow case with its own shoulder strap. For a wide bow this is often the better option outright, because the case gives the limb tips a smooth, snag-resistant outer surface and the strap loads the case, not the bow. The second is a purpose-built crossbow carry harness, which distributes the load across both shoulders and holds the bow closer to your back than a single strap can.
Whatever you attach, load it up and test it at home with the bow de-cocked before you take it anywhere. Hang the full weight, walk with it, and then recheck every screw, clamp and buckle. Hardware that works loose while a bow is on your back is a genuine hazard, and it always announces itself on the walk out rather than in the garage.
- Verify the attachment surface
Identify the provision on your own bow and confirm in the manual that it is intended to bear the bow’s weight. If you are using a clamp adapter, confirm it grips rigid structure on the stock or forend, well clear of the limbs and the string span.
- Set the carry angle, not just the length
With the bow de-cocked, sling it and deliberately set a diagonal. One limb high, one low. Adjust until the bow contacts your back across a long diagonal rather than standing off on the tips.
- Size it in your hunting layers
Wear the coat and pack you will actually hunt in. A wide bow set up over a base layer will ride badly over bulk, and standoff gets worse as your back gets thicker.
- Walk a real distance
Duck under branches, turn quickly, sit down and stand up. Width problems only reveal themselves in motion and around obstacles.
- Rehearse getting it off
Practise taking the bow off the sling and into a shooting position with the bow de-cocked, hands well clear of the rail and string path throughout, until the motion is automatic.
What to look for in the sling
Once you know what your bow can attach to, judge the sling on two things: whether it can hold a wide frame tight against your back, and whether you can change how it carries without stopping and re-threading anything.
Tension is the priority on a wide bow. A two-point carry, run snug and diagonal, is what pulls the limb tips in toward your outline and keeps the rail pointing where you put it. A single-point carry gives faster access but lets a wide bow hang and swing in front of you, which is more disruptive on a broad frame than on a narrow one. Both configurations have their place on the same walk, which is the argument for a sling that converts between them rather than committing you to one. Our single point crossbow sling post covers that trade in detail.
The McLean Dynamic Retention Sling is built around that conversion. It uses a patented two-point to one-point conversion, so the same sling runs locked down and diagonal through cover, then converts for access without unthreading hardware. It is made with maritime grade webbing and all metal hardware, and it comes in Black, Coyote Brown, MultiCam and Ranger Green. It carries a 4.92 average across 169 reviews, and the company was founded by an Active Duty SOF operator, which is why it reads as a load-carriage design rather than a hunting-aisle accessory.
We will not claim it fits your bow. No honest manufacturer can, without knowing what your specific bow has on it. Confirm your own attachment options first, then match hardware to them. If you also carry a compact reverse-draw platform, the problems are close to inverted and we treated them separately in our Ravin crossbow sling guide.
Finally, remember that changing how you carry can change how you shoot. Recheck your zero after any change to the bow’s hardware using how to sight in a crossbow, and keep the string and limbs serviced with our crossbow maintenance guide. If you are sorting out projectiles at the same time, crossbow bolts vs arrows covers that ground.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my wide crossbow not sit flat on my back?
Because the limb tips contact your shoulders or your pack before the middle of the bow reaches your spine. That standoff is geometry, not slack, so tightening the sling alone will not fix it. Carry the bow at a diagonal instead of horizontally so it contacts your back over a longer line and its effective width across your shoulders drops.
Can I attach a sling to the limbs if there is nowhere else?
No. Nothing goes on a limb, across the string span, in the string path, or on any surface that flexes or moves when the bow fires. If your bow has no load-bearing provision on the stock or forend, use a padded case with a shoulder strap or a dedicated crossbow carry harness instead.
Is a recurve harder to carry than a compound crossbow?
Different rather than harder. A recurve has a wider span to manage and stands off your back more, but it also has less cam and cable hardware around the limbs for webbing to foul on, and its longer mass distribution damps the sharp swing a compact bow can develop on a loose sling. Manage the width and the platform carries well.
Should I carry my crossbow cocked on the walk in?
Only where your local regulations permit it, and only with a setup that holds the rail in a controlled direction rather than letting a wide bow rotate against your back. Keep the safety engaged, keep your body and gear out of the trigger guard, and keep your hands entirely out of the rail and string path. De-cock before climbing, before crossing a fence, before entering a vehicle and before transporting the bow.
