The 2020 hunting season starts with the release of two major crossbow brands releasing top of the range crossbows. Ravin is battling with TenPoint for the best crossbow in 2020. We’ve already reviewed the TenPoint Vapor RS470 and now it’s Ravin’s turn with the Ravin R29X Sniper Silent package.
The Ravin R29X Sniper is one of the best crossbows I’ve ever got to shoot. It’s highly accurate and doesn’t make a sound! The Ravin R29X Sniper comes with a new “silent cocking” system. It’s very easy to cock and it’s dead silent. This crossbow is the best to get if you’re looking for speed, accuracy, and cocking silently every time!
Table of Contents
Ravin R29X Sniper Package features
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As you can see, the Ravin R29X Sniper only weighs 6.75 lbs. and therefore is a really light-weight crossbow and can shoot arrows at 450FPS, making it one of the fastest crossbows on the market! With the pre-tuned scope and the adjustable elevation mount, the Ravin R29X Sniper is also super accurate!
The length of the Ravin R29X Sniper is 29 inches and when fully cocked measures 6 inches axle to axle, uncocked 10.5 inches and has a power stroke of 12.5 inches.
The new Ravin R29X crossbow-lineup come with a new fully integrated silent cocking system, HeliCoil technology and comes with a tactical crossbow scope mounted to a jack plate adjustable elevation mount. The ergonomic-grip that Ravin installed on the R29X Sniper feels really nice in my hands.
Tactical Scope and Elevation Mount
The Ravin R29X Sniper comes with a tactical scope and elevation mount. It’s not often that a crossbow is pre-tuned perfectly, but this tactical scope was spot on when I had the chance to shoot it. The scope is attached to a jack plate adjustable elevation mount. With the elevation mount you can easily set your scope anywhere from 20 to 200 yards!
This tactical scope has 10 different red and green illumination levels. The scope should be fog, water, shock and recoil-proof.It’s the perfect scope for such a powerful crossbow!
Ravin produces these scopes themselves and they sell these scopes separately for around $500!
HeliCoil Technology
Ravin has introduced HeliCoil technology in their crossbows. HeliCoil technology makes it possible to shoot arrows with better speed, no rail friction, increased accuracy and longer string life.
“HeliCoil technology coils cables away from both the top and bottom of the cams in helical grooves keeping the cams perfectly balanced. This allows the cams to rotate an incredible 340 degrees, while both cams remain perfectly level when drawing and shooting the crossbow. This revolutionary design creates an incredibly compact crossbow packed full of innovative features that produce rifle-like downrange accuracy.”
Silent Cocking
The Ravin R29X Sniper Silent comes with a brand new fully integrated silent cocking system and it has a draw weight of only 12 lbs!
The new cocking system makes it possible to cock the bow without making a sound! This is ideal if you plan to cock and decock your crossbow a lot like practice shooting, but if you’re actually hunting it’s not often you’re cocking and decocking your crossbow.
We recommend you to take a look at this “How-To” video to better understand the cocking mechanism before you try it yourself.
The ‘Silent Cocking System’ is only available on the Ravin R29 Sniper, R29X and R29X Sniper Crossbow Packages. It’s still a unique feature to have, only a few crossbows can be silently cocked…
Assembly and Storage
As mentioned before, Ravin delivers the Ravin R29X fully assembled and pre-tuned. You’ll have to install the Jack Plate Adjustable Elevation Mount and the Tactical Crossbow Scope yourself. This shouldn’t take you more than a minute or two though.
After assembling the elevation mount on the crossbow and the scope on the mount, you’ll have to make sure the scope is properly sighted in. It should take a maximum of 5 shots to fully sight in the scope.
At this price level we’d like to have seen a crossbow case delivered with it for free but there are loads of cases out there at fairly cheap prices. We recommend getting an official Ravin crossbow case though! Click here to get one on Amazon.
Package and Contents
- R-29X Sniper Silent package fully assembled and pre-tuned
- Tactical Crossbow Scope
- Jack Plate Adjustable Elevation Mount
- Quiver
- 6 – Ravin .001 Arrows & Field Tips (400 Grain Total)
Pros and Cons
Pros
- 450 FPS – Lightning Fast
- Effortless and Silent Cocking Mechanism
- HeliCoil Technology
- Compact and Lightweight
Cons
- Price, although you do get what you pay for!
- Not able to safely let go mid-draw
Conclusion
Quick Overview of the Ravin R29X Sniper Silent Package
Summary
The Ravin R29X Sniper is the ultimate crossbow for hunters. It’s insanely accurate, fast and features all of the latest high-tech features.
The Ravin R29X Sniper crossbow is the best to get if you’re looking for speed, accuracy, and cocking silently every time! It’s even better if you’ve already used a Ravin crossbow before and are used to the cocking/decocking mechanism.
Ravin did a wonderful job with this crossbow. but with Ravin’s customers asking for a way to safely let go of the cocking handle while mid-draw and Ravin not delivering, we think that TenPoint’s Vapor RS470 will outsell the Ravin R29X models this year. Ravin delivered a dead silent cocking system, but I, like many other hunters, don’t really need a dead silent cocking system. We believe that hunters are more looking for a safer crossbow, especially with the younger generation starting to hunt more and more as well…
The price of the Ravin R29X Sniper Silent is also pretty high, totally worth it though! If Ravin managed to figure out how to safely let go of the crank while mid draw, this crossbow would be a no-brainer of a buy.
In the end, we prefer the TenPoint Vapor Rs470 over the Ravin R29X Sniper Silent crossbow. Mainly because of the ACUslide. Hopefully, Ravin will finally introduce a way to safely decock the crossbow with their next series of crossbows.
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