Just reading the threads ove the past few days and noticed several readers made criticisms of a 200 pound limit on crossbows. I was thinking of possible reasons the law was imposed, and can't really come up with a good answer. I know Ohio was one of the first states to recognize the crossbow as just another "archery" option, and a lot of other states have probably just copied the limit from Ohio's regulation. In reality, the 200 pound limit isn't really necessary, but it isn't a handicap either. A 200 pound crossbow is more than enough for any animal we hunt in Ohio. I guess when they (crossbows) were introduced perhaps the lawmakers thought setting a limit might dispell some fears of the "they're going to ruin my hunting in my archery season" crowd?
Ohio has another deer hunting regulation that I never agreed with, or understood. Nothing to do with crossbows, but with muzzleloaders. Ohio requires that muzzleloaders be of .38 caliber or larger. Now if you know anything about muzzleloaders you know .38 caliber isn't much more than a small game/plinking caliber. Sure, in the hands of a careful hunter who uses good judgment a .38 caliber would do the job, but then eskimos have used .22s (the .22 hornet was a popular round at one time) to hunt polar bears, too. In the hands of the average hunter a .38 would be a very poor choice, especially with a round ball load which was the common projectile when muzzleloaders were introduced to modern hunting seasons.
Does your state/province have any of these strange regulations? How/why do you think they they got on the books, and is there any way to get them changed, or is there really any need to change them? After all, I don't need a 225 pound crossbow to shoot deer, and I'm going to stick with my .50 cal muzzleloader for deer hunting, too!
200 pound limit on crossbows and other strange laws
Moderator: Excalibur Marketing Dude
In Ontario hunting big game(deer,moose,bear) there is no minimum centerfire one can use. Can't use rimfire, understandable. But to have a minimum for archery but not centerfires doesn't make sense. I mean I highly doubt a .17 Remington, although legal, would be a good choice for any of the big game animals.
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In many areas of Southern Ontario there is a law stating "that no caliber larger than .275 may be used for hunting". I understand the concern with rifles as Southern Ontario is very populas but using a bore diameter as the gauging factor doesn't make much sense. The way the law is I could not use such relativey ballistically weak rounds such as 32-20 or 44 Special for rifle hunting anything but I could use such calibers as .270, 6.5x55, .243 and 22-250 all of which have a far greater range. I once asked about this law with a guy from the Ministry and he said that as far as he knew it came about after the war when loads of Lee-Enfield .303's and other military surplus guns were being dumped on the market and snapped up by farmers for use as pest and predator control.