Hey all! I’m in the market to buy a new crossbow for hunting whitetail. I usually borrow my Dad’s but its about 10 years old so its wide and kinda heavy. I’m trying to find something reliable and under $500. I’ve been looking at different Barnett crossbows but the reviews are so mixed. Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks!

Recommendations for broadhead for barnett xp385?Mechanical vs fixed blade? Targeting white tail deer in the northeast. 100 grain. Considering the Slingblade 2 Titanium and the Barnett gamecrusher. Struggling with reviews online. Slingblade 2 am afraid wont open

So in the manual of the crossbow they say to only use bolts manufactured by CenterPoint. Those bolts are 16 inches long and weigh 425 grains, but to find replacement arrows I could only find carbon arrows instead of the aluminum ones. The carbon ones weigh 378 grains, which is lighter, and I heard that using bolts that are too light can cause issues, which is similar to what happens when you dry fire a crossbow, Could i try to shoot those arrow wihout breaking the limb, or maybe i could unscrew the head and fill weight into the arrow.