ZULUS 4K Field Test: Day and Night Crossbow Hunting in Oklahoma

Originally written by Richard Johnson, this article follows his hunting adventures with the DNT ZULUS 4K. We’re excited to share his firsthand stories and insights with our readers.

One of the things I really enjoy about hunting is the people, the experience of it all and it’s hard to beat that first hunting trip to a new place. Sounds very cliché but it’s real and I’m looking forward to this hunt.

2026 is a milestone year for me. After 53 years in the work force, I’m pullin the plug and starting my life of Saturdays. April 30th is that day and to make sure my mindset is right, I’m going to see if I can cross paths with some free-range hogs here in Oklahoma, put some pork in the freezer and be in the right state of mind to ride out the last chapter of my work-life.

I’ve got the 4K version of DNT’s ZULUS to put to the test, and some more trials for the Ultra 29.5 as well, so get your popcorn…

The drive is just over two hours north of my place in Texas, an hour or so into Oklahoma on Highway 75/69, and you can find “EP” Luchsinger busy running his Hard Wood Outdoors outfitting business. A new acquaintance of mine tipped me off to EP’s place and I’m thankful he did. Thank you Ryan!

Hard Wood Outdoors | Oklahoma | Hunting Lodge & Ranch

Oklahoma produces some incredible whitetails and if the cards all fall in place, I hope to add a hunt or two here to my 2026 fall plans. It’s also a great place to hunt turkey and they have a few zillion too many wild hogs. Statistics say there’s north of a million hogs in Oklahoma and most are in the Southeast part of the state and Chockie is right in the heart of it.

The weather forecast is looking pretty good.

Morning temperatures are perfect but 78 this time of the year is 10-15 degrees warmer than ideal. I don’t think it’s enough to stir up the snakes, ticks and skeeters but I’ll bring my tall bogs and the thermacell just in case.

My hunting gear looks like this:

• #1 Xbow – TenPoint’s Ultra 29.5 with the DNT ZULUS 4K scope and Sniper Hog Light’s 30 LRX modular IR lamp for night hunting illumination. I’m shooting ACU-X arrows, snap-on illuminated nocks and Nemesis 100g mechanical broadheads which has been a very effective combo for deer.

• #2 Xbow – TenPoint’s TurboX with the Vision HD optic shooting ASAP 9.2 arrows setup with ACU-X snap-on illuminated nocks and Nemesis 100g mechanical broadheads. This arrow combo is one I setup this past year and works well. I added the ACU-X snap-on nocks this year to further test them on a railed TP xbow setup.

• The bow cases I’m using are both from TP. The hard case for the Ultra with a bunch of gear packed in with it, the Stag Elite for the TurboX and it will also can carry some extras: an Axis tripod, 2 empty quivers, a loaded MDM arrow box, my headlamps and some more small items.

• Leupold 10X42 Alpine HD binoculars.

• DNT’s HOUND H635R thermal scanner. This is a huge value to have at night when you “think” you heard footsteps or corn being eaten and want to quickly take a look through the night’s darkness.

• Targets, sled and table go with me when possible. I do plan to shoot the TurboX some to put some miles on the ZB Lite Pro mount Vision combo.

• A Primos SV 270 ground blind, the Blackout 3 leg swivel chair. The AusCamoTech chairblind and my Couger Claw climber give me easy packing and great mobility. I may not need any of this but I’m not yet familiar with the Hard Wood facilities and from lessons learned, I’m packing the kitchen sink to stack my options to setup where I have the best chance for pigs. They don’t have the best eyes but their noses are 10X that of a deer's.

• Hunting clothes are a mix of my camo deer hunting gear and black gear for in-blind hunting and night hunting.

• Turkey decoys in the event I have extra time and want to coax in a struttin Tom for the fun of it.

Ya, I don’t travel light…

The Hard Wood Outdoors property today is an accumulation of about 5,000 acres. Enough to comfortably support 500 hogs and there very well may be closer to 800 living here.

Here’s a map of Hard Wood with about 90% of the active hunting spots. I understand there are half again as many more if you have the time and really want to get off the grid and set up a blind or use a climber. EP uses Covert cameras and he's tracking about 30 every day.

The family that run this place are working cattle ranchers and horsemen and that is something that has been going on here since the 50s. Read their story on their web site because it’s a very interesting one.

The facilities are understated from the outside but it fits what Hard Wood is all about. The mint green ranch house is a classic rural build and plays host to the white roof, red sided building that is home to the hunting lodge.

Not a hint of what’s inside from the outside, but pass through the doors of the lodge and you enter a no-nonsense hunter’s lodge. A well-done facility that can host a pretty large hunting party and keep everyone comfortable. They even have 3 small external cabins if extra space is needed.

Lots of hunting history here and the hog eating the rattler is just a perfect piece for this place!

EP is in his mid-40s and a local. He grew up here spending a lot of his younger years on his grandfather’s ranch hunting, fishing and his share of helping out. He’s the man behind this operation today and can share stories about Hard Woods heritage and any of the animals on display here. Great stories and I heard a few.

Day 1, on 2/17 was an evening hunt. It was a 10 minute ride to the AAA blind and EP has me in the ground blind by 3 pm. On the way we saw a sounder of 15 or so grazing on fresh grass growth 300 yards or so across a large valley so I was encouraged. Sadly, the wind picked up gusting to 20+ mph, so not much was moving. A trio of crows were entertaining and two nice Toms passed by so I did have some company.

The afternoon hunt was moved the North 4 spot. This spot is a good one for Whitetail and pigs as well. It has a 18’ ladder with shooting rail but with a NW wind it was not the ideal spot. We decided to setup the chair blind with good wind in mind and just enough cover to my immediate right and around to help blend in.

About 6:15 pm I could hear pigs coming in from behind me to my right which is up wind… Go figure, right? This is a good size sounder with 8 adult pigs and some piglets. They stayed to my right and got into some “spilled” corn where the truck was parked. A few did move closer onto the feed we put out and after 2 to 3 or so minutes of wishing that two-color pig would come into the clear, I picked out one of the braver sows, let the 29.5 rip and tipped her over.

BTW, that ACU-X arrow passed through that hog’s head and it survived. One of the Nemesis broadhead primary blades bent slightly but it is a rebuildable head and the arrow vanes, the carbon shaft and nock were not damaged. I spun it today and the arrow and broadhead are 100% straight.

That scattered them but a few came back to investigate. I carefully, quietly recocked and reloaded and was ready for round 2. I was pretty eager to tag pig #2 but they never cleared the brush to my right for another shot. After another 10 minutes they faded off, never giving me another chance. Good hunt for day 1! Pork in the freezer.

BTW, EP is a master skinner… I had him to quarter this hog but he was very willing to debone it for me, which is what they typically will do for their hunters.

Days 2 and 3 were a mix of trying to outguess where the pigs would show. We also battled wind changes, high winds 20-30 mph and even did an afternoon walk and stalk to see what we could see. If I were a better panning shooter, I would have bagged #2 that afternoon so don’t underestimate an afternoon walk with your guide, even carrying a crossbow. I did setup on the B1 spot that had hogs on camera but other than a great sunset, squirrels, some mice, an encounter with a Great Blue Heron and a racoon, I did not see any hogs.

I’ll definitely be back to Hard Wood for more hog hunting, possibly a turkey and whitetail hunt as well. This property and environment is big enough and managed well enough to consistently produce a good population of all of those animals. Jan. and Feb. would be good months to consider for hogs and Southeast Oklahoma can be cold by my standards but you can also have mild winter weather as well.

I definitely felt welcome, met great folks, had wonderful accommodations, was given lots of hunting options, had great game encounters, bagged a great sow and put some pork in the freezer.

DNT’s ZULUS 4K Review

Let me start with the note that the ZULUS 4K was not built by DNT exclusively for the xbow community. IMO, the smaller size of the ZULUS V1/V2 and it’s all-in-one design is better suited for our xbows. The ZULUS 4K in contrast is built for hunters with the need for more magnification which is 3-24X vs the V1/V2s 3-12X or 5-20X. It also meets some state requirements of a clear delineation of Day and Night vision optics. The traditional “tube style” scope design also resonates with many big-game hunter’s rifle setup preferences as well. I have two close friends that are "dyed-in-the-wool" whitetail hunters that would not consider a ZULUS V1/V2 on their 30:06 rifles but the ZULUS 4K is 100% good. OK, I understand that too.

I do see the ZULUS 4K as an option for the xbow community as well. It certainly has the good bones of the ZULUS V1/V2 design and features and even being bigger, it’s very useable for most xbow hunting applications.

Notes from this past hunt

- The image improvement of the CMOS sensor change is nice and as you use magnification the image quality goes further. Pixel count is 2X that of the V1/V2 image. 3-6X magnification in daylight seems about the same to these old eyes but as you pass 6X you will see the improvement. I know we don’t NEED 10X but at 40 yards on a still hog but it’s very cool to zoom in for that precise shot. On my hunt here you will see me zoom in from 3X to 7.5X quickly and then back to 4.5X. I wanted to be sure I didn’t hit any of the standing brush these hogs were around.

- The location of the LRF trigger being in the button group, closest to you makes it very functional. Whether it’s being triggered by the left or right hand, it’s very near the front of the optic and easy to find.

- No question that the LRF’s placement was strategic. It’s forward on the scope and on top which makes the laser alignment on the scope’s centerline. Just remember that it is up top and when you hunt from a ground blind with minimized windows the upper window edge can become a laser blocker. Get setup and range several different objects at short to long ranges to verify LRF operation.

- The position of the LRF marker at 3X and even 6X mag. to 60 yards is really good. Minimal movement if any needed to get the marker on the target.

Real world examples

19 yard Reticle and LRF Marker image with 6X magnification.

26 yard Reticle and LRF Marker image with 3X magnification.

33 yard Reticle and LRF Marker image with 3X magnification.

51 yard Reticle and LRF Marker image with 7.5X magnification.

- The Reticle and LRF Marker color options are a nice addition.

Would I buy this for my use? Yes, I would. I hunt in a couple states that are border line with electro-optic, day/night optic inclusion for deer hunting. This on any one of my xbows would work fine. In my near future I may hunt with my .30-06 rifle and my suppressed 22LR varmint gun and it would be a good fit for either.

TenPoint’s Ultra 29.5 Crossbow Review

No new surprises from this trip. Good performance, no durability issues and very accurate. I used it in complete darkness in traditional ground blind sets, the hyper-small chair blind, and an elevated RedNeck shooting house. I had no issues reloading and recocking while seated in the tight space of that one-man chairblind. The system TenPoint has developed to do that is efficient and quiet. I added another 50 hours of cocked time. Shot it and demoed it so I added 20 or so shots which puts it at 360ish shots. The string serving is still fine but I do see more separation of the serving at the cam roll-over area of the quad cables. I do plan to swap them this coming week and may do the string at the same time. That’s an acceptable number of shots when you consider I also put 270 hours of cocked time on this xbow, 2 days in excess of 30 hours in sub-freezing temps. I don’t plan to repeat that this coming season.

I do see the changes made by TenPoint in this Ultra xbow as positive. The improved durability and reduced vibration from the 8mm cam axle change, the limb strength improvements, the arrow improvements (indexing, spine location, vane and snap-on nocks) are visible in this xbow.

I’m sure they are working on better things and changes for 2027. I hope they continue to “perfect” their xbows which IMO will keep them as leaders with their products.

2026 is going to be a good year and this trip to Hard Wood Outdoors was right on time. Thanks again to EP, his mom Susie and their family for their hospitality and a memorable trip.

Yes, the hunting therapy was good. I think I’ll make it through these last 2 months…