I love playing with archery as my primary, but I an constantly irritated by how ineffective the bow bash is at staggering enemies in close quarters, even when enhanced with block perks. Crossbows any better?

I don't think so. I think while bow bash is faster the crossbow bash has more damage

I actually found that the crossbow bash did a bit more knock back, I think than a regular bow bash. Usually when I bow bash, the enemies just jump backwards, but with I crossbow bash, they tend to take a knee or stumble backwards, this is enhanced, I believe with block perks, though.

Does it seem to do it more often? I was only able to get bandits to stagger, I would be curious if it would effect more enemy types (other than just humanoid). Does it make a combat oriented non-stealth archer more viable in your opinion?

I feel as through the cross bow bash is FAR more effective than the bow... I'll shoot a bandit once and then finish them off with 1-2 bashes. This is by no means scientific, but I would say it's at least 10x better

This part makes no sense to me. A crossbow is made of wood and I am pretty sure that if I hit someone over the head with that it'd hurt them at least a little bit.

I found the crossbow's bash to be very useful. Also it looks infinitely cooler (if that counts for anything)

As for a stagger effect, I found enemies staggered around 50% of the time.

IMO I think it's because when you're bashing the way that the 'hit' is acted out looks like basically your fist holding the bow hits your opponent. Additionally, if you did hit someone to either side of the fist but still with the bow, that would not be effective -- the bow would just move as opposed to cause damage. The crossbow, however, has a steel part at the front and the 'hit' a swooping motion forward -- I see this offering MUCH better contact/damage.

Wow, so it looks better AND is more effective? Anyone else notice a difference between the two?

Cool factor ALWAYS matters! Were all your staggers on humanoid opponents?

Crossbow shoots and reloads faster, from what I can tell.

From what I have read the Improved Dwarven Crossbow is pretty fast to reload. Anyone else experimented with crossbow bashing?