annika3

You might be right but is that Rage's fault that they are selling so wellor smart business.

Hoytail Hunter

I need to clarify something that I failed miserably to do with the original post. I regret the failure because due to it, most of the focus was on a less important issue and now this thing will never regain it's intended track.This is a situation where what I exactly wrote and what I exactly meant were slightly different things.

First of all, I have 2 hunting buddies that use the Rage. Both bad reports. On top of that, I've read a few complaints on here and elsewhere about the Rage. No, that does not speak for the sum of every person's experience with this BH. Yes, all BH's can fail even in perfect situations that nothing short of ballistics/penetration expertise can answer.

That being said, what I was really trying to say was that "pound for pound" if you could make the saying apply, Rage is not designed for optimal penetration thus cannot out penetrate the Grim Reaper. The 4 observations I cited support that this is what I was mainly trying to get at. In fact, it doesn't even have to be only about Grim Reaper -vs- Rage. I thinkmost if not manyheads will penetrate better than the Rage given all things being equal (meaning poundage, BH and arrow weight, as well as cutting surface).

Take for example the muzzy 4 blade. If you add up total cutting surface, there's probably at least 2 1/2 inches yet there are hardly ever any penetration complaints with the muzzy. Why is this? I think it's because of the sleek gradual tapered design. It's not big, bulky, and awkwardly shaped like the Rage (imo).


I think nodog has correctly wrapped his head around what I'm getting at. And that's all I'm really trying to do here. I'm willing to bet that if you showthe Rage'sdesign to a ballistics/penetration specialist, he'll be able to tell you why it's not an optimal penetrating head.

Rage -vs- Muzzy or Grim Reaper is I think, similar to the aerodynamics on an SUV -vs- asports car.

MOhunter46

Sorry this is kinda off topic but how are the bladeslocked when they are not deployed?

PABuck_HNTR

Cougar....I couldn't agree more withyou statement. The RAGE was well marketed and people are just conditioned to defend the products they spend money on. I'm guilty of it as we all are.

I just never became a big part of this Rage.....Rage or Craze[&:]


Rubber o-ring

Hoytail Hunter

Let me see if I can sway your opinion then.

Let me ask you, can you visualize a smooth shank nail -vs- a barbed shank nail? Which do you think will hold tighter once driven into wood? Obviously the barbed shank because the barbs hold better right? Well, the backside of the "cut-out" acts on a similar principle providing drag as it penetrates.

Your slick tricks do have a design flaw imo. All BH's that have cut-outs in the blades do. Those cut-outs are really just dragging barbs.It's a simple and obvious principle. The reason why the vast majority of BH companies do it imo is to save money on materials as well as production. A solid continuous blade will always cut with less drag than one with cut-outs. That though, is still probably second to a smooth tapered shank.

Expounding on that principle, the blade with the most slicing power would come from the thinnest and slimmest blade that could still maintain structural integrity.

Matt / PA

The reason they do it is to save weight and achieve the cutting diameters they want with the blade thickness they desire.
To use a full surface blade and maintain the weight needed to achieve the standard 100grs or 125grs etc and squeeze them out to the cutting diameters they use they need to remove some of the material, otherwise they would have to thin the blades out uniformly and thus reduce their integrity.

I still am not convinced that a Grim Reaper head on game will outpenetrate any other head of that style but that's just me and comes from years of shooting jackknife style mechanicals. They simply open differently than the newer rearward style heads and on game, especially when you hit ribs, or other light bone such as the thin area on the shoulder paddle the blades do not deploy smoothly and evenly. They jam and bite because enough penetration is not achived to fully deploy them before the head encounters the bone.The penetration ability of the heads is therefore inhibited almost immediately.
This is where you will get your "bullethole" style entry wounds. The blades didn't encounter uniform soft tissue, hide and hair to allow the blades to sweep open quickly , evenly and smoothly.
That's why shooting ballistic gellatin in a broadhead test means exactly crapola.
There were times where I would have 1 shot give me a gaping entry wound, and the next asmallish entry hole from the same head in what appeared to be the same location on 2 animals but the difference would be hitting a rib on center vs bewteen them.

The issue with Rage heads and any potential penetration issues has to come from 2 things (The ferrule design isn't one of them.......holes open up wider than the ferrule almost immediately.) The penetration is limited by the width of that cut and that alone IMO. You can't argue that a 3 blade with a smaller cutting diameter has more cutting surface because it's punching a hole in a more concentrated area.........a 2" cut single slice wound channel doesn't benefit from this.

You have 2" wide blades that open IMMEDIATELY and they must be pushed through ribs bone immediately as well unless the blade angle and luck finds them actually sliding between the bones without contact. It also takes a well tuned bow keeping the momentum going tip to nock in a straight line and a little extra snot in the KE department if you want consistent and true passthrus.

Trust me, I'm not some fly by night guessing at this stuff mechanical shooter. I've been using mechanical broadheads almost exclusively since 1996 and have been EXTREMELY successful with them because I understand them, uderstand good designs amd understand what types of set-ups will compliment them.
I have taken probably 30+ animals with mechanical heads and have never lost a single one in that time or saw anything that even remotely resembled a broadhead failure.
I have taken deer with:
Rocket Miniblaster
Rocket Sidewinder 3 and 4 blade
Rocket Hammerhead 4blade
Rocket "Slammerhead" (before it was even a marketed head I was building this one on my own)
WASP Jakhammer
NAP Spitfire 2 and 3 blade
NAP Scorpion
Rocky Mt. Snyper 2 AND 3 blade
Rocky Mt. Gator XP
Rage 2 blade

I know mechanicals and I can tell you with certainty booth styles should work fine but they work differently, and both require some extra energy and momentum if you want them sticking in the dirt.
Keep your bow well tuned, and keep em where they are supposed to be.
I am so tired of people condeming a head and the first word out of their mouths in their rant is "Shoulder".

IMO the Rage is not marketing hype, it's a very good performing head and it'd designed to inflict as much lateral damage as possible to soft tissue in conjunction with very large entry wounds. Win-win
Stay off the large bones where NO head is gonna shine and be smart about your decision to use them.

I can use any broadhead I feel like, I have no affiliations with any company whatsoever and my quiver will be full of Rage heads this season.I didn't fall for any marketing HYPE. I used my head understood why and how they should work and see them as an advantage on game.
But they aren't a magic bullet and not one size fits all.

TFOX

Matt,just one little item,on a bone hit,the blades do not open up a hole bigger than the ferrule so penetration will suffer on a solid bone hit more with the rage than a head with a smaller ferrule,BUT on hard solid bone hits,most will have severe penetration problems unless they are pushing enough that they don't need to worry about it anyway.So here I agree,keep it out of the bone and there will be no issues.

I also have been using mechanicals for a while and I am only shooting 58#'s and 28" 28 1/2" draw length and have no penetration issues with the rockets or the rage heads.

I pretty much agree with everything you said,except that one little issue.

MeanV2

Matt, my experience with mechanicals is as much and variedas yours if not more. I'm glad they work great for you, but I know you are very particular with your equipment and setup. Most on this board probably are. The sad truth is a lot of Bowhunters are not. While you may not be a victim of any marketing hype that does not mean countless have not been. I have a friend that would screw anything on the end of his arrow to kill deer withas long asa certain Celeb hunterdid. Many others are the same, and many were the victim of marketing, but that's what marketing is all about.They did an A+ job. NowI have seen junk broadheads in my day, but we are lucky today and most heads I am familar withare good quality broadheads that will get the job done. If you chose to use mechanicals you need to be shooting more than enough KE to get the job done, and realize the limits of your equipment and limit your shots in accordance. Last failure I was a witness to was a 3 bladed expandable shot right through both lungs. The friend who shot him and I tracked him well over 200 yards and I do mean tracked him. long process and when I thought we were not going to find him we did. After field dressing and examining him it was obvious only one blade had deployed. We neither could see any reason this should have happened. This was an expandable that I had always thought was one of the best. There was No Bigger mechanical addict than I was a few years ago, believe me. After seeing a few, and there only were a few of these type scenarios I gave them up. Maybe these new generation of mechanicals are incapable of failure? I hope so!! I have not used a mechanical on anything bigger than a Turkey since 03.

I honestly can't see why I need to take that risk. I love gadgets and the Mini Blaster 4L was one of my favorites. I loved knocking those huge 4 blade 1 3/4" holes through them, but I won't take any kind of risk. I still have yet to see anything Mechanical whether it's a broadhead or not that does not have an occasional failure. I know as close as Murphy stays to me....................well you know. I can buy lots of Broadheads at dealer cost and can shoot pretty muchany head I want. There are a lot of broadheads I would walk into the woods with and not think twice about whether that head would do it's job or not. I do prefer fixed blades.

Now does Scent Blocker really work? Light arrows or heavy arrows? We each have our preferencesJust because mine is not the same as yours does not make either of us wrong or right

Dan

NEW61375

I love thes pics: Tough broad heads, I don't really want to hit a bone that solid but they held up(not my pics, tehy are from their site). The Grim Reaperi shot in my buck a couple seasns backheld up well even after breaking the back bone. EDIT: Sorry about the size, I don't know what happened.

TFOX

I have had fixed blade heads fail,it happens,especially on bone hits.

When I found the the arrow,the head was twisted like a spin wing vane.I never found the deer but I believe I caught the back edge of the shoulder blade and it twisted and stopped,then fell out 20 yards down the trail.When I made the hit,I thought it was perfect but after seing the head,realized it couldn't have been and that is the only logical explanation.

My point is,there will be failures,regardless of what you use,and for the record,the head was a Thunderhead.