5 shot

Rocket sidewinder with pathfinder point/Cabelas lazer strike
Accuracy: 5 points
Plywood: 4 points
Orange: 3 points
Steel drum 3 points
Blades 3 points
Cutting diameter: 4 points
Total score 22 with a blade sharpness rating of C
The Rocket sidewinder/Cabelas Lazer strike is rockets midsize mechanical. It is a 3 blade swing open type broadhead with a 1 ½” cutting diameter. I found the accuracy of the sidewinder to be excellent, grouping and flying just like my field points. In the Orange test the head fully opened by the time it had exited the far side. In the plywood the head penetrated completely, but most of two blades were completely broken off. The third blade looked fine. In the steel drum the head penetrated the first side, but all three blades sheared off most of the cutting surface and the entrance hole showed the head lost the blades before fully penetrating the drum. All and all though this broadhead preformed better than the first ones I tested. The blades still need to be sharper though. As far as the performance in the test materials goes I have mixed feelings. While they did seem to penetrate well, they did so at the expense of loosing or breaking blades and this reduces the amount of tissue damage. Of course by loosing or breaking blades the head could potentially make it into the vital area of a deer where it would not if the blades remained fully intact.
Bottom line the Rocket sidewinder/Cabelas lazer strike is an excellent mechanical broadhead as long as you can live with the way the blades react under heavy impacts. I personally would have no problems at all using these heads on deer size game with my setup.
For those who want to know how I can be so sure that these two heads are the same, I compared them and found NO difference, that and the fact that the little wrench that came with the Cableas heads had Rocket written on the side. If your going to shoot them, save some money and order the Cableas version you will save about 5 dollars per pack, besides I think the silver finish just plain looks better.

HANKFAN

Thanks for the info 5 shot. My last 9 bucks were harvested with Rocket Sidewinders. All 9 shots were complete pass thoughs and no blades were broken. I hit one deer dead in the shoulder bone and it passed completely through however the bades did bend back slightly but the blades did not break. These are excellent whitetail broadheads in my opinion.

5 shot

I agree they did very well and for the moeny it' s hard to beat. The good news is since they come from cabelas, you can try them out. If you don' t like them, send them back for a full refund. I was impressed overall though.

btomlin

5 shot...

What do you consider a high, med, and low score for mech and fixed heads for your tests?

Thanks

5 shot

It' s kind of hard to say becuase the " score" doesn' t tell the whole storey. My tests are setup to test penetration and strength. A general guide line though would be heads that score 24 or higher are excellent, heads between 21 and 23 are good and under 21 why bother. This is for fixed blade heads, although many mechanicals make it that high. A good score for most mechanicals would be over 20 and a couple have gone as high as 26.