Slick Trick Raptor Trick
Equipment
Looking for experience with these heads. I’ve always been a fixed blade guy and love ST’s magnum and standard heads. Any experience to share with these expandable heads is appreciated.
Killed a caribou and two deer with them last year. And a deer this year so far. They been dependable, no damage to the ones I recovered. They are sharp with single bevial blades. . Penetration been good with decent entrance holes and big exits. I tend to shoot a heavier arrow. The only knock I see on them is the pinned blades make touching up a little bit of a challange after a kill. I hit it with small mill bastard fill and they take a good edge.
I killed the first whitetail ever taken with a raptor trick as I was "part of" the development... and I will say it would not be my first pick. Fundamentally there are a few design aspects of that style broadhead which I simply cannot stand behind. However I was not in charge of making those calls.... nor was I the lead engineer on it.
This head generally works well (lots of users have had great success with it), but it can also produce undesirable results TOO easily IMO.
Fact is you aren't always guaranteed a pass through on any animal - but you're guaranteed an entrance wound. Therefore a broadhead which is designed to open once its blades have passed through the hide and chest cavity wall generally produces a small entrance, which, when coupled with a non pass-thru, generally results in a poor bloodtrail. One could argue that Levi does just fine with Swhackers and the Raptor trick operates on the same principal, but that's not good enough in my book. The Raptor trick design presents the possibility of producing an entrance hole literally the size of a pencil with its unsharpened blade tabs..... think about that for a minute. There are some other design aspects which also don't sit well with me but since those are more personal preference I'll refrain from commenting further.
Hope that helps Native.... if I were you I'd stick with fixed blade ST heads! I'd shoot Vipers or Standards for the rest of my life and be fine with them :)
A good head to compare it to is the rocket steelhead. I used them for about 10 years on everything up to and including elk with great sucess. The raptor trick is of the same ilk.
Trial153 - A rocket steel head is designed to open on the outside of the hide/ chest cavity.... the raptor is not.
In my limited sample of steelhead kills, maybe 35ish, I seen very few if any full size entry wounds, they have all been partial but larger then the un deployed head. In my limited use of the raptor tricks, 4 animals, I haven't had a full size entry wound either, however they all been larger then the un deployed head.
