Raptortrick failures
Hogs
Just wanted to see if anyone else has had the poor performance with expansion and penetration that I have experienced with these broad heads?
I’m curious what issues you had?
Shot two Javelina and a Bobcat and there was just a field point type of hole on the way in on all of them. On the bobcat and one of the Javelina There was no exit. The other Javelina that had an exit the broadhead barely penetrated the fat hide and had severely bent blades. One of these animals weighed more then 45 lbs. I mean how hard is it to get a pass thru on a Bobcat. At this point there is no way I can trust them on a 200 lb deer.
Sounds like he had a problem with expansion and penetration… LOL
No it would be interesting to hear if he had both problems in a single instance or if it’s one sometimes and sometimes the other. I would probably expect the latter, but then if you were to have opening on one side and not the other, that would certainly throw a wrench into things…
Not that I will ever be a proponent of a mechanical, but on that cat it would appear that your hit bone. And I would wager that you hit it hard enough to snap the little bugger’s neck. On a lightweight animal which has suddenly lost all muscle tone, there’s a very good chance that the impact would knock him down, transferring the kinetic energy to the cat rather than putting it to work sending the arrow all the way through. It’s like when you hit a squirrel with a rubber blunt and all you do is knock him out of the tree without much apparent damage.
So again,… I will never be a fan but I’m not convinced that the result would necessarily have been any different with a fixed blade head... especially not one of the short, wide versions that you compound guys seem to favor.
The iavelinas, I don’t know about...
Light animals tend to get moved by BH impact, especially when something heavy/hard to penetrate is hit. I've run into this with javelina and turkey. Thinking they should penetrate better on light animals than heavy is a just a misunderstanding of the physics of it.
Makes sense to me!
But I’m still curious about what kind of problems the OP was having…
A non-issue with ViperTricks.
The main cause for concern for me was the lack of a entrance wound of any size at all. I mean it was like a pencil size hole on every animal. No sign of expansion. My buddy’s rage had a three inch plus entrance and exit wound on his Javelina.
Other than the bent blades, it sounds like the heads performed as designed. The deployment mechanism is different than with a Rage, so you are comparing apples to oranges in terms of entrance wound. The benefit of having a small entrance should be a better chance at getting an exit, which IMO is more likely on heavier game.
So your saying they are designed to not open on expansion. I guess that would make sense then.
It has been my experience that over the top expandibles won't leave a full size entrance. The Rocket Steelheads I used left about a 3/4" entrance hole and a full size exit hole. Are Raptortricks over the top?
Switched to swhacker’s for this big guy and had great expansion on impact. Almost full pass thru and good blood trail.
"So your saying they are designed to not open on expansion. I guess that would make sense then."
Yes. Like the Shwackers, deployment occurs then the blade kickouts meet resistance. At that point, the tip of the main blade is already inside the animal.
I guess I’m confused now because Matt’s description of the Schwacker doesn’t seem to match up with back tension’s description of “great expansion on impact“.
There’s a reason that people don’t hunt big game with those decapitator heads that they make for turkeys, but when you use a head that makes a 2” wide entrance wound, I’m not sure what’s the difference?
what matt is saying is that the blades deploy after the broadhead is in the animal leaving a smaller entrance hole. swhackers operate the same way The slip cam blades of the rage slide back and open up upon impact thus creating a bigger entrance wound.
Yeah, I get the how, but not the why...
If I wanted an expanding head, I wouldn’t want it to deploy ‘til the points of the blades were inside the ribcage...
Slick Trick had and still has some of the best COC style BH’s on the market. Their ST regular is a ‘57 Chevy.
I truly believe that their mechanical BH was a forced “kool-aid” made product to attempt to get their share of the mechanical BH market. The poor product may hurt their overall image.
Wac’em also drank the mechanical kool-aid. Originals were awesome COC BH’s. Deadly sharp out of the wrapper.
I’m a Slick Trick fan from way back. When I saw they were making an expandable I was all in because they have put out nothing short of amazing from the get go. These just don't seem to measure up. I feel if I was shooting one of my standard coc heads I would have had pass throughs on all three of those animals and would have nearly decapitated that cat. The Javelina were 16 yards and 30 yards. The cat was at 30 or maybe a little less.
I’m a Slick Trick fan from way back. When I saw they were making an expandable I was all in because they have put out nothing short of amazing from the get go. These just don't seem to measure up. I feel if I was shooting one of my standard coc heads I would have had pass throughs on all three of those animals and would have nearly decapitated that cat. The Javelina were 16 yards and 30 yards. The cat was at 30 or maybe a little less.
