Former Rage Shooters ?
Whitetail Deer
For whitetail deer. I am really not interested in why mechanicals are bad; so please do not turn this into a debate about fixed blade shoulder penetration....
What I am interested in is, if you used to shoot a Rage head and switched away from it for an issue other than bone penetration, please share why. What precipitated this: I have been doing this for 35 years and shot a lot of heads along the way. I shot mechanicals for a brief period (like 4 years) in the late '90s. Have been an advocate of fixed blades for a while. Even shot a really good buck last year intentionally in the spine that i would not have attempted with a mechanical. All that said, I told a buddy I would try a Rage head this year on one deer. I did. I have to give it props. I was impressed. Here is my conclusion: On target shots are largely irrelevant for this discussion I would think. If you miss forward you likely are going to want a fixed. if you are more likely to miss rearward, my supposition is you are better off with a Rage or similar mechanical. I dunno. I don't want to get any of you strong willed idjits banned, so don't be mean to me. So if you used to shoot a Rage and do not any longer, why did you drop'em?
I agree with you. I have been shooting a cut on contact lately due to hitting too far forward sometimes with a mechanical. I have had great success with the cut on contacts. This season I shot a buck a little low and a little back. I did not find him. Blood trail fizzled out after 200 yards. I believe it was mostly a liver shot. I also believe I would have found him if I was shooting a big mechanical. Sometimes you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. There are pros and cons to each type of head.
Doe from this year
Doe from this year
I switched after a bad experience with a shoulder shot to a 4 blade slick trick. But after being unimpressed with the blood trails went back. Out of a dozen plus deer that's the only time I had a issue even though I tend to shoot tight to the shoulder. Besides the above mentioned time I've only had a rage fail to pass completely through one other time out of a dozen plus deer. I was trying the new collar less model and am convinced they don't penetrate as well. After that I switched back to the hypodermic with the collar. Have killed 3 this year and none ran more then 60 yards all with great blood trails. I still use my slick tricks for elk and hogs but the rages just work for me on deer.
I shot a few deer with the rage a while back and they mostly performed well. I didn’t like the penetration I was getting with my setup and ended up switching to a fixed blade head. Don’t have anything against them because they performed when I needed them to, but that was just my experience.
I’m a bit of a tech junky when it comes to archery equipment. Back in the early 90s, I switched to NAP spitfire. I killed plenty of deer with them. I hit the shoulder of a lifetime buck with a spitfire…no good at all with the reverse blade deployment. I shot a does quartering and seen the arrow lose a ton of momentum when the arrow kicked sideways. Then rear deployment mechanicals, made sense that they would penetrate better vs spitfire when quartering. So I shot Rage for 10 years. Started elk hunting in Colorado and they don’t allow mechanicals. Been shooting SS Viper Tricks for 10 years. If I’m going to tune a bow/broadheads for elk to 60 yards then why switch back to mechanical. I will say that I like the Rages entrance and exit holes. They are a good BH.
To me this really boils down to, if you tune your equipment properly, practice until it’s automatic and you are confident in yourself, take a proper, ethical (quartering position, distance, etc.) and accurate shot, you could kill a deer with any broadhead out there on the market. IMO most deer not recovered have nothing to do with the broadhead, it had to do with the other 100 decisions and variables (some wothin and some out of our control) in the adrenaline filled moment before the shot and the arrow was off target.
Rages are great. Asking the public’s opinion and calling them Idiots in same sentence well.. and their is a search button you will find all you need to know on rages .. have a good day
What bothered me about them was how easy they opened up when I would bump it into a branch.
"To me this really boils down to, if you tune your equipment properly, practice until it’s automatic and you are confident in yourself, take a proper, ethical (quartering position, distance, etc.) and accurate shot, you could kill a deer with any broadhead out there on the market."
Words every bow hunter should live by; well said my friend, very well said.
Had one bad experience on a doe. Broadside shot at 17 yards. Entry hole just behind the front leg. Exit behind the last rib on the off side. She hunched up as normal with a gut shot. I did the WTF because I could see where I hit her. Ended up finding her but definitely was a deflection. Not sure why so I can't truly blame the broadhead but it made me nervous about shooting them.
I prefer a Hybrid (fixed/mechanical) with forward deploy rather than rear deploy.
"and their is a search button" LOL it isn't working, has not worked in years.
"Started elk hunting in Colorado and they don’t allow mechanicals"
lol -- Wrong
I spent the money on iron wills this year but so far they have stayed in the quiver. I have had extremely good results using rages. And will probably continue to do so. On the small properties that I hunt, I don't wanna deal with deer running onto the next farm. And they usually don't with a rage in the right spot. Probably true of any decent broadhead but I like short blood trails and it's what I have confidence in.
Rages will put them down…
I have shot Rage but switched to SEVR a few years ago. I also love the slick trick standards. I shoot a 30 inch draw @75 lbs so I have more than enough KE for mech. A couple years ago I got my target buck with a SEVR and the entry wound was insane. The buck made it less than 10 yards and the blood trail was scary. I now use the 1.75 for western hunts and the 2 inch for whitetail.
I went with the SEVR because I couldn’t find the Slick Trick standards before the hunt started.
I moved away from them when they went to the NC version and removed the Trypan with collars. That head was devastating and the best I’ve used and I’ve used many fixed blades with success. The NC would open on the slightest contact with brush etc. I found some this year online and Rage recently created a collared version that is 1.75” which is plenty and I’ll shoot those after I run out of Trypans. Other than that I’ve never lost an animal with one save for a couple misses.
Nice to see you posting on here again, Eyad!
Got away from the rage after not getting an exit hole on three straight animals. Switched to evolution 4 blade jeckles. Problem solved they blow through ever deer- 8 in a row now, 5 mature bucks, and fly incredible in my setup to 75 yards. The rages deploying in my quiver was just plain annoying
I was a rage user killed some good deer with them but I had issues with exit plugging up and not leaving a good blood trail.I now use Schwacker 251 and have been very happy with them .
I've never shot Rage, but a buddy quit using them when he said they opened in flight. I honestly would like to try one, but I'm down to 50# bows so probably not a great choice for me. I'm sure I could kill with one as I have a 29.5" draw length so still get decent speed at 50#, but not sure I'd get two holes.
I’ve shot rages on and off for the last 10-15 years. I migrated away to a hybrid system (evolution Hyde and now the sevrs offering as well) for obvious reasons of no longer having to choose between fixed or mechanical. You can now have both. Wicked blood trails and peace of mind if the blades “fail” you still have your small cut on contact head.
I got annoyed with the blades deploying on stalks from bumping brush with the rages. That was my only complaint about them
I’d still be shooting them if they didn’t deploy in my quiver.
I used to use them and always had short, bloody trails with a dead deer at the end. I stopped using them because I had a few open in the quiver and I lost my faith in them. Back to Magnus Stinger fixed blades.
My family and I went to Slick Tricks to get better penetration for our Western hunts that include bigger animals and sometimes longer shots. A tradeoff might be that bloodtrails could be better at times depending on where hit with the Slick Tricks.
Very happy with the G5 T2. All stainless ferrule and a great blade locking system. I've only taken a couple of deer with them so far but will be using again in the future. All the G5 broadheads have been the sharpest out of the box I've found so far. Very high quality. Love the Deadmeat and Megameat as well.
If your not using a mech on whitetail sized game your not using the correct tool for the job IMO, unless your shooting a low poundage bow of course.. I've had 100 percent success with snyper's, pre rage head, they've never failed my, I've got around 50 kills with them.
I have 90-100 big game kills and 100% have been killed with fixed heads. Also about 50 turkeys, 100% fixed. I’ve used a variety of heads including Muzzy MX4, Slick Trick Magnum, Exodous, Magnus Stingers and Serazors. The past six years, I’ve used Iron Will exclusively. I’ve killed elk, brown bear, black bear, aoudad, Alaskan wolf, and many whitetails with them. Of all of these Exodous kills, only the bears and wolf did not fall in sight, because I was hunting them in very thick cover. They ran 50-60 yards after being shot. I’ve been in two elk camps where the guides strongly suggested that hunters not use mechanicals. One camp was my good hunting buddy. He was convinced to put his Rages away. He borrowed some of my Iron Wills, and he made a kill on a great bull. He’s been converted to fixed heads. I’m not berating those that use mechanicals, but my experience with fixed heads is what causes me to use them and not use mechanicals.
I have killed a ton of animals with a ton of different broadheads. I am a believer that unless you have firsthand knowledge of a broadhead and how it will perform, one should not comment on the pros or cons of them. I like to try out new broadheads and wouldn't be surprised if I have killed animals using over 20 different types. Every style of broadhead has a pro and a con.
You are going to get the most penetration with a cut on contact fixed head, no doubt about it. The downside to the COC heads is they are normally a smaller diameter head. The blood trails also seem to be inconsistent with some being great and others being nonexistent.
Mechanical heads are normally going to give you a gigantic hole which is great, but you can also lose some penetration. Depending on the head, I have found the blood trails can vary greatly. For example, the sevr and the rage are more or less the same design (some differences) but both are rear deploying broad heads. For whatever reason, I did not get blood blood trails with a serv where Rage blood trails are scary sometimes with how much blood is spraying.
What head I choose to use depends on the size of the animal. For moose, elk, bison sized animals, I now use a Slick trick. They fly great, give a good blood trail and are dependable, plus great penetration. For smaller game such as deer, bear, antelope, I keep coming back to a collared Rage Hypodermic. After dozens and dozens of animals taken with them, the blood trails are always dependable and the holes are massive. I would also bet the average distance traveled for the deer I shoot with them are 40-45 yards.
I've been shooting rage heads from when they first came out.
A lot of users were saying they would open in flight - not sure how they could see that without a slow motion camera?
I've taken 6 elk and a LOT of white tails with the rage.
The only animal i didn't recover was an elk, which was my fault. I hit the shoulder bone dead center and obviously didn't get any penetration.
One other time I shot a cow that was broadside at 15 yards. She went 25 yards and tipped over. When I gutted her I was shocked to see that the entrance was in the crease but the exit was behind the last rib. I hit a rib going in which deflected the arrow.
This in no way answers the op question, but Cody just made this short to kinda troll one of his professors that shot a deer in the backstraps with a Rage and is of course blaming the broadhead....
We both shoot 72 pounds, 460 grain arrows and on deer size , thin skin animal, antelope, bear, caribou ect I can't imagine why you would want a one inch hole vs a 2 inch hole. Elk, moose, hogs and other more solid type animals we shoot fixed.
Ive never had one open in flight and don't believe the stories of guys claiming they don't open in an animal......flame on
He had me until he said "Rage sponsored me." I like fixed blade COC broadheads. I have uesed Rage 2 and 3 blade models, maybe 8 years ago on whitetail in Michigan. The results were impressive. I just prefer a solid broadhead, and a nonmoving rest, WB rest.
Slick trick worked fine for me this year.
After losing a few deer and a couple of turkeys with expandables, I won't use them.
One of the problems not discussed enough is that they can and will open if they touch anything besides the animal, thus throwing the shot off.
With respect to whitetails, I changed from Rage(1.5 inch +P) to SEVR because I had too many instances where the Rage blades broke off at some stage when they were in the animal that led to decreased wound channels. I have not seen that with SEVR yet. I also had one not deploy on a doe and I lost her. This was on the older collared design.
This popped up on my feed today..
I have used many different heads including Rage. I like to try new ones all the time. Usually the first thing I do is test spin and how it flies at distance. If that passes it goes in the quiver depending on the hunt.
I have used the original hypodermics w/collar with great success. The only reason I have moved on from it is I personally prefer not to use a collar, o ring or band. The problem was I would always lose them, or they would be a year old etc.
I’ve heard questionable things about the Rage No-Collar….. I have a few but have not shot an animal.
My current preference for a mechanical is Grim Reaper model depending on animal. I do like bigger blood trails and better flight at longer distances.
Once I started using them I haven’t stopped. Tried Sevr a few times recently (because of the toughness and accuracy) and also had good results. A little less blood but small sample size. Killed my biggest whitetail (rack and body) after going through the main front leg bone so the toughness sure lived up to hype. Wondering if maybe they aren’t as sharp as Rage and maybe that’s why the common theme of not having as much blood. But likely go back to Rage again soon.
APauls the testing of the SEVR Hybrid on Lusk Archery showed it to be the sharpest head he tested and scored the highest.
The lusk reviews are interesting but he comes off as a shill for Sevr. If they released a mechanical butter knife he’d love it. Like most things on the web, he’s best taken with a grain of salt.
Craig
I've got a couple packs of trypan I bought on sale, they definitely ain't sharp, the SEVR's are sharper, I have the new hybrid and the 1.75, both are sharper than the rage
Here is the wound from the fixed blade Slick Trick. Broke rib, punched right through both sides, lungs and heart didn't go 50 yards.
APaul which model SEVR are you using?
I have never lost an animal with a Sevr or a Rage but I prefer the Rage. If I am going to shoot a mechanical I want to at least get blood trails like a mechanical. With Sevrs my best bloodtrails were average at best. I think the pivoting blades are an overall negative. That is just me though....
I have killed close to 2 dozen deer with a sevr, both the 1.5's and the 2.0's and blood trails were average at best and some nonexistent at all. Almost all of the deer were down within sight so it didn't really matter but there was a very noticeable absence of a blood trail. I switched back to the Rage Hypodermics with a collar and the animals kept going down in the same 40-50 yards but the blood trails were massive. I do not know what causes the lack of a blood trail with the sevr.
Non pass through on whitetail doe.
Non pass through on whitetail doe.
Used rage for couple years and had good results, some bent blades but no failures or anything weird occurring.
I’ve used Sevr 2.0 the last few years. Some experiences were great, quick kills, decent blood but also couple weird things, along with a few tips curling over, which until this year I assumed was hitting something hard after pass throughs. Had an astonishing long blood trail on a double lunged buck 2 years ago, over 350 yards with a hit just a touch back from the middle of the lungs.
This year hit a doe square in lower shoulder bone. She ran 50 yards and fell over. Non pass through. This is the broadhead. Not sure if it’s a fluke or what, but have other tips curl as well but those were all pass throughs so I always thought it hit a rock in ground or something.
Looking at going back to rage, or maybe something else, but haven’t decided.
Peco2, I think the kid was asking Rage to sponsor him, not that they do sponsor him.
On the picture of the rage stuck in the spine. That just don't look like a one-year-old wound. There's always some kind growth or something around it after a year.
I will say the Rage Black are scary sharp and I've loved their performance. I'm a Rage fan, but wasn't at the beginning beuxae my equipment wasn't correct for their application. With the right set up they are awesome! I had horrible customer service with Sevr, so will be hard for me to want to use them again.
Teeton, I think you are right, thanks.
The sevr is not as strong as in John lusk tests, im not sure if they send him better, stronger and sharper ones? I've only use 2, both did ok, one was a 1.75 and the other was a hybrid, both where damaged bad enough you couldn't use them again. That said the 1.75 hit both front leg bones and took a chunk of bone out of each, I was impressed that it did not deflect the arrow inside the animal. The hybrid hit ribs and bent the fixed blade.
They have worked awesome for me for years... But every few years I just want to try something different. So I've shot Grimm Reaper WT Specials, other Rages, and this year have tried the G5 T2.
There are just so many good heads, it's fun to explore sometimes.
On the crush utube channel Lee test the sharpness as he said they have changed the way they sharpen them. I killed my first deer with a mechanical this year using a G5 deadmeat,I had 2 holes a dead deer in 20 yards.I have alway shot slick tricks or thunder heads but for deer I think I will shoot these for awhile.
