10-4 Sorry for you bad experience with the Rage. I wish you the best this season with what ever you choose to shoot. Hopefully I want eat crow this season as I go for kill #4 with a Rage through the cage If you guy's have any good 2 blade rage broadheads left shot me a PM. I will take them off your hands.

I got educated before all the Rage. Killed 11 deer with spitfires, all pass thru, number 12 no pass thru and would have been my best buck ever. Only missed the right spot by an inch or so, a non expandable fixed blade and he'd been on my Wall and maybe in the book.

I had plenty of KE, I like fast bows and somewhat heavy arrows. I don' t think they make them any more but those AFC with the muzzy 4 blade glue on, one could shoot thru cinder blocks with em and keep shooting.

I shoot the Rage 2 blades. Got 3 deer last year with ALL pass thrus. As a matter of fact they weren't even checking up on the way thru.

To each his own. I shoot what I'M comfortable with, I think you should do the same.

I just hope and pray that this doesn't happen to you guys shooting the Rage when it matters:

http://midwestwhitetail.com/gallery/16/media/332/mw34-post-season-blues.html

I bet if Randy Ulmer was a hunter, he darn sure wouldn't use them after this fiasco. That "mechanical" malfunction they talk about was the Rage opening in flight, but obviously they're not gonna say that given the event was sponsored by Rage.

Jughead you have to be kidding right??? Did you see how many times that one guy shot the same five arrows. Do you really think they put on new broadheads or orings after every shot. I don't think so. This way I shoot rage....there is no fixed head on the market that will cut a hole this big. And by the way this is on nothern MO buck. As stated above....each to his on!!! Also when it counts this is what the results could look like.

Man, you don't have to justify ANYTHING to me. I hope that every time you release one of them, the result is EXACTLY the same as pictured!

I'm just the type that will not walk into the woods and introduce a new POTENTIAL variable into the equation on purpose. There are plenty of other things that can go wrong in the process, without adding an equipment malfunction POSSIBILITY. There have been way too many testimonies on archerytalk of guys having them open up in flight and/or while they're riding in the quiver. The tolerances only have to be off ever so slightly for it to become likely. It would be my luck that I would get the one out of some huge number that would screw up and you can bet your arse it would be on the biggest buck I've ever drawn on. I'm always wondering what's gonna happen next to cost me another wall hanger.

10-4 Jughead.....good luck this season. I'm done with the thread. To each his on for whatever reason they may have. :p I do understand everyones point of veiws and some are vaild.

Mike, you've often said you have your bows set up for hunting midwest deer.Just what exactly does that encompass ? I mean really ,you max out your draw weight and thats it. You might use a heavy arrow,but there is nothing special you can do to a bow. Just curious what R U talking about ? There are no special strings , silencers
or anything else made just for MIDWESTERN deer.

My bow and equipment is set up to hunt big midwest deer. What I mean by that statement is...I'm shooting a fast bow with a heavy arrow that produces KE. If you want good penetration on a northern deer you better be packing a punch. Most guy's have their bows set up for speed and over look the KE. Which means they shoot light arrows and small broadheads. That set up does not produce enough KE on margianl shots when hunting big deer. Just a little something I learned many moons ago when I had a guy from the midwest set my bow up. Larry.....you know I've hunted enough big midwest deer over the last 12 years that I know what the heck I'm talking about. I have only lost one deer while hunting the midwest and Phil found him later that gun season. Yes, it was the big one I shot while you were hunting Pike with me.

If either one of those guys knew a THING about physics, aero and hydrodynamics, those would be good articles. :rolleyes:

Mike, you've reached a great conclusion by going with heavier arrows, but it isn't kinetic energy that makes it a good conclusion. Your kinetic energy with a 350 grain arrow out of that same bow would be only very slightly different. You've increased your momentum by adding the arrow weight which provides POTENTIAL for greater penetration. Problem is, you've negated much of that penetration potential by putting that Rage up front. A guy with a bow just like yours with a 350 grain arrow and the right broadhead design will have better penetration overall than you have. It's all about the resistance force over time. Your setup is FAR better than shooting a Rage with a light arrow though. You've certainly made the right arrow choice for shooting your chosen broadhead.

And one last thing... , that was not a 250 grain arrow. The "250" that you heard was the spine designation that Carbon Express assigns to that shaft. With a 100 grain broadhead, that arrow weighed in at a minimum of 350 grains considering a 28" shaft.

I'd rather have a 2" cut of soft tissue from proximal to distal of 75% penetration through a deer's vitals than a 1 &1/8" cut of the same tissue except with a pass-through.

Your blood trail of the pass-thru (fixed) will be better but the devastation of hemorrhaging, tissue damage, etc... of the additional 7/8" cut of the Rage even without pass-thru would seem to trump the 1 & 1/8 fixed broadhead and the damage it does.

I wish I could shoot a Rage from 0-25 yds and the ST 25 yds and out. I'm shooting a 359 gr arrow and 298 fps which provides me with 71 lbs of KE. Well above the 42-65 KE for large game but I know my 359 gr arrow loses KE more rapidly than a heavier arrow.

I would feel better with a heavier arrow and the same speed but I don't want to give up my flat trajectory.

Nonetheless, the ST is one heck of a broadhead!! I like'em! I just like the Rage 2 blade more.

That is a typical novice statement. Rage and other manufactures of substandard broadheads prey on inexperienced bow hunters and often use graphic photos of impressive 2" cuts.

None of that means squat without a pass-thru and you will eventually learn that lesson.

It took me a long time, too. I am a slow learner, actually just mule-headed stubborn, but I learned it. I had to lose a whole bunch of deer, but I learned it.

Outback is right. You lose a lot of deer without a pass though.

Yeah, I agree with the desire for pass-thrus . I certainly like them for obvious reasons.

However, I stand by the obvious that a 2" cut will cause more tissue damage and hemorrhaging than say, a 1&1/8" cut.

The same is probably exaggerated in a gut shot and septic shock/poisoning.

Many Rage users watch their deer drop in sight.

At what point would most bow hunters say that "non pass-thrus" would be more acceptable if you could get a 75%-80% penetration without pass-thru BUT with a 3", 4" or maybe a 5" cut?

If you're at a bar in downtown B'ham and you get stabbed in the chest with a big knife, the knife probably won't "pass-thru" the opposite side of entrance but I would suggest that you'd drop pretty soon from the massive internal hemorrhaging!

The ethic goal of EVERY Bowhunter is a quick kill. This is most often achieved by a well aimed shot in a vital zone that the arrow passes completely thru. The damaged vital bleeds freely and blood pours our the exit wound leaving a good blood trail for recovery.
It is not to have a wounded deer running around with an extremely large braodhead cutting its insides up when it moves.With no exit wound blood will clot and slow the bleeding,leaving a wounded animal and no blood trail. We that have hunted the whitetail know it can run a mile with its heart shattered from a rifle bullet. For me its nothing more that a search or desire for a more efficient way to kill a deer. I have hunted with mechanicals , I have killed and lost deer with them. I haven't lost any(YET) with fixed heads. To each its own, but for me a fixed cut on contact fills that need best for me.

There is not a point where I would ever make that tradeoff. A broadhead that doesn't give me a pass-thru is unacceptable.

Perchjerker, an "exit wound" has nothing to do with how quickly an animal expires! Depending on how low your exit wound is on the deer's body and where you hit the deer determines the blood trail and (where you hit the deer) how fast the deer dies.

BTW, most all mechanical no longer "cut" when forward progress is haulted and I don't recall anyone suggesting such.

Loss of blood and blood pressure caused the deer to die.

Using your argument, there would be no need or desire for mushrooming bullets or hollow-point ammunition. I've shot deer with a rifle without a pass-thru and it's the massive tissue damage done by the bullet's controlled expansion that kills them.

So what you're telling me is that you'd want a 150 gr bullet without controlled expansion so the bullet would pass through the animal (so you'd have a blood trail) as opposed to a mushrooming bullet that results in a significant amount of tissue damage w/o pass-thru?

The Rage is the same. Yes, you have better blood trails with pass-thrus but there is a big difference in non-pass-thrus with fixed heads and non-pass-thrus with a Rage.

The really important aspect in all of this is sharpness of blades! Why do razor cuts continue to bleed? It's b/c the cut is so clean that platelets can't adhere and clot so therefore, bleeding is rampant!

Medical science would dictate that a larger, sharper cutting surface will cause more hemorrhaging than a smaller same!!! Pass-thrus makes it easier to find your deer that will run further but a larger cutting surface will cause a faster loss of blood pressure thus a faster kill.

Now, with that said, I realize that a 3" or 4" cutting surface is unrealistic given the KE of a bow. A 2" pushes the envelope and to be honest, I'd rather have a 1.75" cutting surface and increase my chance of a pass-thru.

You can not compare a Rage non-pass-thru with a fixed head non-pass-thru. There is a BIG difference in tissue damage and hemorrhaging b/w the two heads.

I'll admit this...>30 yds, I'd rather have a GrizzTrick. Under that range, give me a Rage.

I know for a fact that Dr. Warren Strictland, a Huntsville cardiologist, hunts with expandable heads and he explained to me why he shoots a mechanical head. It all comes down to tissue damage and blood loss!!!!! That's what my medical training dictates to me as well.

Bucktrot,we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.You apparently think that a razor edge lodged in a muscle or organ ceases to cut every time that muscle moves or contracts. I disagree.
The only point I made about a rifle bullet is that a whitetail is tough,I'd shot their hearts into pieces and had to track them over one hundred yards.You also seem to forget blood clots,deer lay down and give it time to clot.That is why you never trail a freshly shot deer, you give him time to bleed out.I shot the Rocky Mountain Snypers,the head the Rage is a copy of.Yes they did the job,but not as quickly as my Slick Tricks.