Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Some thoughts on expandables from my experience

I have been shooting a rage Hypodermic a lot lately. I've killed a pile of turkeys and other stuff with them now.

I find some faults with the design but there are faults with everything. It becomes a balance of total results and confidence.

There is one difficult to quantify part of the puzzle for me, which I think has so much to do with the way people react to the results. The two huge blades 2" wide can either miss an artery or slice it in half with the tip of the point at the same place. If the blades are a straight vertical you can miss important organs to the right or left. If that blade opens horizontal you can miss organs above or below.

For a 1-1/16" fixed blade you could miss by a hair and have the same results. I've killed a lot of big game with fixed head, primarily the Slick and viper tricks. Now I have shot a lot with the Hypodermic too. There have been none lost, all game recovered in 125 yards or less. So I have no way to be seriously critical of either camps view of mechanical VS fixed.

The shortest recoveries have all been with the Hypodermic, as have the best blood trails all been with the hypodermic. If I consider all game shot the average distance traveled and the blood trails are near equal overall. Blood flow when the Hypodermic exits are disgusting and vividly easy to follow. a fair amount less when they don't exit. However still very good, just not as really disturbing a crime scene!

I guess I'm still not convinced that the Hypodermic could have a failure to open or function properly. I sure have not seen this in 50-60 animals now. They work fantastic for me at 63-67 Lbs @ 28.5" draw.

The Slick trick magnums 125 grains are simply flawless and lethal with consistent performance and always seem to just plain work. I do not like them on Turkeys. they often blow through and stick in the dirt behind them. The turkeys are a PITA to locate when they can fly a short way and/or cross water or run. I've made solid perfect hits on turkeys that have gone a long way. Turkeys with archery are a great challenge!

With the Hypodermics I've never had a turkey go more then a few yards. That huge gash just ends a turkeys life as fast as can be.

The Viper tricks are 100% better on anything that is big ( 400-500lbs plus) and needs an exit hole. They are the best penetrating heads by a margin over the others I've used. I've shot clean through a lot of hogs now, some have had the luminocks go through so fast they appear as a miss at times. Except for the sound of the hair being cut on impact.

On Average the 125 magnums will poke out the opposite side, and sometimes exit all the way out. The Hypodermics rarely poke out the off side on a bigger male, they usually do on smaller hogs and sometimes have gone completely through and exit.

Still there is such an impressive blood flow from those Hypodermics that you can often see a fountain of blood spraying into the air when they run off. That just keeps me coming back to them where it's legal.