Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting rage broad heads for xbow

OK deer season opens today here in NH .
I have been using montec heads but am going to try the rage heads this year just kinda having issues in trusting them ,will they open ,I have read some forums and see they are supposed to be top of the line but did read on one a guy had issues with them not opening anyone have this problem.

If you don't trust them don't use them. I love slik trick viper tricks with my compound bow.

How do the slik trick differ from the rage tips opining.
I think it is me just being old school using a fixed blade

The slick tricks are non expanding (replaceable blade) head with a "cut on contact" steel point. A very tough head. They also make a designated xbow head.

http://slicktrick.net/products/broadheads

I think the difference is the slick tricks work every time

I was looking more of someone that has had used a rage type head not a fixed head .

I don't see how the Hypodermic open in flight with the black collar behind the blades installed?

I've now killed quite a few things with them and never had one open in flight. I've also deliberately shot them with the blades open before I released them. They still flew perfectly. I did this to see what would happen. No difference in the flight with them open or closed from my bow. This was only to 20-25 yards. Maybe at 50 yards they would go wacky in flight?

As far as I'm concerned now, they fly true to 25 yards 100% of the time under any conditions I will use them. So now with this personal experience so far, I will also say that they are about the best short recovery head made and the best blood flow provided for game deer size or less. I would not choose them on a big wild hog with a thick shield either.

If you're shooting at least 60pounds with at least a 28" draw they are great for deer. For elk or bears, I would want 65lbs or more. The more then better with these.

Too low a draw weight, too low an arrow weight, or sub 28" draw with a low draw is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. This head requires more power then a regular fixed blade by a lot.

When shot from a powerful bow, heavy arrow, high speed, it's going to deliver a massive,.... actually sickening fountain of blood when placed right.

Anything game bigger then this, tougher then this, or for far shots, I would use the Slick trick viper trick. These heads penetrate better then anything I've used. They are field point accurate, and zip though big animals even from lighter draw, shorter draw and lighter arrow weights.

I've killed a massive pile of big tough game with these. Never lost an animal yet with them. Some of the trails of blood are fair to good, but not in the same league as the rage hypodermic.

This fall I have killed a big black bear that went only 50 yards, the blood was a fountain with him running off, watching the video you could see it splashing on the ground with each heartbeat. Then I shot two pigs, neither went 50 yards, exactly the same performance. One pig had the fountain of blood pumping out about 2-3' high above it's back as it ran. The other spun like a top and ran about 50 feet before tipping over. The circle of blood from him spinning was 10-12' in diameter in nearly a perfect circle.

Thanks JJHACK my concern was them not opening will the hide be enough to break the collar I am shooting an Excalibur cross bow 250lb .

I have killed likely 50 turkeys plus or minus with them and they have a 2" slice going in and coming out.

They open just fine on anything. Stretch a sheet of thin cotton fabric tight and stab it into the fabric with hand speed, it will open and slice that 2" cut through that too! I've tested them on lots of stuff, raccoons, rabbits, fabric. I was not easily convinced and I was very much anti mechanical up until about a year ago. My confidence was building with the testing on smaller animals, and materials.

Be warned that the Schwacker, Ulmer edge and the others that are deployed after entry will not give you the results you hope for. They provide only a small bullet hole entry and then open from the rear. Opening the blades only when inside the animal. They claim this keeps the blades sharp for maximum internal damage.

After you have skinned and butchered enough animals you realize that the lungs do not require this, nor does the heart. They are very soft fragile tissues. The cut happening only after entry eliminates the entire benefit of the design by reducing the blood flow for tracking.

Priorities are different for many people, hunting techniques, and the equipment used etc. My job is to place the point in the vitals, if I do that, my next priority is that the blood will flow as much as possible to find the game.

Having been a PH for over 20 years in Africa, and a Hunting Guide in Alaska for 12 years. I have seen quite a bit of game shot with perfect precision shot placement. Then we struggle to find the hunters animal because there is just no blood to follow. Regardless if you kill the animal if you cannot find it the equipment and your skilled shot placement was a failure at the end of the story.

I hear the same old comment all the time. If it's mechanical it can fail and I don't want to use that design. Well for those folks it's a good idea that they don't and they stick with what they have confidence in. For me, My flight to the hunt, or my drive was on a massively mechanized device, as is my bow, or my gun. I'm not really in a position to be selective on this. As as a mechanical device failing...... well the design of the Rage is so simple and fool proof that I cannot see enough risk to worry about this. It's about like saying I cannot trust my range finder to tell me the proper range. It's an electro mechanical device that could fail and provide bad info.

Having shot so many turkeys and never having seen a single failure to open, or an open in flight event, then with me using them on a dozen big game animals now. All with not just perfect function, but also such a short tracking job, it's more often then not shorter tracking then a hunting rifle with a premium bullet. Speaking of bullets, the blood trails have been far better then a hunting bullet too.

I have had clients with many brands of mechanicals and fixed blades in Africa. I've not seen enough of a failure with any of them to be critical. The ones that I think do not work well many times have another process factor involved. Placement, deflection, etc. When they are put in the right place they all work good. Some better then others.

For me, soft skin frail big game even up to Kudu the rage is a brilliant choice. When the animals get tough, like big bull elk, male hogs, bigger bears, goats wildebeest, zebra, etc. then I would opt for the viper trick. Only because the exit of a viper trick giving me two holes is better for tracking then the possible entry only from the rage Hypodermic.

If I could shoot a 500 plus grain arrow, 28" plus long arrow, 275 plus fps I would shoot it at everything

I purchased the 100 gr 1.75 inch cut Swacker and my crossbow shoot them to the same point as field point

I've been shooting the Schwacker 125s for a couple years with my xbows and liking them thus far. I moved to them from Spitfires & Slick Tricks and don't regret the move. The entry hole on deer and turkey is not large, but larger than some exps as the smaller blades do cut on entry. My only complaint with the Schwackers is the weak aluminum ferrule bends easily in the dirt behind the game. Exits are impressive and trails are like any other large CD exp.

JJHack- Doen't not the Ulmer Edge open quite similar to a Rage? Both appear to be rear opening/deployed.

I have two here, they don't work the same? I think you're correct that the ulmer opens prior to entry, however the other one I have is like the schwacker and it will only open after entry? Trying to think back where I received this other one now?

They don't have any name on them, but the screw that holds the blades looks exactly the same so I made the call they were the same brand different design. If I'm in error on this then I apologize. Now I'm curious as to where this other one came from. I have so many here that I now see how confusing this can get.

I have slick trick heads here that do not match the current production of the ones sold. I sent a photo to Slick trick a while back and asked if this was a copy of them? He replied that it was the stock from the very first original run of ferrules which was changed after that.

I also have replacement blades for the Hypodermic as stated on the package. Yet they don't fit. Sent the photo's to rage and asked whats up? " Oh yeah, those are the older ones they new ones fit the new ferrules only. The older blades fit all the rage except that Hypodermic.

It's a lot of data to keep up with never the less! There is an odd bit of function to the ulmer design that does open like the rage.

first the practice function with the screw is quite clever
second they fold back on the shaft, and teeter back and forth. I far prefer the rigid open blades of the rage. I don't want those blades folding back against the shaft only giving me a 1" cut for the single blade sticking out. I also found in the target that the arrows would jerk hard to the side when a wooden stick was placed in front of the blade. They would very often still cut through the stick even dull after a dozen shots. But that hard twist to the side stopped penetration from what it would have been.

The Rage would cut the stick, sometimes breaking the blade or twisting it. However it drove straight through all the time. My feeling was that the resistance of a 90 deg angle blade on one side and the folded back blade on the other caused a serious imbalance of force. With the Rage that blade locks back and they stay open completely, even to blade failure.

I read a bit on the Ulmer website that said these will pivot out of the way of bone. A good bit of marketing, but the torque placed on the shaft when this happens seemed to me to stop the forward progress of the arrow as the shaft twisted to the side. It's a violent instant twist too, fully visual from 20 yards. when you retrieve the arrow it's sometimes way to the side of the impact point.

I've not seen any reason to feel that a mechanical head on average is a failure prone device. I have seen some that are simply poor and unreliable. However most of the popular brands have worked well and were effective. There are some features that are different then others, but they still work.

The Ulmer model that is called the Edge from what I have here, the Rage, and the NAP kill zone all work the way they should for a cut before entry function. Yet they all have far different features. Visually they look like they would be identical in function.

The Kill zone has a brilliant blade retention system, it's just not opened for me in practice 100% of the time from all bows used. This is a design that with a powerful bow would be perfect. With a bow of 55lbs, and less then 28" I'm not so sure I would choose it.

Thank you again JJHACK I have been out scouting deer the past couple afternoons ,seen more deer this year then in the past few years ,and have a few hot spots to set up big fat doe and a few nice bucks .
After reading what you have found using this broad head I believe I have no reservation on using the rage system.
Hoping soon to report a good clean kill

I used Rages for about 3 years, I had them work perfectly ONCE. I had issues with them opening, and I also had issues with bone contact. I switched over to the 100gr standard Slick Tricks, and never looked back. That is my advise to everyone these days. Its just a no-brainer broad head. They fly just like my field tips.

What issues specifically?

What poundage/speed were you shooting

How do you know there were issues unless you recovered dead animals?


Since 2009 our bow camp has probably killed 30-50 deer with Rages, include a couple guys using them on bear and at least one caribou, we have to yet to see a failure

What an interesting difference of opinion. Although I do read about this rage failure on occasion. You have had them work only a single time. I have never had one that did not proved extraordinary results!

It's interesting that this type of conversation happens with bullets, guns, archery gear like sights, and rests, etc. So many opinions from so many people. The internet becomes more confusing with the volumes of people sharing completely different thoughts on the exact same products. Well wait a minute, are we? I'm only and very directly only speaking of the Rage Hypodermic version with the black plastic collar.

So if this is the one you have only seen work a single time, then share that too. I have no first hand experience with the others on game. Only the hypodermic version. With that version, I have never seen a single failure or problem. I have used it on dozens of game and a lot of turkeys.

Hopefully you will come back to this and let us know if it was an early version of Rage or the latest Hypodermic version. Thanks

I've been using the Rage X-bow heads for 2-3 years, and killed 3-5 deer with them. I've used the regular Rage 3-blade and 2 blade heads for 4-5 years in my vertical bow.

I've killed deer with all of them, and had two packages of three blades that were defective from the factory. The CTC blades were stamped, but never sharpened. They were replaced by the vendor, no issues. Had I used one, I probably would have had a problem, but who knows.

My experience with Rage has been positive, and great blood trails. My problems with them have been the indian (me), not the arrow.

That said, I also shoot the Slick Tricks quite a bit.

What issues specifically?
Specifically high angle shots that contacted dense tissue or bone, the 100gr 2 blade rages did not open well, for me, and at times lacked penetration. Sample size rather small, less than a dozen deer, because I am not going to keep using something I deem problematic

What poundage/speed were you shooting
I am shooting #61 pound bow, 28" arrow, not chrono'd

How do you know there were issues unless you recovered dead animals?
Yes.. animals were recovered dead.. a couple required follow up's... So to me there was a point in the deer's demise that a failure occurred..lol


Since 2009 our bow camp has probably killed 30-50 deer with Rages, include a couple guys using them on bear and at least one caribou, we have to yet to see a failure [/quote]
Good for you guys, and I wish you continued success.

I just shot my first deer with a rage 2 inch cut crossbow head.

I had a head on shot which I expected and had a dead solid rest to shoot from. The bow with that arrow at 21 yards is easily capable of putting them all into an inch.

I put the arrow in about mid neck because I had a perfect path to the top of the heart from there. One blade sliced six inches of hide going in the other cut bone along the neck all the way down the neck. The bolt stopped with the fletching just sticking out of the neck and the head down in the aorta. About a foot of jugular and carotid was removed entoto. Two little crow hops and she went flopped.

The blade that cut bone was in bad shape. Bent slightly, very dull, chipped almost full length. I would have had a very hard time making a hole in the hide with that one. The other, the one that cut six inches of hide and did not touch bone is still sharp.

The heart was not quite loose in the chest. There was some small amount of vein/artery holding it attached. It came loose when I reached in and pulled it back to cut the trachea and esophagus. I couldn't say which blade did all the cutting on the top of the heart, but I have to believe the two crow hops and the flop with her trying to lift her head is when most of that cutting happened. There wasn't a lot of damage to the lungs by rifle standards, but what there was would certainly have killed here nearly as quickly because of it's location and the damage to the bronchials.

Like JJHack said, there's a [bleep] of cutting going on and that makes for massive blood letting. Had this deer been able to run, she might have made that fifty yard dash, but not much more, just like any deer when you drop blood pressure to zero instantly. The blood trail could have been close to non-existent although she sprayed blood out of her nose and mouth from up the bronchials pretty good where she hit the ground. There was no blood around the six inch slash on her neck, it all went into her chest.

I replaced the blades and will shoot another one with that head. I can see where having to punch sturdy hard bone like ribs on a big African animal or maybe a big bear might be an issue, especially when you have to cut/break a couple on an angled shot. The blades could be substantially dulled and bent. Would I worry about that on a deer? NOPE! Even should the blades open on discharge I can't see that affecting the flight one iota. Because of the design, there is just about ZERO chance they will not open to full open position upon hitting a deer. It would take a gross manufacturing defect or perhaps gross contamination like gravel jammed in the blade/head. That would be pretty obvious though. They look to be at least as failure proof as most fixed blade heads.