Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Not impressed with Rage broadheads so far....

I started bow hunting when I was 15 years old, I will be 31 by the close of this years archery season. I have always used a Mathews bow and Muzzy broadheads. Last weekend I was in need of some new arrows, and while I was in the bow shop the owner (also a friend of mine) talked me into switching to Rage broadheads. Everyone that I can think of that I know locally uses them and swears by them so I was on board to give them a try. Last night I had a mature doe come in at 33 yards perfectly broadside. At the release of my arrow she lunged just a little causing me to hit a little forward in the shoulder. I wasn't too worried as I've had this happen before and the arrow would still penetrate plenty deep to kill the animal. This was not the case last night.

I got a little over 4" of total penetration, and the broadhead broke off inside of the deer. At first I thought the insert pulled out, but no... Anyone else have something similar happen?

Cant say as to the Rage Extremes....never used them. Always shot the std 2" cut with no issues

If the doe lunged a little at your release and you hit a little forward on her shoulder then I call suspect because i have never had a deer lunge backward...something tells me you would have shot really far forward if she hadn't lunged.
As far as the penetration??? What's your setup? Poundage? Velocity? Weight?

I let a buddy come shoot this deer in hopes that he could get his first P&Y buck.



He raged him. He got less than 2 inches of penetration. This is a game cam pic a neighbor got of the deer 2 months later.



I make the argument about muzzies that some guys make about TSX bullets. If I had hit that buck with a muzzy where my buddy hit that deer with a rage, I would have killed him.

Ditch the expandables and go to a quality cut on contact fixed blade. VPA's come to mind (as well as others).

Expandables work. Seen too many shot with them to believe otherwise. And thats around here....not on tv. Ran the Rage 2 blade last year. Gaping hole in and out. That from a 60# bow shooting a 400+ grain arrow. Havent tried the Grave Diggers on game yet, but hope to real soon. Betting they work well too. But, if I decide to go back to ST its simply a matter of screwing them on and going hunting. The ST, the rage, and the grave diggers all fly to same POI as my field points with no adjustments required

Bet ya I could blow a rage through that buck. Blood trail be short and plentiful. Takes a bit of common sense to run the mech heads. Higher FOC and a heavyish arrow do the trick every time. Most arrows are fast off the shelf but shed momentum quickly upon impact which greatly affects penetration

He runs a 80lb matthews monster and ACC arrows, I would have thought it would have blown through instead of bouncing off the shoulder. I understand they now have a model with trocar tips, they may have worked better.

I should have mentioned that the broadhead broke just like the OPs

Wonder if it was the same 2.3" rage extreme? Again, I have no experience with it. Havent tried the 3 blade either due to rumors of penetration issues. But the original 2" cut 100grn rage has piled up quite a number of deer the last few years with no issues. But just because one particular model is having issues, dont bash the whole line up

I had really good success with the Original Rage two blades. Good pass throughs & great wound channels. But I just hated the Mickey Mouse rubber bands that kept the blades folded in flight.
I went back to using plain old Muzzy 3-blades, & untill recently, believed nothing could beat them for Penatration. Blew lots of them right through the shoulders & grissel plates of big feral hogs here at the Ranch. Never had a failure or broken blade, either. Just never was happy with the accuracy of Muzzys past 40 yards.

Then, I switched to SlickTricks, last year. Exact same terminal performance & Penatration as Muzzies, but much more accurate with my Matthews Compound.

Now I'm shooting the SlickTrick Viper Tricks & old Zwickey 2-blade traditional broadheads with my new Custom LongBow, comparing to see which perform better on Feral Hogs. Haven't had time to shoot any yet, but I'll post some Picts & results when I do.

Too many stories of expandables failing, why take the risk?

I hear what your saying, but I do not bash just rage, bash all mechanicals. I have never heard anyone say, "If I had just used a rage (or any mechanical) I would have recovered that deer."

Just a fixed broadhead guy, ahve been for years ever since I learned a lesson about the old vortex broadheads.

Good advice right there!

I don't think I have ever said this on here before.

I HATE EXPANDABLES!

Do they work? Sure they do and well when everything is 100% right. It is to easy to use a good quality fixed blade that flys to same POA/POI as a field point. There are a bunch to choose from like Muzzy and Slick Tricks to name a couple. They work end of story.

What I've found is that the deer I've shot with the 100 gr 2 blade rage generally die within sight and a blood trail Ray Charles could follow,including Punching a shoulder blade,I used to shoot muzzies but just not as accurate and yes they kill,just not as quick as the Rage's

Clearly not, at least in this case. A broadhead that breaks apart on impact doesn't work. With proper tuning, any COC will shoot the same as field points.

125 gr G5 Striker Magnum is a dirty rotten killing SOB, brutalizes anything in front of it at 489 grs total arrow weight and 300 fps.

Gunner

You can't beat a chisel-tipped fixed-blade broadhead for a direct shoulder hit. But for deer hit too far back, nothing will kill like a Rage.

Is that because of the 2" cut I'm assuming?

Again, i have had absolutely no issues with the Rage. I can tune almost any broadhead to shoot to same POI as fieldpoints. Some just do not read the script and prefer to plane badly. I have run and continue to use slick tricks. But I also like the Rage and am also field testing the Grave Digger. Could give results if I could just SEE a deer. Guess someone tipped them off.