Rage Broadhead Review – Part II
Posted by dihardhunter on October 26, 2009
Off of my second field testing experience of the week, this is my modified opinion of the 2-blade Rage broadhead.
Entrance wound was on the last rib angled forward through the chest cavity. Note the vertical nature of the wound… I’ll come back to that in a minute.
Not bragging…but a clinic in shot placement. Exit wound was perfect – again vertical.
Shot distance: 29 yards.
Click below to keep reading, one of the pictures I am including is a little graphic to be included for all my readers.
Vitals hit: little bit of liver, severed a third of a lung lobe off, and from the picture below you can see it completely severed all the workings of the aortic arch (note the round circles directly above the heart and to the northwest of the heart).
Recovery distance: 65 yards.
Blood trail: This is where my second experience with Rage broadheads takes a bit of a downward turn. Again, deer is in the back of the truck, but this doe barely bled at all. Looking at the damage inflicted there is no reason why there shouldn’t be blood 2 feet wide down the entire trail. But look at the entrance and exit wounds. Vertical.
I never understood why a lot of fixed 2 blade broadheads (Zwickey style BH’s) had bleeder blades until now. If you get a cut that goes with the grain of the muscle, there is no natural inclination of that tissue to pull apart and let the blood flow through.
The doe was full of blood up to her spine inside the diaphragm, but there was so little blood that it took 2 of us scouring the ground for 20 minutes to go just 65 yards. Not exactly the advertised Rage blood trail.
So here’s what I’m thinking. I was again pleased with the arrow flight, penetration, recovery distance, the blades actually held on this time (and are actually so sharp the same blades are back in my quiver), but apparently there is something to be said for having more than just 2 blades. Any 3 blade broadhead would have provided the cross-grain cutting action to provide a slip-n-slide blood trail with that kind of arrow placement.
I hope you are finding these broadhead reviews helpful. At some point, I will be making a mid-season switch to SlickTrick 4 blade Magnum 100 grain broadheads to bring a wholly different perspective to these broadhead field tests.
I am using the Rage 3-blade this year for the first time. Only took one shot so far this season. Shot a doe back in September. Shot was about 3″ high in the liver. This deer had a very neat, clean 2″ diameter round entrace hole and exit hole, but hardly bled a single drop. Shot this deer right before dark and had to return in the morning to find her. She only went 90-100 yards but I was very dissatisfied with the blood trail. I have heard from several others that the Rage broadheads do not bleed well on shots that are anything but low.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I think that could be said of any broadhead. The lower the exit wound the better the blood trail should be. The main point I was making is that if an archer is “unlucky” enough to have the Rage enter vertically in line with the striations of the muscle of the ribcage, the wound will not open as much without the aid of a cross-cut slice provided with an additional blade (whether fixed blade or mechanical). Conversely, the horizontal entrance (against the grain) wound on my buck from last Friday opened up great and the blood trail was outstanding.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
dont waste ur cash on these spitfires a much superior product
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm