got dupped again!!

[ray koziatek]

Well outa fairness due to previous "expandable" broadhead Issues I fell for the "Rage" and its ability to penatrate bone.... Im shure they will break any rib and if ya hit back a bit they might be to your advantage tracking a bad hit deer.

Well after staying outa my favorite spot till the pre rut I spot a very nice buck sat morn at 930 so I move in on it and set up a new location 80 yds away...Sun .morn he messes up on time and is there when i get there (just pre light).....so after a painfull quiet climb (climber) about 30 min.... he cant stand the bark scrapes and comes to 40 yds and starts lookin for sound source ...then i try to drip just a couple drops from my tarsal gland (frozen from last year in water).opps i pour about 1/2 oz down the side of my tree ......he pounds the ground(posturing) all the way to 12 yds ....still to dark for good sights..we both stand motion less for 20 min now hes mine with just a tad quarter to me i draw and hold for 30 more sec waiting for him to open up,but a tail wag told me he was gonna move ..so i release and my bone crushing rage hits the shoulder plate and i get a amazing 2 in penatration.If i had my fixed broadhead my "mathews outback " at 65 lbs would of made one lung...Yup i watch this 20 pluss points and only a 25 to 30 in spread walk away like he just got stung by a bee....As i sit with both feet kicking me in my a ss ,a tiny 10 to 12 pt oh 12 in g2s 18 in spead with more mass than a Catholic church in december , struts in (1/2 hr later)to the same spot and is smelling buck 1's patch of fur on the ground..then to really make me kick harder he walkes 7 yds with head behind tree so i can do jumping jacks without him seeing me(20in tree),,,,10 yrs ago I would of let the arrow i had fly..but my hopes of scratching 1 lung in the big boy made me tink my treestand with my release to shoo that pesty critter away before he got downwind and figured me out ...

Wll he walks away in a good direction so my spot is safe....Well I had a good tripple cut by the hair on ground but no blood for 200 yds ..40 years hunting and i still had a tuff time "leaf trackin" him on flat ground,i found some blood and moved another 200 yds in a hour till i found my arrow,,with a boken heart i didnt attempt to track any further ...I know he is hurtin but at well over200 lbs (at least a 5 plus yr deer)..Im shure mother nature will heal him and i wouldnt be surprised to see it in a few days when the rut gets a tad more busy......So im home tonight licking my wounds , with a sudden feeling of never Bowhunting again..................well not till tuesday gotta give the area 1 day to calm a bit.......

[fishkiller16]

I disagree about the Rage I have killed a dozen deer with my Rage broadheads and I have put 4 to 5 of them clean though a shoulder blade and into both lungs. My bow is a Parker Ultralite 31 at 68lbs with a 27" 400 series Carbon Express arrow. All I can say is I love my Rage broadheads. HUGH entry and exit holes and lots of blood.

[seasquirrel]

Ray, I feel for ya buddy. Been there. Get back in there and kill him another day. I shot a good 8 with a gun a few years back with a rifled 12 gauge slug that was a bit too far in hindsight. Must have lost too much energy. Big old mess on the front shoulder but ended up with a nasty flesh wound. I was sick. I went back to that general area without even thinking that buck was around or still alive. 8:30 am he strolls by with barely a limp at 20 yards. POW! finished him. Your buck has no clue what happened other than he has a wound on his shoulder which he can keep clean. I am sure he doesnt connect anything human with it either and that is the good news. Soooo, get back in that general area and camp out for a couple dark to darks and kill him. We will be waiting for pics.

[ray koziatek]

next time you get a 3.5 plus deer check out the diff in bone mass at the shoulder bone (plate),and this buck was well over 4 yrs.....and because he was a tad front angle i might of hit the front o f the plate at a angle..with over 55 deer with a bow and at least a dozen with expandables iv only had 1 expandable "pass Through" pay close attention to many TV shows ,and see what the prefered type of tip is used...

Yes i screwed the shot maybe 1 inch but even with that much mass my little 1in dia 3/4 in long mini tips deliver the full energy of the shot ,that im 100%shure would of made a difference....well 99.9%..

[ray koziatek]

Yes Sir SS im on it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gill-T]

Fixed blades all the way. Thunderhead 100 grain..... widely offered so easy to find replacement blades. I pulled a foster-type 12 ga. slug from a front shoulder.....it went in 2"......couldn't figure out why the deer did not go down with the first shot. At the wrong angle it does not matter what you use for a broadhead.

[ray koziatek]

yea yer right ,Chad sometimes with all the hype and new products you feel like all ya gotta do is touch the deer and their down.. after i got home i tossed a half dozen arrows at 20 yds and me bow wes shootion 1.5 in to the left couple 2in off dont know what happened to the sights ..(maybe just my justifiable excuse)..just 1 more inch (sounds like my love life)..

Couple years ago my friend did the oll front shoulder shot with a 12 ga on a hudge buck with same results over the winter the trail cam showed the healing till nuthing butt scar about 40 days.... and the next year he was back in the sights again ,this time for good ,and the slug was incapsulated in tissue..so im shure he will show back up for bow or gun..

One of the biggest bucks on my wall (after 2 year stalk) was shot by the neighbor and took out both rear tendons ..and on the 3rd year I put up a treestand ,yup oll stiffy showes up 145 yds away,wellafter three offhand shots from my old model 12 (now retired) he keeps walkin out of sight feelin good about maybe hittin it ..i hike up the hill and there he stood.well he was dead but the locked up rear leggs wouldnt bend ..so its front end was on ground and the backside wedged in some brush kept it from tipping over..if i didnt find the blood trail i did and saw the deer first i would still be shooting at it today

[muskybob]

Ray, maybe it's time to retire that 35# draw long bow you've had for 30 years and upgrade to at least more modern 65# compound. Just a thought

[Pequod1]

Ray, I am sorry you had to join the "rage club". I had just about the same experience with a big buck two yrs. ago. Watching him trot away with the rage in his shoulder blade was it for me. Went back to the muzzy and now trying slick tricks. Not a single lost deer since I switched back.

[Total Chaos]

It's all about shot placement. If you don't put it where it needs to be you don't kill them. Doesn't matter what head your using. Even if you shot a fixed and it got thru to 1 lung you probably still wouldn't have killed that 4 1/2 yo buck. 1 lung ain't going to do it. I hunt IL and my outfitter has killed enough bucks missing 1 lung to prove it. I switched to Rage as soon as they came out and they are by far the most lethal head I've ever shot. Just my opinion. I'd say he'll be back at some point. I wouldn't switch heads, I'd up the arrow weight. There's no substitute for a heavy arrow. 400 grains plus is the minimum I shoot. I've killed 3 IL deer over 4yo so I know.

Total Chaos

[ray koziatek]

good point on arrow weight with my stubby arms and a whoppin 26.5 draw ant much kinetic to be deliverd even a extra 25 at the tip might help?100g now...aND "GULP" if ya hit the right spot it helps ,,,but when ya got a buck that size makin ya shake,pee and poopin yer pants all at once things can get a little nerve racking...... Actually i did ok....well other than that 2 inch thing....I can sit in a tree in indiana and watch 6 diff big bucks walk around all day and still be patient. but around here after a 3 week sit and only seeing 3 big shooters i come a little unglued ,,,maybe i should guide.. well i took the morning off and now am gonna go fing a nice tree to climb in AND im bringing the video if they dont come in close enuff ill have some video....and if they do come close ill be ready....................(wearing DEPENDS tonight)

[jason]

ray need to give up the indian bow.....switch to a crossbow it will help for short chubby finger guy ...

[ray koziatek]

well diapers still clean..small 4 and decent 8 pt pushing their luck at 14 yds..they liked my doe pee just give em a shot every couple min and they were so ready they paid no attention to the gentle misting sound or me. but the 3 does were ticked off kept stompin ...4 other deer were 60 yds away but i couldnt move for the binocs couldnt even slip the camers out with 10 eyes within 20 yds.. so deciding i had enuf i hung my bow and started climbing down I was pretty good with the metal but the bark was crunching pretty good and three more deer come running ,too dark to see well but the moon was peeking out and no big horns good thing with my bow 10' above me (left in tree for morning hunt ) 3 new scrapes in sight of my stand AND the big boys scrape was freshend up dont know if it was him ...hope i find out in the morning

[PeltHunter]

I had an absolute slob just like the one your talkin about at sixty five yards out by victor and he was about two steps from an open sixty yard shot which I'm comfortable with. Just when I was gonna draw on him the wind changed for about ten seconds and he took off the other way slowly leaving me broken Hearted and then I had a four and six pointer both at about forty yards that I would've shot last year like you said but after seeing that monster I couldnt

[ Post made via iPod ]

[Total Chaos]

Ray, I wanted to show you this picture of what a Rage broadhead will do. I shot this buck yesterday. It was 6 yards from the tree at a severe angle down and quartering to me bad. Not the best of shots but having not seen a single deer all season I wasn't passing on it. I trust the Rage, so I let it fly. It caught the shoulder plate, entering the chest and put a slice in 1 lung, going straight thru the liver and exited out the bottom of the chest. Game over. I know you have a bad feeling about them but I'm telling you they are the deadliest head out there. Even on borderline hits they do so much damage recovery is usually a given.

Total Chaos

[Steelman]

I really dont care how much people brag about the rage. NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING will compensate for a bad hit. If you go in the woods with a mentality that yeah I go me a rage broadhead and if I have a marginal shot at best IM good. LMAO It isnt the broadhead it is the shot placement. I shot rage one year and never again same deal as Ray stuck a shoulder and tht was it never penetrated. Im at almost 500 grains with my arrow and 70# draw on the bow shooting over 300 fps, a setup doesnt get a whole lot better than those numbers. I went back to the G5's and blew through a shoulder tonight with a complete pass through. Many years ago there was a long study done on broadheads for the best configuration for penetration, all calculations taking into affect from the degree of anlge of the cutting edges to cutting diameter. I will see if I can dig it up and post it. You guys can keep those Rage's they loose to much energy when they hit.

[PeltHunter]

After reading these posts about the rage I was a little skeptical about running then as I usually run fixed blades but I got a new bowtech this year and it won't shoot fixed blades accurately. I went to the store to either get rages or shwackers (which they didn't have) so I picked up some 1.5 inch Rages. I started shoot the practice tips that come with them and was pretty stoked that they fly exactly like a field point. Well last night I smoked a 4 point and it didnt go 40 yards with an invisible entrance wound and a huge exit so IMO the rages work pretty good it looked like someone shot a red paint can after it ran about 6 steps

[ Post made via iPod ]

[chowder]

Not sure why we gotta reinvent the wheel all the time but I guess it's human nature to think there's gonna be a magic bullet out there that will solve all problems. Probably the nature of those of us who get too absorbed into one specific activity from time to time

Anyway, just wanted to add my 2 cents to this thread, so here it goes;

In my opinion there is nothing wrong w/ expanding bhs but there's nothing wrong w/ fixed ones either. Since expanding bhs have more moving parts it is predictable that they can produce a more varied result when used. The variance that I have seen encompasses results that are sometimes better and sometimes worse than fixed bhs. I've been hunting deer w/ a bow for 35 years (taking 2-5 deer/year for most of that span)and call me what you will I like consistency in a bh even if that means that sometimes I don't get maximum performance. A few years ago I experimented w/ grim reapers,rage, Hyper Shoks, and a few other expanding bhs for 3 years and in the end I just came to the conclusion that I didn't need the variation I saw when they contacted bone in general. Now I'll admit I'm a whimpy, older, guy who has slowly backed down to 60lb on my current bow, a 31" draw Matthews Drenalin, but I've got news for you- we're all on the same trajectory guys!

Anyway, I've come to terms with consistent, average performance in broad side, shallow quartering towards to steep quartering away shots using fixed bhs. For the time being I'm using the smaller Slick Tricks and as long as I can get a couple deer out of each bh w/ out changing blades I guess they aren't too expensive or time consuming.

Just my 2 cents, -Andy

[seasquirrel]

I went back to a fixed head 2 years ago. I am shooting New Archery Products Crossfire 100grain fixed heads. Work great for me.

[Paul Czarnecki]

Ray.....you should know better than to blame your broadhead for poor results on a poor shot. The shot you took was iffy at best and blaming the broadhead for not killing the deer is just irresponsible. Most 12 GA slugs will not penetrate the shoulders of big mature deer! Expecting a broadhead, fixed blade or mechanical, to do what a 12 GA slug can't is silly.

I've hunted the giants of the midwest for nearly 20 years and have killed more than my fair share of them. They are incredibly strong, heavy boned creatures that are usually shot while they are high on testosterone. Their will to live is simply astounding.

That said, I'm not going to blame you for taking the shot---as I've done that several times myself but, with the scenario you described, I've found that AVOIDING the shoulder altogether and aiming one inch BEHIND the shoulder is a much more favorable hit. A deer hit in the liver and diaphragm is just as dead as a deer hit in the lungs!

I'm with Total Chaos in that I'm a BIG Rage fan. I've tracked enough deer to know a devastating broadhead when I see one and the Rage is one devastating broadhead. Penetration has never been an issue for me as I shoot a 460 grain arrow with 100 grain heads at over 300 fps. All but one of my 11 Rage kills have been complete pass throughs. I lost a terrific buck in PA two weeks ago because of a bad hit in the shoulder that was MY fault! I rushed an easy shot and hit the shoulder blade of a mature buck. I blame myself for not getting that deer NOT my broadhead.

You need to use whatever broadhead YOU have confidence in. But, PLEASE DO NOT, for one second, think that a fixed blade broadhead will make a fatal shot out of a non fatal one--it simply isn't possible. You can also take some consolation out of the fact that a hit as you described is as non fatal as it gets. That deer is chasing does right now and will, most likely, still be available to you this Saturday. Good luck and post some pics!

[on the lam]

Yea Ray, the guy on TV hit a T-Rex with a Rage in a good spot and he only went five yards!! Then another time he shot a pterodactyl right out of the air with a Rage, it came

down like a ton of SH#T, game over, and he was a cave man!!

Its all about the placement

http://www.ragebroadheads.com/Commercia ... cial-2.php

http://www.ragebroadheads.com/Commercia ... ercial.php

[buckboardjr]

Lets see if anyone has been reading outside the box. Big bucks are outside the box

2 blade, Fixxed, 3 to 1 slope

cut on contact

tanto tip.

single bevel ground blade "like a lawn mower but razor sharp"

min. 650gr arrow package

22% of greater FOC

use your modern technology compound bow closer to it's potential

Why design your arrow set up for when everything goes right, set it up for when things go wrong.

This set up is supposed to get through that bone when your off a touch.

Is there anyone else out there who is aware of this field research? I dought I'm the only one.

[Paul Czarnecki]

Buck, big bucks die just as easily as little bucks if they are hit right---and it doesn't matter WHAT broadhead or bow you are shooting. If you CHOOSE to shoot a big buck in the shoulder with ANY broadhead you will have the same results Ray and I did. A cut on contact fixed two blade may penetrate a shoulder blade in a test but, hundreds of "live fire" results end in the same result---a deer with a slight limp that is killed later in gun season or the following year.

I can't tell you how many fixed blade broadheads I have pulled out of shoulders, necks and HEADS of deer that were killed by some other means. Most of them have been "Bad to the Bone" Muzzys....lol.

[T_barb]

Paul, I am going to switch topics on you.. You mention that you hunt in PA.. I am curious to get your opinion on the impact of antler restrictions in PA... It has been a number of years and i hear that it has made a huge differnce.. You are obviously someone that has spent a lot of time hunting pre and post antler restriction, so I thought it would be intereting to get your view.

[buckboardjr]

My suggestions were from a guy named Dr.Ashby who has dedicated years to the research of lethal killing of big game with bow and arrow. Paul, he has hundreds of facts about archery "live fires " to study and possibly sway some people toward heavy arrows with strong, effecient, fixxed blade broadheads that will get through the bone. My goal for next year is to follow his lead and see if I can live with the trajectory of a 650gr arrow. Of 17 deer I have killed, 15 of them were under 22yds. 2 were at 28. I think I can live with 2 pins out to 28 instead of 1. For the record, I'm 17 for 20. All 17 were killed with Miniblaster3s on a 360gr pkge. Of the 3 not recovered, 1 was a no penetration shot on a shoulder of a 2.5 yr old. The other 2 were out of kill zone. That one was so close to good shot placement that I chose to do some reading and this is what I found.

http://www.alaskabowhunting.com/Dr.-Ed-Ashby-W26.aspx

I also had 2 friends that had poor rage penetration experiences . One was shoulder, one was backbone. The backbone guy was bumming because he had spined/killed 4 deer in the past with thunderheads and this was his 1st yr with rage and ol Mossy ran off with 28 in of arrow sticking out. He later killed one with perfect shot placement with the rage and loved the axe like entrance wound.

I hope a few people take a look at his research, even if you still say I'm comfortable with my set up, there is so much amazing info there, I think any bowhunter who reads it will come away with some useful info. Lots of physics that I should have allready knew and did not. Maybe if they would have applied science to bow hunting in school, I would have payed attention!