2 Blade Rage = WOW

Got my first Rage kill on a yearling doe last night. The shot was 22 yards and blew right through. She ran 20 yards, laid down and it was lights out. I could see my arrow and the deer from the stand. Hunts don't get much easier. I'll keep using them until I have a reason not to. It's incredible how well they fly.
 
Well seen these rages in action tonight. My cousin shot a nice buck at 25 yrds with his new hoyt. Sad to say the rest are going in the trash. The shoot placment was good it took out both lungs and the liver. Deer was slightly quartering. Very little blood the whole time. pin head size spots every 6 to 8 ft deer only went 160 yrds but there was no pass threw arrow stoped at the other side. in between ribs with out a puncture on the other side. He was useing the two blade rage heads. I was disspointed in the performance of them so its back to spitfires he goes which i told him not to change in the first place. Hes running 65lbs draw weight and hes shooting a little over 300fps with carbon xpress arrows.
 
Originally Posted By: deerhunterjj...I was disspointed in the performance of them so its back to spitfires he goes which i told him not to change in the first place...

I do fine with my magnus broadheads. Just have to place the arrow right.
 
Well I guess it would only be fair to report the good with the bad! Last Sunday evening I took my girls out with the weather being mild we head for the two man ladder stand over looking a recent picked corn field. Wasnt long after we settle in the deer start to filter into the field, with a mature doe standing broadside only 41 yards according to my rangefinder. After getting the o.k. from my girls to shoot, I draw back and let it fly. POP is what I hear, the doe wheels around and I see my arrow stuck in her shoulder with a good portion of the arrow hanging out! OH NO I say as she is headed for the thicket, well about 30 yards from the thicket she stops for a minute and I can clearly see the arrow in lodged pretty well into the shoulder with the binos. Well there she goes off into the dreaded thicket. The girls and I head home to give her some time and after about an hour and a half we are back in the thicket looking for her. We find the arrow right away with the 2 blade rage still attached. And after an hour of searching we come to a dead end with no more blood to work with, we pull out! Next morning I go back in looking for another hour with no luck in finding her. Later that morning I measure the penetration of the arrow and from the tip to where the blood stops on the arrow I come up with 5 inches of penetration. I am not sure if that is enough to kill a deer. So the point of the story is STAY AWAY FROM THE SHOULDER! If you can help it! I am not ruling out the 2 blade rage yet!
 
i found a buck laying on my property that had been shot with a 2 blade rage just below his spine on saturday evening. it had penetrated about 6 inches...... the buck was still laying on the edge of the pasture field alive. when i topped the hill he seen me and i noticed the arrow sticking out of him . i went down and finished him off and pulled that arrow out to see what had happened. i was not impressed at all....
now in defense. i dont know the circumstances surrounding the shot but im leaning toward a driveby/back of the truck shooting (attempted poaching) so the yardage here is unknown. either way i was not impressed that this broadhead could not kill this deer. no blood anywhere around where this buck was laying either that i could track back toward the road or from out of the woodline. all i know is it was laying there for a long time from the looks of things.
 
Well it looks like the Rage has done it again, only this time I score big! Twenty minutes till 8 this morning 2 bucks come in from behind and down wind of course, the first buck in line was a nice buck but his right side of the rack was messed up while in velvet so I sais "No not what I am looking for" and away he goes grunting with his noes to the ground not ten yards by the tree I am in. Well I look back over my shoulder and there he is, the one I have been waiting on following the same trail as the first buck headed down wind and I am thinking "Oh boy I dont think I am going to get lucky twice" with the wind in his favor! Well he never knew I was there thanks to ScentLock! He hops a fence into a bean field, I draw as he stands there looking around and sniffing the ground apparently looking for the buck that just came through, cant get a clear shot due to a small tree and its branches so I let down on the bow. About that time the big buck decides he is going to cut across the bean field away from me, now I am panicked! I scramble for the grunt tube and give him a couple of grunts, he stops and wheels around and now is headed back my way at a trot. He trots right into my shooting lane, I bleat to stop him while I draw my bow and settle the 20 yard pin on his vitals and with the release of my arrow I hear a THAWAAK, he bucks then bolts and let me tell you the blood was pouring from his vitals, even reminded me of the commercial that Rage has of the big buck running with blood gushing from its wound! Complete pass through and so much blood you could track it at a fast walk! Surprisingly he managed to go a little more than 100 yards with so much blood loss. Found him 3 feet from a swollen river bank, almost lost him to the river! I will try one more time tonight to post pictures, dont have much patience for complicated computer crap! Well once again, I tried to post pictures with no luck! I guess I should mention the buck was a ten point that would have netted in the 140s if he hadnt broke off his G2 on one side, and his G4 on the other!
 
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Trust me Turbo, if I could, I would! I bet I got at least an hour and a half in trying to figure out how to post pictures and I still have not figured it out! I would love to show off some of my "credentials" hanging on my wall!
 
Originally Posted By: RubenatorWell?

First, another success story. Needed meat and had a big doe give me a 30 yard broadside shot and blew one through her heart. She ran 80 yds and piled up. Never did find the arrow. Last Tues. I hunted the same stand, which is in a real nice funnel. A half hour before dark here comes a freak buck, which I had passed on and got video of a week earlier. I decided to shoot it with it being my last bowhunt before gun season and still needing some more meat. He was a perfect 4 points on one side and just a beam wrapped around his ear and under his chin on the other. If the sides were matched, he would gross about 140" as an 8 pt. and probably 4 years old and about 200 pounds. He stops in the exact spot as the doe. I draw back, settle the 30 yard pin behind his shoulder and drop the string on the Mathews. Arrow hits him right where I was aiming. He spins to take off for the field and I see the arrow fall out his other side, giving me a pass through. With every reason to think he's dead, I took up the trail. Pick up my arrow and notice the Rage 2 blade had no blades at all! The head had come apart at impact. I found one blade next to the arrow. Took awile to find blood but had a good trail for about 300 yards. Lost the trail in a wet area and decided to back out until morning. It rained that night so I thought I'd just look for the deer and not to expect blood. Kicked around a small thick spot several hundred yards from the last of the blood and run him out. He's again bleeding good and heading in the direction of my truck. He'd gone about a half mile at this point. He swims a swollen creek and I lose blood again. I checked one small spot on the edge of a field and kick him up again. Now he runs across the field and within 40 yards of my truck! I found his bed and no blood, but found blood where he ran by the truck. I decide to wait 'til the next day and not push him. It rained again that night so I'm not expecting blood. Thanksgiving morning marked day three of the chase. I pick up spotty blood for about 100 yards then nothing. It's a narrow creek bottom with a field on one side and a subdivision on the other. I covered all the timber and glassed the fields with no sign of him. My guess is he's still running around unless a gun hunter got him over the weekend. I'm convinced that deer would be in my garage if I hit him with a quality head. Bottom line? I'M DONE WITH RAGE HEADS. They are cheaply built and super expensive. I hunt way too hard and have too much respect for the animals I hunt to leave things up to chance, especially not knowing if my broadhead will fall to pieces. I'll either try Slick Tricks or Montecs next. I've always had good success with Thunderheads, but they don't seem to fly real well out of my Mathews. Good arrow flight is about the ONLY thing I have good to say about the Rage.
 
Slick tricks always seem to fly well but the montec is good too. I have seen shot or shot myself about 30 deer in the past couple of years with the Slick Tricks throw in a couple of Elk and a few hogs as well so I feel it will do the job.
 
Funny you brought up the Rage falling apart, had it happen not once, but twice! I agree with you about them being super expensive, heck even the replacement blades are 20 bucks for three sets! I myself am leaning real hard on going back to the 100gr. muzzys! Gotta give you credit Dawg, you are persistent with tracking that thing for three days!
 
Originally Posted By: elksOr you could stick with a tried and true fixed blade. Back in high school I tried a mech head shot one animal and never wanted to shoot a mech blade again. Granted this was 10 years ago but when both blades broke off on entry side from hitting a rib square I vowed to shoot only a giid solid fixed blade. With the blades gone all I had was a pin hole in the heart, would have had same results with a field point.

The more stuff that moves the greater the chance of a fail.

Congrats on the sucess. I also agree that pass throughs are not all that great other than they do not leave u guessing penetration. 2 years ago I shot a bull too far forwardm I broke the entry shoulder, 2 ribs, the far shoulder at the knuckle. The muzzy 125, barely looked wore.

Elks I used to think like you and hated all mechanical BHs but the Rage are unreal, most mechanical have come along way. My buddy killed a huge mule deer, black bear and a big bull elk this year with the two blade. You should have seen the blood trails! The not one of the animals went anywhere. The bear only went 20 yards. My dad who pulls his bow with his teeth due to a stroke has killed 2 white tails and an antelope with the two blade and he only shoots 50 lbs. The three animals my dad has killed with them all were hit high and back and they all died within 150 yards. A family friend owns a farm in N. Dakota and he will only let you hunt if you shoot Rage BH. He is the one who convinced me to change. In the last few years on his farm where they kill 50 plus deer (bucks and does) a year they have only lost 2 deer since he made everyone shoot the Rage. He says that they recover deer that are hit very poorly. Having a two +inch wound channel cuts so many arteries and veins that stuff just dies. More than half of the guys that I hunt with have switched. They fly like a field tip, and turn poor hits into recoveries. You do have to make sure that the blades stay put (i don't love the o rings) especially while stocking but I more than willing to do that in exchange for the confidence they give me. Muzzys are a good head but I love tuning ans shooting the rages. No planing and they hit almost exactly where my field tips hit.
 
Salemdawger,
Evidently they have not came that far. In this post it mentions how they have fallen apart.

"Pick up my arrow and notice the Rage 2 blade had no blades at all! The head had come apart at impact. I found one blade next to the arrow."

I just do not see why they are worth a risk. I used to shoot a 125gr Rocky Mtn iron head then went to the muzzy 125 for the fact that they are easy to find and priced right. After several elk I am not changing back.

I shot a bull 2-3 years ago. The shot hit the elk in the thickest part of the front shoulder. Broke through the shoulder and a rib on entry side, then passed through the far should blade and lodge just barely poking the under the hide. The arrow broke in 2 pieces due to the shoulders breaking it up. The broadhead could have easily been filed at the tip and replaced blades.

Ultimately to each his own, but when I hear a broadhead fall apart, I will not be using it.
 
The main reason to shoot a rage is because they fly exactly like field points. If your lodging them into shoulder blades they are not the best broadhead on the market. If your passing them through the lungs, heart, or liver, they are tough to beat. I was scepital too, believe me. But when I bought my new Mathews Monster this fall, it shot so darn fast (about 340fps +/-)that no fixed blade broadhead would shoot worth a darn. I tried my favorite old Muzzy's, Montec's, Striker's, Slick Trick's, and Thunderheads. Nothing would shoot good with my set up, I couldn't group them at all. I did not want to shoot expandables. Then I tried the 3 blade rages and they shot exactly like field points. It is really nice being able to practice with field points, and not have to re-sight your bow for broadheads. Like anything there are trade offs. Personally I will take speed and exceptional accuracy over ultimate toughness. I will take one well placed shot over 10 poor ones. In my case my options were limited, I was going broke trying out all the fixed blades, and I figured I tried some of the best. The two deer I arrowed this year with Rage's both died within 50 yards or less. Both were complete pass throughs, and the broadheads were still functional (albeit dulled) let alone intacted. One was a double lung shot on a doe, and the other a liver hit, grazing the lungs on a buck I was hunting out of state. That liver was absolutley destroyed. I will say however that I only bowhunt whitetailed deer, not elk. Also neither of my deer bled all that much, but they did die within a minute or two. They were close enough to find without blood if neccessary. That's my experience with them. I'm going to keep shooting them.
 
So look again in the thread. There are 3 reported cases of failure. I do not care if my arrow flight is a little off as long as when it hits it gets the job done. The point about the shoulder shot on the bull was to demonstrate why I will stick with the muzzy or similar blade. On a smaller white tail the same shot would have produced a very lethal hit probably a complete pass through.

I am shooting a heavy arrow with a 125 gr tip. Moving at about 310 fps. So far I have shot 5 elk with the set up all pass throughs except the shoulder shot. Last one was a 6x6 at 55 yards. Too many people get to focused on speed. It is good, but not the most important factor.
 
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