Downside of mechanicals.

the larger they are the more suface area they have the more resistance any target will offer them. this can become an isssue when shooting them at alonger distance. I really don't believe anyone when they say they don't open. I haven't had any not open.

the issue usually is people select a big one and they don't have enough Kinetic energy to make it operate and then they shoot it out at too large of a distance, make a bad hit out there and bigno there ya go another mechanical failure report.

others pick them up because they can't get a fixed tuned so they think that the mechanical will forgive them. Well if you can't get your bow at least paper tuned the mechanical cannot work up to it's potential. But they shoot them anyway. arrow fish tailing all the way to the target and of couse a lack of pentration and bingo another mechanical failure report.

For whitetail deer you don't need anything bigger than a 1 1/4 inch cut, you need the bow at least paper tuned. you should have at least 55 ft lbs of kinetic energy and you shouldn't look to shoot them past 30 yards with 55 ft lbs. if this critera doesn't fit into your style of hunting then you shouldn't be useing them.

What you can expect with a 55 ft lb rig and a 1 1/4 inch mechanical is: a pass through the ribs and heart at 14 yards. at 27 yards hit ribs and heart but no pass through. the heart offered enough resistance to stop the arrow at 27 yards. Deer went down quick enough but no pass through. So if you shoot out farther with 55 ft lbs and hit anything other that ribs and lungs you might not get a pass through. No pass throughs can make tracking more diffucult..

you should inspect your mechanical to insure that they are operating correctly, sometimes they will rust up on ya and if you don't check then you could have a not open horror story to tell.

most all of the failures with mechanicals are the fault of the hunters, they fail to do understand how big of one to use, they fail to tune thier equipment, they fail to inspect them to issure proper operation, and they fail at shot placement, probabaly due to buck fever. then they blame the broadhead.

I like to use them early in the bow season when my shots are usually limited to 20 yards or less and I have had great sucess with them, the blood trails areheavy and short but that is because of proper shot placement more than the type of broadhead.
As the foliage starts to fall and my shots open up I tend to use a fixed blade.


pspentration into targets. measure the suface area of any broadhead. the ones with the most surface area will feel the most friction when they slide into a target. the more friction felt the quicker the arrow will stop. A field tip arrow will out pentrate any other type of tip into any foam layered target. field tips have the least amount of surface area.