I have witnessed one failure with mechanical heads on an antelope shot by a buddy. I was sitting inthe blind with him when he shot it and I dissected out the broadhead.

I don't remember which brand they were, I think a NAPbutmaybea Rocky Mountain. Whichever they were they had the rubber bands holding the blades closed. This was about 6 years ago. Maybe someone can help me out with which ones they would have been. Anyway, small buck antelope broadside at 22 yards. Shot through the window in a DB blind so the mesh had no effect. He hit the buck high and spined it right behind the shoulder blade. Went down like a rock but had to hit him in the chest with another to finish him as expected.

We thought it would be a good test to see how the broadhead held up when hitting bone so I dissected it out very carfully. Going through the hide and epaxial muscles it looked like a field point wound. When I got the muscle cleaned off, the broadhead was stuck in a vertebral body about half an inch and all three blades were still closed and embedded in the bone tight to the ferrule. The head never opened, even when going into the bone. The rubber band was still intact and pushed back up the arrow shaft about an inch and a half.

I really have no explanation as to how the blades could remain closed in this situation. We took pictures of it and sent them, with a letter, to the company. I even took the piece of bone with broadhead still in it and put it in the freezer and offered to forward it if they wanted to look at it. Never heard from them.

The broadhead was not defective as neither of us had used Mechs before so we had opened themall up and bascially been playing around with them in the blind for 2 days prior to him shooting the antelope. All of them opened and none of the blades seemed sticky or hard to open.

Complete mechanical failure of the head of which I have no explanation. Fortunately we didn't lose the animal so the head did the job. Had it been a chest hit and not opened we not have recovered him?