ORIGINAL: silentassassin
I shoot mechanicals as a matter of personal preference but will be the first to say that if isn't broke there is no reason to fix it. If your fixed blades are shooting well and you have confidence in them then stick with them. Now that being said, a couple of things stick out to me. You said that you hit the deer in the neck. I am assuming that you didn't intentionally shoot for the neck. Also, you said you made "your share" of misses and or bad shots which is what I would again assume the neck shot was a bad shot and I don't see blaming the mechanical for not doing it's job when you made a bad shot. However, you did mention that the mechanical didn't open which brings me to my next point and question. How long ago did this happen with the mechanical and what kind was it?The reason I ask is that 5 or 6 years ago my friends and I did some pretty extensive testing with mechincals on everything from apples and oranges to steel drums and never once did we have a mechanical fail to open. We had a bunch that were closed when we found them, but all of those were a case of the broadhead opening and then closing again when it came to a stop. Not saying that is the case here but I have killed a bunch of deer with mechanicals and been around a bunch of deer that were killed with mechanicals and I have honestly come to the conclusion that I am just as likely to run a broadhead through bigfoot as I am to shoot a mechanical into something and it not open.
The shot was unintentional, I was not aiming for the neck. I was shooting my recurve, which at about 75# draw weight should supply more than enough energy to open a mechanical, regardless of shot placement. So, I'm not following your logic that a mechanical will not open if the shot is not perfectly placed. If that's a characteristic of a mechanical, than I think I've found my answer.