I've used both bags and actual antlers and I find it much easier to tickle with the real deal. With antlers you'd just want to lightly tap the tips of the tines together as opposed to crashing them together hard. With antlers it's easy to hear the diffrence. when you tickle them it's not real loud and the sound of the tines hitting is diffrent them when you crash the main beams together. When the beams hit each other it's a lot deeper sound.