corey006

I did a little Broadhead testing today between Rocket Steelhead 125 gr and Phantom 4-blade 125gr.

I was impressed that everytime I shot the Rocket it out-penetrated the " cut on contact" Phantom by 2.5 inches??? This was into a new layered styrfoam target. I tried from 20, 30 and 50 yards and everytime the Steelhead won.

I know the one extra blade would hinder pentration somewhat but still thought the Phantom would fair better. To the Phantom' s credit it has a larger profile that the Steelhead. I also think that the vented blades catch alot of foam going through.

Would the test results vary if a different target material was used...??


The only reason I ever decided not to use the Steelhead is that for hunting Moose I wanted to be sure to have a good sized entry hole in case I didn' t get a pass through. I don' t think that the Steelhead would leave a good bloodtrail if any without a pass through.

I will still go with the Phantoms but I was still AMAZED at how well the Steelhead performed.

corey006

Steelhead pic

Matt / PA

Corey,
What is your rational for believing that given the same shot and neither head passing thru that the Phantom would give you a blood trail and the Steelhead would not?
On game animals the Steelhead will leave a full width cut upon entrance so I am not following your logic? If both heads hit the same place,penetrate to the same place and cut the same tissue on the way in blood trails should and would be basically equal provided both heads were sharpened to the same quality.


That said, do shoot whatever you have 100% confidence in, because when staring down the barrel of a bull Moose I think you' ll agree that your broadhead is the last thing you want to be thinking about![]

Rack-attack

I took two deer last year with the Rocket Wolverine - very similar to the steelhead and had very good entrance wounds. No better or worse than Muzzy or thunderhead entry holes I have had.

TFOX

Would the results be different in a different material? Probably not.The Steelheads are one of the best penetrating heads on the market.PERIOD.The fact that they are a mechanical is irrelevant. If you are worrying about the foam getting in the blades,why wouldn' t flesh or other things get in the blades from a live animal? Maybe not as much as the foam but when the arrow is spinning and enters the animal,you would almost certainly have something find it' s way inside of the blades.



I may be concerned about a mechanical when not getting a full passthru.If the head is in the animal.The head that is cutting will do more damage.A fixed head will do more damage in this scenario.A mechanical will do a lot of flopping around.It would still be lethal but MAYBE not as quick.


Use the one that you are most comfortable with.They will both do the job.

corey006

Matt,


I haven' t had first hand experience with a jack-knife style mech like the Steelhead( on live game) but I was under the impression that they FULLY open after about a inch or so.. I guess I must be mistaken but on my foam target the hole going in is VERY small(the blades are still closed). I have NO doubt that on a deer I would achive a pass through but doubt they would get through a Moose.

If there was a guarantee that all 3 blades would be fully open on impact I would use the Steelhead on Moose. With a fixed blade you are guaranteed to have a full width cut right.

Can anyone posts pics of Steelhead entry wounds???

Matt / PA

Ahhh... Corey here' s why these forums are such a good thing. You learn something new everyday!

There is a reason why the blades do not open fully on the face of a foam target ,yet they will everytime on a live animal and that has to do with the design itself.
Swing open mechanical heads such as the Rockets require a rearward leveraging force to snap the blades open......to acheive this and to get the blade tips around the outermost radius of the blade arc ,the material shot into needs to be of a flexible nature or have some give.....such as you find in an animals hide with hair and then flexible skin.
When you shoot into a hard foam target the blade tips simply bite and penetrate the face without opening because there is not enough intitial give in the target material to allow the blades to freely swing to the open position. There might be enough friction within the foam taregt itself to get them to force open by the time the reach the backside, but they just won' t open on a flat foam surface.

You want to see this illustrated?......take a deer hide(would be the perfect material), or a sweatshirt or something like that and hang it over your foam target. Now shoot it and you' ll see what I mean.

The exception I have found to this rule is with the NAP Spitfire.......while the basic design is the same as a Rocket head, the nature of the very stiff blade retention clips can and will cause some bullet hole style entrance wounds.

corey006

Thanks for the tip Matt....I will try what you said today and post the results.

corey006

Tried using 6 layers of carpet to simulate deer hide....same result blades DIDN' T open until 1 inch into carpet.[]


Next tried 6 layers of foam underlay(nice soft stuff) still same result blades didn' t fully open until 1 inch into the underlay(about 4 layers).[]

Any other things to simulate animal hide???

I am using Rocket rubber bands but I think they are for the Miniblaster, would this matter???

Capt Ray

Im with Rack-attack, I shot three deer and two hogs last year with the Wolverine and all but one hog droped within sight of my stand.