What tips to use mechanical? New xbow hunter!!
What tips to use mechanical? New xbow hunter!!
I am set up with an new exocet, with the right stuff scope package. Started shooting today, very happy with the results. It took about 6-7 shots to zero in my scope, then at 30 yrds I was in the bull 5 for 5. While target shooting i was talking to a C.O. and he mentioned that I should research using mechanicals! I need help if I should use them and which ones would suit my set up best.
I'd look at the Excalibur video on broadheads first.
http://excaliburcrossbow.com/demo/listi ... gory_id=47
I like the Wasp JakHammer with a 1 3/4" cut, but be sure to double band!
http://excaliburcrossbow.com/demo/listi ... gory_id=47
I like the Wasp JakHammer with a 1 3/4" cut, but be sure to double band!
wabi
Hey RY Guy,
Check out the discussion on mechanicals under the topic Grim Reaper. You can also check the archives for "mechanicals" and see a bunch of discussions on what we (people who actually shoot the deer) think is best.
I use Spitfires and have great success with them. However, Rage is a new release this year and it "looks" impressive. I have purchased a couple of 3 packs and look for to trying them. Rage has a different approach to mechanical that I like a lot. None of the mechanicals we usually refer use O-rings as it is outdated technology. Presently, we are discussing the advantages of "over-the-top" mechanicals vs the new method for blade extension used by Rage. By December I bet we will have it figured out as to what style works best.
Check out the discussion on mechanicals under the topic Grim Reaper. You can also check the archives for "mechanicals" and see a bunch of discussions on what we (people who actually shoot the deer) think is best.
I use Spitfires and have great success with them. However, Rage is a new release this year and it "looks" impressive. I have purchased a couple of 3 packs and look for to trying them. Rage has a different approach to mechanical that I like a lot. None of the mechanicals we usually refer use O-rings as it is outdated technology. Presently, we are discussing the advantages of "over-the-top" mechanicals vs the new method for blade extension used by Rage. By December I bet we will have it figured out as to what style works best.
The only ex who has a piece of my heart is Excalibur
Out dated technology just becomes traditional archery 
. I just picked up a pack of the spitfires. I like the track record of these, and yes, they do not have o rings. I wouldn't think twice about using mechanicals with o rings, you just have to double band them so they do not flash open due to the abrupt acceleration off the bow.
If they open in flight they do not fly true. There are a lot of really good fixed blade heads out there as well that shoot great out of the Excaliburs. Wasps, Slick Tricks, Thunderheads, etc. Just find one you like and make sure it shoots accurately out of your bow. Some broadheads do not group the same as your field points, so make sure to practice with both.
. I just picked up a pack of the spitfires. I like the track record of these, and yes, they do not have o rings. I wouldn't think twice about using mechanicals with o rings, you just have to double band them so they do not flash open due to the abrupt acceleration off the bow.If they open in flight they do not fly true. There are a lot of really good fixed blade heads out there as well that shoot great out of the Excaliburs. Wasps, Slick Tricks, Thunderheads, etc. Just find one you like and make sure it shoots accurately out of your bow. Some broadheads do not group the same as your field points, so make sure to practice with both.
I hunt for memories, the meat's a bonus!
I have shot many deer with O-ring mechanical. They work. But the cammed mechanicals work better. I also just like to try new stuff as it is released. Some are improvements over the old technology and some are not. The market dictates the survivors. Some times it is an old technology with a new application that is successful. Sometimes is a leap forward into a new technology that gives us a better product. Look what the compound bow and let-off has done for the sport. We don't shoot flint arrowheads anymore. Buy a pack of Rage and see if they are an improvement over the Jackhammer. Maybe you will like them and maybe they will be bummers. Whatever the results this forum is a great place to discuss the results. 
The only ex who has a piece of my heart is Excalibur
RY GUY first and foremost, welcome to the world of the crossbow.
Now with mechanicals get yourself a good quality head. Going cheap on a mechanical is not something that should be done. You will pay for that later. Mechanicals with O-Rings are ok, but you will have more maintance with them over the mechanical retainers. Rubberbands are also included in the class as the O-Ring. With them being made of rubber, rubber will deteriorate (over time) to the point that they will not longer have the retaining ability to hold the blade closed during flight. If you keep close eye on these retainers you should be ok and have no problems.
I use the NAP Spitfires because they use retainer clips and I have had great success with them. There is still maintance with them, but not wuite as much as with the other heads (non mechanical retainers). The practice heads hit exactly the same as the hunting blades so I do not need to practice and waste retaining clips with practice shots.
But when hunting with mechanicals ALWAYS use new O-Rings, ruberbands or retainer clips or the retaing method choosen of your head. The animals we choose to hunt deserves that from us.
Good luck
Now with mechanicals get yourself a good quality head. Going cheap on a mechanical is not something that should be done. You will pay for that later. Mechanicals with O-Rings are ok, but you will have more maintance with them over the mechanical retainers. Rubberbands are also included in the class as the O-Ring. With them being made of rubber, rubber will deteriorate (over time) to the point that they will not longer have the retaining ability to hold the blade closed during flight. If you keep close eye on these retainers you should be ok and have no problems.
I use the NAP Spitfires because they use retainer clips and I have had great success with them. There is still maintance with them, but not wuite as much as with the other heads (non mechanical retainers). The practice heads hit exactly the same as the hunting blades so I do not need to practice and waste retaining clips with practice shots.
But when hunting with mechanicals ALWAYS use new O-Rings, ruberbands or retainer clips or the retaing method choosen of your head. The animals we choose to hunt deserves that from us.
Good luck
Tom
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
Your above statement is not true. With an arrow, it does not matter if your using a mechanical or fixed head, if the point does not strike before the blades, the arrow will deflect. The main thing you need to think about when shooting is the angle of the hit. Also with a turkey, the feathers act like a coat of armour and will actually deflect or stop shot from a shotgun shell.jh45gun wrote:...... I watched a guy shoot at a turkey with a Mechanical on tv the arrow hit the wing and deflected and lost turkey. That would not have happened with a fixed blade. He got the message next day he used a fixed blade and harvested a turkey.
Tom
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
jh45gun the deflecting of an arrow al depends on the tip. Most but not all target tips are bullet shaped (round not pointed) thus it would be common to deflecting. With hunting heads it also depends on the angle of the blades coming from the body of the head. The greater the angle of the blades the better chance of a glancing hit or a deflected shot.
No matter what the point of the head has to make penertration before the blades make contact with the body or you will have a deflection as the blade will push the point awau from the body..
This all leads to your choice of a hunting head. You can get badly designed heads in both fixed blades or machanicals. Yes there has been problems in the past with some mechanicals, but not with good quality heads that have had the proper maintance done with them. There have also been problems with fixed heads, but mostly only with the lower quality heads. I use the Spitfire mechanicals and I did tests at different angles into targets. I even shot into a target (boughten heavy styrofoam arrow target) at a 60 degree angle. The head entered everytime with no deflections. The key was that the tip entered the target before the blades started with resistance.
jh45gun I have been told that the regulations of only being able to use #4, 5 or 6 shot is because of the body armor that turkeys have with feathers. I will tell you about a shot I had with a turkey. It was 18 yards, quartering away (near 30 degrees) with a 12 guage 3" magnum turkey loads, extra turkey choke. I took a neck shot at the base of the body. They turkey just folded, good shot with a clean kill.
Well I skinned that turkey and I was shocked. I counted over 19 pellets that came up against the skin, under the feathers but did not break the skin. 4 pellets did break the skin. I would never have believed that the feathers would have stopped the shot like it did. I know that if I had hit a goose with #5 3" magnum's at 20 yards the body of the goose would have been pummelled.
Back to the hunting head and deflecting shots on the hits. You must always remember that your tip of the head is what determins if you will deflect or not. If the tip is tracking through the animal, the blade will not deflect it, if not and the blade strikes a hard surface like a rib bone, the tip of the head will be deflected.
Not all hunting heads are good or are they all bad. Choose a good quality head weither you choose mechanicals or fixed blade. But also do not class all hunting heads in one group, some are good but there are also some bad.
No matter what the point of the head has to make penertration before the blades make contact with the body or you will have a deflection as the blade will push the point awau from the body..
This all leads to your choice of a hunting head. You can get badly designed heads in both fixed blades or machanicals. Yes there has been problems in the past with some mechanicals, but not with good quality heads that have had the proper maintance done with them. There have also been problems with fixed heads, but mostly only with the lower quality heads. I use the Spitfire mechanicals and I did tests at different angles into targets. I even shot into a target (boughten heavy styrofoam arrow target) at a 60 degree angle. The head entered everytime with no deflections. The key was that the tip entered the target before the blades started with resistance.
jh45gun I have been told that the regulations of only being able to use #4, 5 or 6 shot is because of the body armor that turkeys have with feathers. I will tell you about a shot I had with a turkey. It was 18 yards, quartering away (near 30 degrees) with a 12 guage 3" magnum turkey loads, extra turkey choke. I took a neck shot at the base of the body. They turkey just folded, good shot with a clean kill.
Well I skinned that turkey and I was shocked. I counted over 19 pellets that came up against the skin, under the feathers but did not break the skin. 4 pellets did break the skin. I would never have believed that the feathers would have stopped the shot like it did. I know that if I had hit a goose with #5 3" magnum's at 20 yards the body of the goose would have been pummelled.
Back to the hunting head and deflecting shots on the hits. You must always remember that your tip of the head is what determins if you will deflect or not. If the tip is tracking through the animal, the blade will not deflect it, if not and the blade strikes a hard surface like a rib bone, the tip of the head will be deflected.
Not all hunting heads are good or are they all bad. Choose a good quality head weither you choose mechanicals or fixed blade. But also do not class all hunting heads in one group, some are good but there are also some bad.
Tom
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
[img]http://hometown.aol.com/wingbonecall/images/turkey.gif[/img]
Happened to be in WalMart this evening and I took a stroll through the archery section. They just put the archery gear out a week or two ago. I looked at the broadhead display and all the hooks were full except one. The NAP Spitfire hook was empty. 
Guess that might be a good indication of which mechanical people like.
Guess that might be a good indication of which mechanical people like.wabi
When I was young I was out hunting one day with my first bow. I was using fixed wasp three blades which I have come to rely on over the years. I had a buck under my stand about seven feet away from the tree. I drew and shot and the buck ran off. I exited my stand and retrieved my arrow. It didn't look good. The arrow had a little blood on it and some streaks of fat. I waited for my dad to come back from his spot and we started tracking. Luckily there was a decent blood trail and we found the buck about 200 yards away. Upon inspection of the buck, we saw that the arrow went in next to his spine, slid down the outside of his rib cage and exited about half way down his side. The arrow had deflected but luckily it hit an artery next to the spine.
Since the ordeal I have replayed my actions many times in my head. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the shot. Maybe it was a failure of the broadhead or maybe it was because my bow was weak and there wasn't enough velocity for good penetration. I don't know for sure but I like to think it was partialy due to my weak bow but mainly because of my choice of shot placement. The angle I was shooting at (almost straight down) was too great and the way its back was curved gave the arrow a perfect chance to take the path of least resistance. It may have worked out better if my bow was more powerfull but since then I have learned to be more aware of my shots and how and where the arrow will move after impact. Bottom line... any shot at a real steep angle will have more of a chance to go wrong than a straight on, broadside shot. The broadhead did it's job perfectly, it went in and cut it's way back out. It was my decision to take a poor shot that could have lost that buck.
Since the ordeal I have replayed my actions many times in my head. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the shot. Maybe it was a failure of the broadhead or maybe it was because my bow was weak and there wasn't enough velocity for good penetration. I don't know for sure but I like to think it was partialy due to my weak bow but mainly because of my choice of shot placement. The angle I was shooting at (almost straight down) was too great and the way its back was curved gave the arrow a perfect chance to take the path of least resistance. It may have worked out better if my bow was more powerfull but since then I have learned to be more aware of my shots and how and where the arrow will move after impact. Bottom line... any shot at a real steep angle will have more of a chance to go wrong than a straight on, broadside shot. The broadhead did it's job perfectly, it went in and cut it's way back out. It was my decision to take a poor shot that could have lost that buck.
A bad day in the woods is better than a good day anywhere else.
wabi,
I cleaned out a local shop around here and bought the last pack of Spitfires. I thought they came with practice blades
, mine did not. Oh well, not a big deal, I'll just use one head as a target head. I was in awe at the cutting diameter looking down the open broadhead . A well placed shot will still be my first and foremost objective. I had two hard tracking jobs this past year, and although they were a good learning experience, I would rather not do it again 
.
I'm going to test them out tomorow after work.
I cleaned out a local shop around here and bought the last pack of Spitfires. I thought they came with practice blades
, mine did not. Oh well, not a big deal, I'll just use one head as a target head. I was in awe at the cutting diameter looking down the open broadhead . A well placed shot will still be my first and foremost objective. I had two hard tracking jobs this past year, and although they were a good learning experience, I would rather not do it again .I'm going to test them out tomorow after work.
I hunt for memories, the meat's a bonus!
muzzy works for me
chas here..I have been shooting my bow (X-OMAG) for bout 6 years now..All i ever used is Muzzy 100gr..I have killed 3 BIG bucks in Iowa and a few here in Pa...none of these deer went more than 40 yds...all hit in a vital area...they work alsum...
i have a older bow "X-OMAG"...was just wondering if i can add something from the new bows to get a faster arrow
