My daughter has a Barnett Wildcat recurve crossbow with a 165 lbs. draw weight, that shots at 240-260 FPS with 55-60 lbs. of KE. She shot a big buck (180 lbs dressed) this year with a Thunderhead 3 blade fixed head, complete pass thru , high double lung hit. He ran about 100-125 yards and crashed. Not a single drop of blood the whole way. I was thinking of using the Rage Hypodermic Crossbow broadheads but I've been told they may not open at those lower speeds and KE, and I should use the ones made for compound bows. Others have said those will open in flight. Should we stick with a fixed head and take a chance on the mech. -Thanks

It was not the broadhead that was an issue,the hit was high.This type of hit with a rifle often leads to little or minimal blood trail.

I will not give up KE using a mechanical broadhead on any bow,or take the risk they will deploy early etc it HAS happened to me with a RAGE.

Yes they shoot VERY well but I have a fixed BH that shoot as well outa my Ten Point RS-410 and no loss of KE.

This is like the 9mm-45acp-40S&W wars.

I'll always choose a fixed BH.

A high double lung shot isn't going to start showing a lot of blood until the lungs fill up with blood, at that point the deer is about dead.

As for mechanical broadheads,  I haven't tried any of them lately, but years ago when I did try them I never found a couple of deer I was sure I had good hits on.  I went back to fixed blades and I think my recovery rates are much better.

A mechanical broadhead may or may not expand, a fixed blade isn't going to collapse.  And fixed blade are plenty accurate enough.

NAP Killzone.  When we need to kill a bunch of doe on our properties, we use crossbows and I have shot both regular Killzone and the crossbow version.  I don't see much difference.  

I'm shooting a 460gr arrow at about 290fps and using Killzones out of my vertical bow.  I get full pass throughs on every single whitetail I've shot so far including two that I accidentally shot through the scapula.  


Modern mechanicals are extremely reliable.  The only people I hear complain about them are people that never used them.  I've never personally seen a mechanical open prematurely without hitting something substantial in flight...which would cause big issues with fixed blades as well.  I've never seen them not deploy when hitting the target.  They open very large wound channels leaving easy to follow blood trails while flying great.  I don't see a reason to expend all the arrows energy in the ground behind the deer using a fixed blade when I can utilize that energy opening a larger wound channel.  

I've been on a LOT of track jobs that were crawling around on hands and knees looking for specs of blood after good shots with fixed blade heads.  I've never had that problem with a Killzone.  I usually follow a red carpet to an animal that fell in sight.  The couple that made it out of sight were easy to find.  I made a bad shot on my buck last year I hit low on a steeply angled shot.  Deer ran about 450 yards, bedded down and died of blood loss.  I didn't hit any vitals.  I gave the deer 5 hours before pursuing.  I could have upright walked at a fast pace and followed that blood trail all the way to the carcass.  He was in rigor so he had been dead a bit at that point.  


I recommend the killzones to everyone looking for a mechanical head.  The two deer I shot with mine this year had already been through 3 deer making that 5 total deer shot with that head (changed blades after every deer).  It still spins true and it's back in my quiver for another kill.  The only people I suggest stick with fixed blades are people shooting very low poundage < 60lbs.

Not discounting your experience,  I haven't used mechanical in a long time do to past experiences with them.

Could you explain the above statement to me.   I've always been of the impression that bows didn't use energy in their kills like rifles do.  If you are getting pass through shots with both types of broadhead what does energy have to do with it?   Isn't it just the size hole they cut?

Bows don't necessarily kill like guns as they don't produce hydrostatic shock, however, without energy, you can't penetrate the animal...so they do use energy to kill.  I can't think of a system that would kill an animal without some energy being expended.  Modern compound bows produce energy that is far more than is necessary to completely pass through a whitetail with a traditional fixed blade head.  So, a large amount of the energy produced by the bow is just spent shoving it deeper into the dirt on the other side instead of being used to cause more damage on the tissue.  

The larger size of cut means more of the energy stored in the arrow is being used to cause damage to the tissue.  More damage to the tissue causes greater blood loss and faster death.  So not only does the animal die closer to you, you have a better blood trail to follow on the way there.  

Ideally you want to find the largest broad head that will reliably achieve a full pass through.  That's the most efficient use of the energy available.  This is a problem with a fixed blade head because the larger the fixed blades get, the worse they plane in flight and cause major accuracy issues.  The only option at that point is mechanical to achieve proper and repeatable flight while achieving large enough cut to expend maximum energy damaging tissue.  

I love my G5 Montecs.   One piece design. No chance for failure.