Why I fell out of love with Mechanical Broadheads

Mechanical Broadheads vs. “Cut – on – Contact”

Those mechanicals look cool and a lot of hunters love them but I will take a cut-on-contact broadhead always as my first choice. There is a nice looking “one piece” cut on contact broadhead pictured.

I tallied reviews at a large sporting goods store for a popular mechanical broadhead and most folks couldn’t say enough good things about mechanical broadheads. There were 157 reviews but I worried about the 19 folks who didn’t enjoy good results and didn’t have good things to say. They gave this particular brand very low marks. That is about 12% of the survey audience who weren’t very happy. The problems come in three categories. First, the unhappy 12% reported that the mechanical can open on the way to the target and fly off like it was part of an air show. Second, the broadhead might not function correctly when it initially comes into contact with the intended or unintended object. There were reports of ricochet shots off the animal with no penetration. I remember one hunter saying it was like a “pole vaulter” as he watched the arrow glance off the deer hide.(Probably an active imagination.) And finally, there were reports that the mechanical didn’t open at impact and behaved like a field point on pass through shots. That is a lot going on. It’s only 12%. You figure that some people are unhappy with anything they buy and never have a good thing to say. So maybe its really only 5%. Heck, it might just be 1%. Still a high percentage when the monster of the big woods makes an appearance. 99% isn’t good enough then. I fell out of love at last light and the buck was 20 yards away. I was experimenting with the mechanical types just to see for myself. I messed up. There was a small vine between the buck and my shooting position that I forgot about as the sun set below the horizon. Maybe the mechanical deployed from the force of the release. Maybe I pulled the shot. I let the arrow fly and heard a metallic click instead of the expect “thump”. I will never know what really happened. I have seen deflections before with broadheads but my guess is that the mechanical snagged a leaf, opened and headed off somewhere else….or it just opened. It was my fault. I just knew that my trusty cut-on-contact would have powered through that little vine and would have found its mark one way or another. It was the “click” that bothered me. I joined the unhappy 5% – 12%. I know I can’t talk you out of your mechanical broadhead. They do fly like a field point – right? I can just tell you about the evening that I fell out of love with mechanicals.