Hi Guys

Bought a pack of spit fire mechanicals(100's) this weekend, am looking at trying them out.

I shoot a Hoyt with Easton ST Epic's 300's. 31.5" draw lenght, 70 pounds.

Does anyone shoot with them, with a similar set up? I have never used Mechanicals before and would like to know what your results were with them. How was the penetration and what was successfully hunted with them?

458 I have not used that particular brand and style, but they are known as being the top of the line mech.
With that said I have taken a lot of game with the cheapest mech I could find and they flew great, and killed fantastic.
In fact they killed as well or better than any other head I have ever used.
They DO NOT bounce off on angled shots and penetration was as good as the 4 blade Muzzies I have shot things with.
On a big boar I would have no trouble getting through the shield but they would be stuck into the off side shield with out a pass through.
However I have never gotten a pass through on both sides of a big boar with any arrow I have ever shot one with.
Getting through one shield is not a big deal it seems, getting through both sides is.
You will probably break some blades on entry, but I have never broken more than one per kill and that still leaves two BIG blades sticking out to slice things up, and they do.
In my experiance I have broken just as many blades on a Muzzies and it never kept either from killing something.
As far as penetration that is not dealing with a shield I shot a 150 pound sow in the right flank as she was trotting away from me and the arrow came out the middle of her left front shoulder on a complete pass through.
The internal damage was unreal and I actually washed that arrow off and killed another hog with it an hour later.
I just use some small rubber bands that you get for horses manes to replace the band that held the blades in place, they work just as well.

Now on the down side a hit on a game animal that does not give complet penetration is probably going to fall back out of the hole, and when you find your arrow the blades will be closed up and you might think that it never opened.
Not true, the blades just fold back into place and it won't stay in the animal continueing to cut and do damage as it runs.
That is the biggest downside that I see.

Oh yes, and I was using carbon arrows, goldtips to be exact and a matthews Q2 pulling as hard as it would go, so about 70 to 72 pounds I believe.

458.

I have no faith in mechanical broad heads.

Have a look at this hunt report

http://www.bowhuntingforum.co....ghlight=slick+tricks

Slick Tricks have never faild me....

I never had a mechanical fail me.

well to be honest i have never been a fan of mechanicals - i am going to try them on an impala or warthog this weekend or the weekend after that.

Will be posting pics of the results.

Good luck and enjoy.

Make sure you do not hit heavy bones or try quatering away shots....

Gerhard I am just wondering if you have actually ever used them or if you are simply repeating others negativity?

Please share your experiances that you have had due to failures with mechanicals if you would be so kind

We have had way to many problems with Mechanicals on our consession.

Tracking jobs that last till late at night and the advise we give to hunters choosing to use them is exactly the same as I gave 458.

Here is a photo.



This Blue Wildebeest was killed a year later.

Admited the shot was poor but the broad head penetratration was almost 0
.

This is the shoulder bone of an impala shot with a Slick Trick





All the best

Thanks for the reply, and I am glad to see that you are basing your opinion on personal experiance.
I know also that you understand that there is a vast difference in density between a wildebeasts shoulder joint and an antelopes shoulder bone.
In the pic of the wildebeast to my eyes nothing failed whatsoever.
It was a shot that would have required not so much a different broadhead but instead a far heavier arrow to have had a chance with any head.
The mech did not fail, it penetrated as far as it was able utilizing its mass and velocity.
The blades did not break, they did not inhibit penetration whatsoever it does not appear.
I would doubt that any head with the same weight and velocity of arrow would have done any better.
Granted if it had been able to have penetrated the joint, I would imagine that then the blades would have broken off on the solid bone, however the only head that I know of that perhaps would not had the same thing happen to it would have been a Montec.
The slick trick I do not think would have fared much better.
I personally do not use mechs any more, but I have killed much game with them and have friends who take elk on a regular basis with them as well.
I am sure that I would love the slick tricks as well, but in a pinch I would have no hesitation or worry about using a good mechanical.
As I mentioned I purposely did a test of a dozen heads of the cheapest brand I could find on wild hogs and to be honest I was very impressed at their performance.
I shot big boars through the sheilds, and took angled shots from front and behind and not, onve, I mean not once did I have a head fail me.
The worst thing I observed was broken blades, and that the arrow if not a pass through would always come back out instead of remaining inside the animal continueing to inflict damage.

Thanks again though for taking the time to answer.

Bucko,

You are correct that there is a huge difference in comparison between a Blue Wildebeest and Impala shoulder bone.

I personally made a bad shot last year when I shot my Zebra.

I shot 2 inches to low out of an elevated hide and hit the zebra stallion right on the shoulder joint.

The 450gr arrow tipped with a slick trick 125gr shattered the joint.

We tracked the blood spoor and found the stallion on his feet 200 meters away but about to go down and we shot him with the 375 to put him down.

Unfortunatley I lost the broad head during the skinning process.

But the for me personally and guys asking what broad head to choose when coming to hunt in Africa I suggest quality fix blade broad heads like Slick Tricks and Montec.

Its one thing testing on hogs and spending time tracking them after the shot and another wasting time tracking a wounded Kudu bull or Eland Bull due to broad head failure when you are paying lots of money for the animal and to travel to Africa.

If a hunter do decide to use mechanical broad heads I advise them to pick their shot and to make sure the animal is broad side.

My 2 kwanza

I've shot the 100gr spitfires out of a 68# Hoyt. They shot very good on the range.

They sucked on game.

I shot a 180# Whitetail buck at 18 yards, hit him 1/3 way up just at the crease of the shoulder, broadside. Got maybe six inches penetration. The buck was still alive, bedded, FIVE HOURS later. He was recovered nest morning 150 yards away. Crappy performance.

Shot a 150# Whitetail buck at 45 yards, same hit, same penetration. Gave him an hour, jumped him out of his bed. Recovered him 300 yards away that afternoon. Crappy performance.

The next season I shot 160 gr Simmons Tree Shark heads and shot eleven Whitetails and SAW ten of en fall, eleventh fell just out of sight maybe 80 yards away from tree. Good performance.

You choose which is a better killer....

just MY experience

troy

I've killed a BUNCH of deer with Spitfire 100gr 3 blade mechancials. They worked fine... IN MY SETUP. Let that be the key here.

I changed setups and I had one major failure. I went from a heavy bow/arrow combo to a fast light arrow bow combo.

I'm not saying not to use a mechanical. I still will and I have faith in them. But do reaize that some energy is needed to open the blades. It is your choice and I trust you to know what your setup will do.

For what it is worth... I have found the best performance (blood trail, and short recovery) with simple two blade cut-on-contact heads - namely the Magnus II. They have killed just as dead as anything else and cost about 1/4 of the price of a popular mechanical.

I guess the key is shot placement. If you shoot the mechs the best and can hit the soft spot every time... use em.

Heck, I shoot hogs with a 22 caliber slug and they die every time.

Your mileage may vary.

I've used spitfires quite extensively as well as most of my friends and brothers. Have only lost 1 deer due to lack of penetration (sort of...), and that was because it hit both shoulder blades (stopped on the offside shoulder). No blood trail on that one, and it went at least 300 yards - the guy hunting the next property over found it several weeks later. If you hit a deer in the ribs, well it will look like a shotgun or rifle exit wound. This is over 5 or 6 years of bowhunting, and quite a few dead deer. They'll do the job, and leave a good blood trail if you do your part with shot placement (kinda like the other broadheads available...). JMHO

gd

GD, I been shooting a bow a loooong time. I shot WITH Howard Hill when I was young....

Both the deer I shot with Spitfires were hit in the rib cage and neither penetrated well or killed fast. Placement was NOT the problem.

Mostly I now shoot 160gr STOS and 180gr Silverflames, both two blade heads. I killed seven deer this season, ten last season, and eleven the year before, etc....didn't lose any deer and had good bloodtrails.

troy

DT if you shot a whitetail in the right spot at 18 yards with a 68 pound hoyt and only got six inches of penetration something besides your choice of head was off.

My brother has killed over a dozen deer with those 100gr spitfires. He likes them just fine. For deer size game they will get the job done.

I've personally used the 100gr Rocket Spitfires with excellent success on deer sized animals.

On bigger than deer sized critters, I believe the 100 grain expandables are at a severe disadvantage when compared to fixed blades. In my experience going to a 125 grain mechanical head makes an enormous difference. That 25% extra weight gives mechanical heads a serious boost in performance.

bucko, I've killed over 400 head of big game in my lifetime...I've got a pretty good handle on what it takes to kill something.

The buck shot at 18 yards was hit right behind the shoulder broadside, 1/3 way up the back of the leg. I hit a rib going in and did not penetrate to the opposite sho or rib cage.

You tell me what I did wrong....besides shoot a crappy head

troy

Hell I don't know, I have blown them through pigs that weighed more than your whitetail.
DANG! in two posts I have found out who you knew and what you did,, color me impressed.

I'd color ya more of a smartazz myself but maybe it's just the way ya come across on the net????

There are way too many "internet experts" with little or no real experience killing stuff, but posting like they've killed more deer than EHD. NOT saying you are, but I sure as heck ain't.

There are a LOT of better heads than a Spitfire to choose from in my experience, however limited that experience is. But after two bad experiences in a row I wasn't going to try THAT again. Just me.

You ever in Alabama look me up. Hows the weather in Az these days????

troy

Troy I am not an expert but I am pretty convinced that mechanicals get a far worse rap than they actually deserve.
I have personally killed not hundreds with them, but enough to have laid my own worries to rest about them.
I will say this again though, if you only got 6 inches of penetration something strange is going on.
What did your arrow set up weigh if I might ask?

Just as something to think about aas well, I do have a good friend that won't use anything but a mech and has two 400" bull elk hanging in his living room that they have worked on.
And those are just the ones he wanted to hang up, he has many more elk to his credit that he has taken with them.
Just a thought.

I have shot many deer with the 100 grain spitfire, out of a Hoyt MT Sport at 70 pounds.
They all blew through, they all killed quickly with big holes and lots of blood.
If you are only getting 6" of penetration, something is wrong.
Are you are practicing with them- and not replacing or resharpening the blades?
NAP makes practice blades that fly just like the real blades.

I've shot Spitfires out of my 65 lb Hoyt bows for years now and never had any problem. Every deer that I've shot I had pass through. I have shot one bear with them and he left a good short blood trail...30 yds or so. Every now and then I try something different, but I always end up going back to Spitfires. Last fall I tried 4 blade slick tricks and shot a doe at 20 yds. The arrow blew through her like hot butter! I hit her high lung entrance, low lung exit and she should have left a good blood trail, but she didn't leave any! I found her after a bit of looking.
The Spitfires leave horrendous blood trails in my experience!! But, most of the time you don't need to follow a blood trail because they drop in sight. I always hear bad stories about mechanicals and I guess I've been lucky not have one of my own bad stories.

bucko, those arrows probably weighed 450-500 grains total weight? Been a while but they were not light. I have no idea what the prob was but I was not going to continue doing it after two not so quick kills.

The problem with mechanicals is that there are just more things to go wrong/break. Any bow can be tuned to shoot fixed blade heads and there is less to go wrong in a not so perfect world of deer killing.

I went back to recurves and longbows several years ago and usually shoot 52-58 pounds of draw, with 540-570gr arrows with 200gr STOS or 180gr Silverflames. Prolly shooting 160-180fps and getting passthrus most of the time.

god hnting and good luck,
troy

arty, I certainly was not shooting the same heads that I practiced with for sure. The heads were new, sharp as they come. btw, I don't like trusting someone else to sharpen my heads either. Just an old fart thing I guess....

troy

Well I have to say that would have put me off on them forever as well.
I personally do not use them anymore either but it is primarily because I have also gone traditional.
Trying to figure out how to make the best trade point now.

guess we'll just hijack this thread....

ya ever try stone points??? I've killed a dozen er so deer/hogs with stone points I've made.

Ya can make trade points from circular saw blades.

troy

No I most certainly have never even shot a flint head, and envy you if you know how to knapp.
What I make my trade points out of is old World war two banding.
It has quite a high carbon content and takes a good temper.

I've had good success on Tennessee whitetail deer (avg. live weight 100-150 lbs) with 125 gr. Spitfire mechanicals over the past 10-12 years.
I shoot a 70 lb PSE. I have never lost a deeer that has been hit - - good exit hole & blood trail, good penetration, mostly all pass throughs with large exit holes except for a few sharply quartering away shots that lodged against the far shoulder.

Hi Guys

Have a look at the link http://forums.accuratereloadin...1021043/m/9781098501

Shot an Impala with Spitfires and written a report on it.

Regards