My evaluations with the kit were instructive. Thanks for making this happen,
@Red Beard.
I was surprised to see the similarities among the old-school style heads made from layers of formed sheet metal. The Eclipse, which I'd never heard of, seemed to be a clone of the Magnus heads, which themselves are built much like the old Zwickey Black Diamond heads (which are not included in the pack). All have 3 layers of sheet metal at the tip, with a hollow base molded from 2 of the layers, to create a tapered receptacle for a wooden shaft or threaded broadhead adapter. The Grizzly heads are a variation that uses only 2 layers of metal.
The Steel Force and Stinger heads represent a style that uses a separate ferrule attached to a flat sheet metal blade. This is the style of the classic Bear Razorhead (also not in the pack) that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s.
I was surprised to learn that the RamCat is available with single-bevel blades, to enhance the twist imparted by the offset mounting of the replaceable blades. I think the RamCat and Muzzy100 may have been the only replaceable blade, chisel-tip style heads in the pack. I shot that style for years, in several versions including Satellites, Savora, Wasp, Thunderhead, and Wac 'em. I've moved on to heavier-duty, single-piece, 2-blade heads now, but I do believe that the design of the single-bevel RamCat may give it some advantages over other replaceable-blade models. My primary reservation is that Dr. Ashby found that 3-blade heads in general stick in bone, rather than splitting the bone and penetrating as well as the 2-blade, single-bevel heads. My own experience has been consistent with that finding.
The designs that have my favor now, as I said, are the single-piece, molded designs, represented in the test pack by the G5 Montec and the Bone 200. This method of manufacture seems to be more precise, and it eliminates the inconsistencies introduced (or allowed) by gluing a broadhead adapter into a sheet-metal head. It also lends itself to heavier builds with thicker blades, less prone to breaking like those in the replaceable-blade models.
The Montec is a capable head (I've tested some of the cheap and less-durable knockoffs), but the 3-blade design has me worried about its ability to punch though bone, based on Ashby's work.
The Bone broadhead, on the other hand, is a stout, heavily-constructed splitting maul, designed specifically to crack a bone open and let the arrow continue on its way. I'm sure that it is good at that, but I'd like to see some apples-to-apples comparisons of the Bone (with its rounded, shovel-shaped front edges) against more traditional straight-edged designs with Ashby's favored tanto tip. We unfortunately don't have any of the other molded, 200-grain, 2-blade heads in the pack to compare the Bone to (for example, Cutthroat, Abowyer, VPA, and Grizzlystik forged models). Serious testing in tough substrates would likely damage the heads, though, and that isn't what our "test pack" is for.
I did not seriously consider the expandable/mechanical "flappers" in the kit. I know that expandables can kill game, but their performance when they hit bone is not reliable, according to Ashby and many others.
Thanks for the opportunity to paw through the kit, and launch a couple of the heads. That was fun.