I spend a good amount of time watching hunting content and thinking about ways to improve as a bow hunter. Like many, many ethical hunters, I spend plenty of that time trying to optimize quick deer deaths and the highest recovery chances that I can achieve. So, often when watching ranch fairy videos and The Hunting Public videos, I find myself feeling guilty for shooting mechanical heads (grim reapers) and "non adult" arrows. The thing is, I used to shoot sharp fixed heads. They weren't heavy and I didn't have a high FOC but still, almost all my shots were complete pass throughs. I had a hard time blood trailing many, many deer with that set up.
So, here's my defense of my flipper flappers. I don't currently have a network of hunting buddies who I could ask to help me track. I have a family and my hunting time is limited and I want to avoid needing hours and hours to search for a blood trail. I know that with mechanicals, everything is great until it isn't, however, since I switched, things have gotten much easier for me. For one thing, I don't tend to get complete pass throughs, and seeing my arrow partially sticking out really helps me feel confident on shot placement and likelihood of quick death. Most importantly, every deer has left an amazing blood trail that I have been able to follow alone, easily, and every deer I've shot so far with mechanicals (I think it's 7 or 8) has been recovered and has died quickly.
All this is me just working through that, while I have no doubt that a fixed, single bevel, razor sharp 250 gr head with 22% FOC, is the most ideal set up to maximize death and minimize deflection, for me and with my particular set of circumstances, the calculus seems to point to mechanicals being a better choice for now. I've been so impressed by my reapers (fatal steel 125s). I sharpen them to pretty damn sharp. They've yet to be damaged in any way, and I've been able to reuse them and they have deployed properly every time.
I have no interest in debating this. I'm not saying that mechanicals are better or the "right" set up, I'm just writing out my thoughts on why they have felt like the "right"set up for me.
So, here's my defense of my flipper flappers. I don't currently have a network of hunting buddies who I could ask to help me track. I have a family and my hunting time is limited and I want to avoid needing hours and hours to search for a blood trail. I know that with mechanicals, everything is great until it isn't, however, since I switched, things have gotten much easier for me. For one thing, I don't tend to get complete pass throughs, and seeing my arrow partially sticking out really helps me feel confident on shot placement and likelihood of quick death. Most importantly, every deer has left an amazing blood trail that I have been able to follow alone, easily, and every deer I've shot so far with mechanicals (I think it's 7 or 8) has been recovered and has died quickly.
All this is me just working through that, while I have no doubt that a fixed, single bevel, razor sharp 250 gr head with 22% FOC, is the most ideal set up to maximize death and minimize deflection, for me and with my particular set of circumstances, the calculus seems to point to mechanicals being a better choice for now. I've been so impressed by my reapers (fatal steel 125s). I sharpen them to pretty damn sharp. They've yet to be damaged in any way, and I've been able to reuse them and they have deployed properly every time.
I have no interest in debating this. I'm not saying that mechanicals are better or the "right" set up, I'm just writing out my thoughts on why they have felt like the "right"set up for me.