Which Grim Reaper to buy.....
 

Looking at purchasing some Grim Reapers for big game hunting this year and wondering what mechanical blades have worked for you guys. Is the Whitetail Special as good as the razor cut? Thanks.

Whitetail special is just a 2" version of the razorcut, both great heads.

Depending on what you are chasing and what kind of energy your producing kind of dictates what to shoot. If your looking for one head from turkey's to moose the whitetail special wouldn't be my choice. I shoot the 1 3/8" razor cuts and razor tips. They both work great and I use one head from deer to moose. The whitetail special cuts a huge swath and I'd be scared t try and push it through an elk or moose 40 yrds plus.

I used the razor tip 1 3/8" cut on my big fella last fall. The amount of blood was amazing. Holes in and out were bigger than 1 3/8" lol


http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/...psc9c72ddd.jpg



I wouldnt use the 2" cut on anything bigger than a deer from what ive been told bybmore experienced bowhunters.




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Our group has used the Wasp Jak Hammers 1 3/4 " cut for years. The Jak Hammer and the GR are very similar in design and function. We have shot tons of deer, texas hogs , a few bears, and a handful of moose with them. That big cut is deadly.
Be sure if you go with the 2" you have your bow tuned super well with a good FOC %, good speed and you should be fine with most NA game.

100gr razor tip ss. Hands down if you go with reaper I've been using them for yrs and fly and penetrate great.

85-100gr Razortips for me....was put onto them by Normanrd and WCTbowtech. No need to try anything else they are the real deal.

LC

100 grain razor tips for me as well they were devastating on a whitetail this past year and left a huge hole and awesome blood trail

does grim reaper make a low KE option like rage does?

:D ...Yup their Hades FIXED head!!....lol

Neil

:D Not a mechanical broadhead guy...but if I was to shoot a mechanical head it would be Grim Reaper with the Razortip or Fatal Steel design...
Rage seems to have a 50/50 sucess rate...whereas Grim Reaper is on average for any fixed head...

JMHO
Neil

Reapers
 

I love the grim reapers. I prefer the razorcut ss to the razortips myself but both are excellent. My buddy shot a elk with the whitetail specials and it did drop him but the 1 3/8 is better. No need for the larger cutting whitetail in my opinion as the 1 3/8 Does a amazing job when placed right.

Dont practice with your actual heads, use the Practice heads after a few shots the heads will not function as intended and either open early or not at all.

I shot a whitetail behind the shoulder with a grim reaper mechanical broad head. it just penetrated about two inches before stopping. followed a sparse blood trail for 200 yards before it dried up. we searched its home territory diligently for several weeks and never found it. I have never bow hunted big game since, it gives a horrible feeling to know you have wounded an animal that will never be found. now, most reviews seem to say that they are great broad heads, but as seen they can fail. for that reason if I went bow hunting again and for those of you that do I would strongly recommend going with a one piece fixed blade design.

Something went wrong...my guess is poor arrow flight/poor bow tuning, poor shot placement or low KE. Your experience could have been a combination of several of the above.

None of which are the fault of the broadhead, or a broadhead failure.

I have blown full through bull elk at 35 yards with a 60lb bow and 385gr arrow no problem. A couple buddies of mine have taken double digits of both bull elk and bull moose using only Grim Reapers and never had a failure.

LC

:D IMHO most of the bad results are quartering shots with mecanicals, many think they are broadside but in fact quartering toward or away...I believe this is why the Rage has that 50/50 results...

Having said that Grim Reapers once again usually have great sucess even with quartering shots

Neil

Agree...

This is a hard quartering shot and the arrow went clean through....30 yard recovery.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2a02deaa.jpg

Still from the video...blood exiting the arrow entrance before a single step was taken....

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...pshaa4bdcb.png

Exit wound....picture is worth 1000 words.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1pzfxqhb.jpg

LC

And that there folks, should put all doubts to rest.

I've been using both Grimm Reapers and Tekans for years and I've yet to have a failure.

My personal thoughts are that unless you have your fixed blades tuned perfectly, you are more likely to have poor shot placement that mechanical failure.

Curious what you shot your moose with?
I agree that the importance of having a properly broadhead tuned setup is crucial with fixed blades but the number one issue with "poor penetration" or deployment with expandable's is a untuned bow and hunters believing that shooting expandable's is a quick solution to poor fixed broadhead flight and frustration.
If you wish to shoot expandable's you should at least walk back tune and/or broadhead/bareshaft tune.

I always tune my bow for field points, and test my mechanicals but never have I had to tune my bow to match my poi of my mechanicals to my field points, an the other hand I've spent hours tuning my bow for fixed blades.

The moose I shot last fall was with my T3's, and I'll add that I have never had such a thick blood trail. It was a foot wide and 60yds long. Amazing considering there was no exit wound. With the hard quartering angle, the arrow went in just in front of the front leg and all that was sticking out was the green Nocturnal. About 28" of penetration from 75yds with a mechanical head is awesome performance if you ask me.

That's great!! I have looked at the T3's and liked them but stuck with grim reapers.
Field point and mechs will usually fly together, just if the bow isn't tuned (which I understand you always have a tuned bow) they can have just as poor of flight as each other. The amount of times I have been at the range and seen arrows sticking in a target at 20 yards with a tail up, or left or right or down from POI is crazy.... these are the guys that shoot mechs because they "can't find a fixed blade that hit with their broadheads" then complain about "deflection" and "poor penetration"

My point is that mechs get a bad rap but I would bet that 95% of those complaints are from poor arrow flight in the first place.

Mike

the Grim Reaper works wonders took my moose down in 20 yards ... the t3's I found were terrible takes a lot of kinetic energy to open those blades compared to the Grim Reapers

:D Good point Mike...its a fact that mecanicals were designed for the weekend Warriors that screw broadheads on the eve of opening season and head out...

However...As on the quartering shot...a fishtailing arrow is like a extreme quartering away shot...if your arrow is going downrange like this / - \ - / - \

and arrow hits critter like this / or this \ than that head has a huge chance of failure...

If an arrow is fishtailing with target or fieldtips screwing on a mecanical is NOT good to go!!!

Neil

I know what you mean. in my case though I spent 3 years building custom carbon arrows for the bow, tuning it and sending many thousands of shots downrange each week. I did paper testing and such, and could split arrows consistently at 60yd. one thing is for sure though, those grim reapers are extremely accurate. so if my failure was an isolated case I would say go with these arrowheads. for myself though, I don't think I could use those heads again just because I lost a deer shot with them.

for angle wise the moose was 5 yards away from my tree and I'm 18' up and never had a problem

With my moose... he let me shoot him twice.. after stopping him with a grunt after the first shot. Both grim reapers worked flawless.

Now.. the holes look bad.. but they were angled shots.

I used a dot in green to show where entry hole was on the right side for the first shot... and a purple dot to show where the second shot stopped on the right side hitting heavy bone after shooting him in the left side.

Green was a 10 yard shoot.. passed right through and the arrow stuck in almost halfway up the shaft in the dirt. The blades were not bent.. and is now a coyote head.

The purple was a 23 yard shot. The arrow looks bad.. but it worked its way out funny looking like a bad hit. If not for the heavy bone.. im sure it would have passed through too.
As u can see it was an angled shot and the Reaper still worked



72lb bow... 378 gr arrow 85gr grim reaper razor tip.


Both sides of moose looked just as messy.. and the blood trail could have been followed by a blind man.

I really dont know why im playing with fixed broadheads at the moment.. but ive found some that are flying bang on. I really should just use the reapers. Lol the moose didnt need a second shot.. and would have probably fell close after i stopped him for the second shot. Ugh



http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/...sgs2hti8c.jpeg







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https://vimeo.com/120270808

Here's last years bear. The grim reaper was just poked out through his off leg. Took some big bone chunks out.

Great video NBFK

+1!!!
Nice bear nbfk.

Seems like a shame that you were very dedicated to archery hunting and then a bad experience has turned you off. Anybody who has hunted either has or will at some point have something go sideways.

I shot the leg off o mule deer buck once. I could not figure out what happened. I had a perfect rest, gun was shooting dime size groups. When I went up to kill the deer I had to look it in the eye as it was helpless and I felt horrible. When i looked down at the gun I realized that I had lost a scope cap and must have bumped the dial. I could not hunt for the rest of the year as I felt I had done a disservice to myself as a hunter. Next year I was back at it but I now look at my scope caps all the time and especially before I shoot.

Get back into bow hunting and you will realize how much you missed it.

Thanks everyone that is some great information and it is greatly appreciated. I was leaning towards the razor tips till I went to a store today and the rep tried pushing the slick tricks on me. He swore by them. I guess it comes down to the good old debate of fixed vs mechanical.