New Crossbow Broadhead is Something to Behold

It’s almost hard to believe that mechanical broadheads have been entrenched in the bowhunting world for over 20 years now. Wow, time flies almost as fast as these modern arrows!

Mechanicals became the rage in the archery industry in the mid-1990s when two things – 3-D archery and high-speed bows – became more popular. Whitetail hunters realized they could shoot farther and more accurately with broadheads that flew more like field points.

The logic was sound, but many hunters, myself included, stubbornly stuck with their tried-and-true heavy arrow/broadhead combinations. With today’s craze of being bigger, better and faster, it’s difficult not to adapt to the new wave of bowhunting. In other words, if your bow is a Cadillac, you had better feed it premium.

By Daniel E. Schmidt

There are many good broadhead brands and models out there, but one I keep coming back to is the Rage X-treme. One of the widest cutting broadheads out there at 2.3 inches, the X-treme also has incredibly sharp stainless-steel blades — among the sharpest I’ve used. That, combined with the shock and awe of the insanely wide cutting diameter, helps it put deer down faster than anything I’ve personally used while bowhunting.

Heading into this year’s bowhunting season, I knew that I would be hunting deer with a crossbow for the first time because my home state of Wisconsin just opened up the archery season to bow vertical bows and crossbows. Imagine my surprise when (maybe not coincidentally?) my friends at Rage informed me of the brand-new X-treme head built just for crossbow hunters.

 

Rage Crossbow X-treme.
Rage Crossbow X-treme.

I just had to try that out.

So, toting a TenPoint Stealth SS crossbow and a quiver full of bolts tipped with Rage Crossbow X-treme broadheads, I headed for the woods earlier in the bow season. Imagine my surprise when just minutes into my hunt a large doe appeared and presented a perfectly broadside shot.

Thwack!-Thunk! The arrow not only hit its mark, the broadhead’s performance was immediately apparent before I even lowered the TenPoint SST. The big doe bucked and plowed through the forest for mere seconds. Then silence.

Deer & Deer Hunting Editor-in-Chief Dan Schmidt with his first whitetail taken with a crossbow. (photo by Tracy Schmidt)
Deer & Deer Hunting Editor-in-Chief Dan Schmidt with his first whitetail taken with a crossbow. (photo by Tracy Schmidt)

Bowhunting — no matter how you do it — is all about cutting performance. This was one case where it was picture perfect. The blood trail wasn’t one to follow … it was one to be careful of walking too close to out of concern for getting it all over my boots and pant legs. Graphic indeed, but that’s the kind of result all bowhunters should strive for — a well-placed arrow that makes for a quick kill.

Extreme blood loss and easy to follow blood trails are what every bowhunter should strive to achieve. (photo by Dan Schmidt)
Extreme blood loss and easy to follow blood trails are what every bowhunter should strive to achieve. (photo by Dan Schmidt)

In case you are wondering, the new Rage Crossbow X-treme broadheads are not just regular X-tremes with a “crossbow” label on them. They look similar, but they are engineered differently. The crossbow broadheads are beefier to withstand the ballistics of higher speeds. If you’re shopping from them in the store, the crossbow heads are easily recognizable by their orange ferrule design. They will be available at retailers nationwide this spring with a suggested retail price of $49.99 for the Crossbow X-treme 3-pack with a practice head.

LOOK: GREAT DEALS ON CROSSBOW ACCESSORIES!

The swept blade angle of the purpose-designed Crossbow X-treme allows it to maintain kinetic energy longer and penetrate deeper than other crossbow broadheads on the market, while producing larger entry and exit wounds and massive blood trails.

The razor-sharp .035-inch stainless steel blades on the Crossbow X-treme are set at a more swept-back blade angle when deployed to allow for better penetration at longer distances where a crossbow’s kinetic energy tends to decrease. The longer blades of the Crossbow X-treme produce a 2.3-inch cutting diameter for increased tissue damage, utterly devastating wound channels and quicker kills.

Dan's is doe loaded up and ready to bring home. (photo by Tracy Schmidt)
Dan’s is doe loaded up on the Viking Solutions Tilt-N-Go and ready to bring home. (photo by Tracy Schmidt) View Viking Products

Available in 100 grain, the Rage Crossbow X-treme also features Ferrule Alignment Technology (F.A.T.) to ensure proper fit to crossbow bolts and perfect flight every time.

For more information on the Rage Crossbow X-treme’s construction, check out this informative clip by Jon Syverson of Feradyne Outdoors:

 

Find every deer you shoot! Check out this comprehensive guide from Deer & Deer Hunting:

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Blood Trailing Whitetails

From the publishers of Deer & Deer Hunting, Blood-Trailing Whitetails, provides expert information and analysis that will help you stay on the trail of every deer you shoot. Twelve in-depth articles will teach you how to unravel the blood trails of deer shot in the heart, lungs, liver, paunch, intestines even major muscle groups.From whitetail physiologists to expert deer hunters, this comprehensive guide is packed with articles, video clips, posters and charts that provide all the information you need to become a better blood-trailer.You will not only learn how to determine where your deer was hit, we’ll tell you how long you should wait before taking up the trail.
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