The best thing about Grim Reaper Mechanicals is that they fly like a field point and cut like a scalpel. This turkey season take the Grim Challenge and tip your bird over with a Grim Reaper...then send us your picture.
Hovey Smith stopped this bird with a Grim Reaper
1-3/4 Razortip. This mechanical is the right medicine for T-Birds...take one in the morning!
The Blades
Written by Hovey SmithChuck Buck, of Buck Knives, is fond of saying, “The blade is the thing,” implying that all the design frills and appearance factors are of little importance if a knife’s blade is not adequate for the task. This is also true of fixed and mechanical broadheads. Grim Reaper’s designs focused first on producing sharp, durable and easily-replaceable blades and then they devised a superior mechanism to insure reliable function and killing potential.
A hunt for tough Texas hogs and turkeys on the Herradura Ranch south of San Antonio provided an ideal place to test Grim Reaper’s three-bladed mechanical points fired at up to 330 fps from Ten Point crossbows. Mechanical points shot from crossbows must resist premature opening when subjected to shock and acceleration forces as the arrow is discharged. In flight, mechanicals need to have a low-enough profile to match the performance of target points of the same weight. On impact, the ideal mechanical point starts to cut very quickly; and a portion of the point penetrates the hide before the cutting arms start to deploy.
Looking at the Grim Reaper in detail, the three blades have a double-beveled grind which permits the edge to be thin; but strongly supported. A byproduct of this design is that these tough blades can be re-sharpened. I found that a few strokes with a file would remove any burrs, and that the edge could be restored with a fine Arkansas stone and honing oil. In fact, I used the same point to take two hogs and a deer before one of the blades was bent and had to be replaced. My Scotch genes would not let me throw away perfectly reusable blades that only needed re-sharpening, even though the blades are easily replaced.
Rather than employ a rubber O-ring to keep the blades closed in flight, Reaper’s mechanicals use a spring to provide tension on the blades. Often kinetic energy will close the blades after they pass through an animal giving the erroneous impression that the points did not expand. In fact they did expand as witnessed by the exit cuts and internal damage. This is superior to the typical rubber band blade-retaining system used on many mechanicals. There is no way on the Reaper’s points that a band can weakened with age or slip out of place.
The Razortip points, which uses a triangular hardened tip (Trocrazor)with cutting fins, are available in 75, 100 and 125 grain weights with three cutting arms that provide a 1 1/8- inch cut for the 75-grain point, 1 3/8-inch cut for the 100/125-grain points and 1 ¾-inch cut for the 100/125- grain EXTRA long points. The 100-grain points have their weights increased by 25 grains by adding an optional screw-on base section.
I selected the 100-grain 1 3/8ths inch point for hog hunting and the same weight point with a 1 ¾-inch cut for turkey. The crossbow that I used was an adjustable-pull-weight Ten Point Slider set at 150 pounds of pull. This had been zeroed with 100-grain field points at 30 yards and checked with mechanical points fired at the target. Both sets of points impacted within a half-inch which is about as good as I can hold.
Hunting over bait is sometimes productive and sometimes not. A Rio Grande gobbler came into my set-up on the second day of the hunt. I aimed just above the leg and shot. The point cut through the bird’s spine and dropped it flopping. This was the most immediately effective kill on a turkey that I ever achieved with an arrow. The afternoon of that same day I had hogs come to the corn. I shot at and hit an 80 pounder at 30 yards. Although the hog ran, it only made about 30 yards before expiring, which is excellent performance for any arrow-shot animal.
Grim Reaper’s also has a Razorcut line which combines a replaceable cutting blade tip with the same components employed on their Razortips. These full cutting point tips should be even more effective on soft-skinned game animals than the Razorcuts. Completing the Grim Reaper products is their Hades fixed blade point that employs the same edge-grinding technology and has cutting surfaces not only on the blade’s edge, but also on its back so that the blade cuts in all directions for as long as it remains in the animal.
By giving their first attention to blade strength and grind, Grim Reaper has an excellent series of mechanical and fixed-blade points that performed very well for me on two hunts in Texas as well as on subsequent hunts in Georgia. A few seconds of extra care is needed to make sure that the points are assembled correctly, but the point’s improved performance and durability are well worth it.
www.grimreaperbroadheads.comWm. Hovey Smith is a full-time outdoor writer that lives in Central Georgia, but hunts all over North America. His educational and work experiences as a Professional Geologists led him to spend a dozen years in Alaska and also to work, and hunt, throughout the Rocky Mountain states. Specializing in the more unusual forms of hunting, he often uses crossbows, handguns, muzzleloaders, knives and even spears to take game.
Some of his recent adventures include a 30-day bowfishing trip from Charleston Harbor, South Carolina to Grays Harbor, Washington, and an African safari done with a muzzleloading rifle, smoothbore and pistol. Two of his recent books are Practical Bowfishing (Stoeger, 2004) and Crossbow Hunting (Stackpole, 2006). He has also authored hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles that have appeared in more than 50 publications since the 1970s. On this hunt Hovey was attending a Whitetail University Writers camp.For more Whitetail How-to check out whitetailu.com