Hi OkieBowie,
I just wanted to add my compliments about the information you're providing. I know the very early part of this year was somewhat of a learning experience for you when you joined the likes of Konrad, Super91 and myself, but you absorbed and learned an unbelievable amount of knowledge and information very quickly.
As such, most of your advice and responses are as solid as if any of us were giving these answers ourselves. When you're right, you're right and there's no contesting that you've learned well and have a great foundation of information to share with others. It always warms my heart to see people like yourself that absorb and understand all the technical aspects of archery. It means that our efforts to share this information have not gone to waste.
By the way, I' neither for nor against either type of a broadhead and like Ranger488, I'm always on the lookout for a really good 85 or 100 grain mechanical head that I can test. In actual hunting situations I use the 100 grain Phat Heads, but mechanical heads do have certain flight advantages over fixed blades that make them interesting.
While that's accurate, I thought it might also be worth outlining one of the drawbacks to mechanicals that nobody ever seems to openly talk about. This fact is not limited to mechanical heads, but also applies to most of the heads on the market today.
Statistical fact that any broadhead that is not designed as a cut-on-contact head requires 20% more energy to puncture the hide of game animals than a cut-on-contact head. This means that a non-cut-on-contact head loses 20% of its Kinetic Energy (Stored Energy), when entering an animal. This is why "Big Game Hunters" in Africa or other continents will never use anything other than a 2 blade Cut-On-Contact Broadhead when hunting serious game. 20 percent is a huge amount of energy and they want everything they can get out of each shot.
That said, I'm chasing flies with an elephant gun, so I can't advise on one head over another, since each has good and bad points. You need to understand what your requirements are and test different heads to meet your own requirements.The information supplied above is only to throw some water on the argument about which type of head is better. This seems to have become a religious argument for many.
Jon