In this broadheads review, I tested the Magnus Stinger Buzzcut and the Magnus Black Hornet… and I tested them head-to-head!
Needless to say, I was really excited about this broadheads battle.
I tested the Magnus Stinger Buzzcut broadheads previously, but wanted to put them through more testing.
I wondered if I should call it, “The battle of the Magnuses…. or maybe “The battle of the Magni!”
I tested both the Magnus Stinger Buzzcut and the Magnus Black Hornet Ser Razor in 125 grains.
Both of these heads have the serrated edge. A serrated edge is more efficient than a straight edge. While a straight edge is better at chopping motion, the serrated edge is better for a slicing motion, and it holds its edge better. So, I like that Magnus has integrated that design into their heads.
Why the (Re)-test of the Magnus Broadheads?
Before we get to the results, let me explain why I did this test.
In my earlier days of doing broadhead testing, I was a bit harsh on some of the heads that didn’t utilize the premium steels that some other companies utilize. And, one of those that I was a bit harsh on was the Magnus.
The fact is, these broadheads have taken a ton of animals all over the world. They also come in at a really good price point. They have a lifetime warranty and they have a very loyal following.
And so, in recent times, I thought, “You know what? Let me rethink the way I critiqued them in the past and put them through some more testing.”
So, I purchased two packs of these and put them through the test. Let’s see how they did…
I retested the Magnus heads with the same format that I have recently been testing with, so that all my tests have a consistent format. This way, you can look at all the different broadhead reviews and see how they measure up to one another.
Long Range Flight: In this test, I shoot the heads on a range to see how well they fly at longer distance.
Penetration: For the penetration test, I use a multifaceted medium consisting of ½” layer of MDF, surrounded by 1/3” layers of rubber foam matting, followed by clear ballistic gel. Because the gel is clear, I can measure it precisely to see how well each of the heads penetrated through that medium. I use MDF rather than plywood, because plywood grain can be very inconsistent. And, while MDF is not perfect, it’s much more consistent than plywood.
Edge Retention: I shoot the heads through a 22-gauge steel plate for a maximum of five times. During the test, if the edges of the blades begin to get really mangled, then I stop. I give two points for each time the head was able to be shot through the steel plate without significant damage. The maximum a broadhead can get in this test is 10 points.
In this review, I’m using my Bowtech SR6 with a 27-inch draw at 72 pounds. I’m shooting a 460-grain Bishop FOC King Arrow. I’m using FOBs and I’ve got a Nockturnal lighted nock on the end of the arrow shaft.
So let’s learn a little bit more about these heads and then see how they performed!
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Stinger Buzzcut and Black Hornet Ser Razor overview
Here, you can see the two heads. The Stinger Buzzcut is on the left, and the Black Hornet Ser Razor on the right. You can see the total length difference… the Black Hornet Ser Razor is significantly shorter and has a wider cut. The Black Hornet has a 1-1/4-inch cut, the Stinger has 1-1/8-inch cut.The Stinger Buzzcut and the Black Hornet have different bleeder blades as well. In the 125-grain version of these heads, the Stinger has 6/8-inch of cut in the bleeders and the Black Hornet has a 7/8-inch cut in the bleeders.
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03/07/2024 04:26 am GMT
Long-range flight test results
I shot bot the Buzzcut and the Black Hornet from 70 yards and was able to pop a balloon. The black hornet flew very closely to a field point at this distance as well.
Stinger vs. Black Hornet in Penetration Test
First, I shot the Stinger Buzzcut and then the Black Hornet. Below you can see the penetration results.
Here you can see the penetration into the gel… They penetrated very well. This is some of the best penetration that I’ve seen. The Black Hornet on the bottom penetrated a full 9 inches and the Stinger on the top penetrated 9-1/14 inches.
Edge retention test results
I shot both of the Magnus Stinger and then the Black Hornet into a 22-gauge steel plate.
Here’s the hole size that you can see the difference in and that’s just the same as the cutting diameter. You can see that the Black Hornet, a bit wider on the right. And the Stinger on the left, not quite as wide.I shot both heads 5 times each into the 22-gauge steel plate.Here you can see the damage to the heads (or the lack thereof). On the right, the Black Hornet held up very well through five shots into the steel plate. The tip got a little bit folded over. You can see that it just slightly folded over to the left. The Stinger held up remarkably well also. You can see the very tip got a little bit rolled over as well. But, they both held up extremely well for five shots through the steel plate.
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03/06/2024 10:30 pm GMT
Magnus Stinger and Black Hornets Post-Review
So, what do you think of the Magnus broadhead battle? I guess it’s not really a battle, because they are both Magnus heads and they are both great. Each head performed very well. Honestly, they both did better than I expected.
The flight was very good, out to long range.
The penetration was very impressive; 9 inches and 9-1/4 inches. The Stinger penetrated just slightly better than did the Black Hornet.
And then through steel, both of them held up extremely well through the steel plate and kept their edge through five shots.
Final Thoughts and Score Cards on Stinger Buzzcut and Black Hornet
So, I would just say that overall, both of these broadheads are winners. If you’re going to choose one or the other, I would say if you have a lighter setup, where you’re shooting less kinetic energy and less momentum, then maybe you want to go with the Stinger. It has a smaller cut. It’s going to be prone to penetrate a little bit more deeply.
If you have a heavier setup that produces more KE, and you’re looking for that extra cut, you’re getting an extra 1/8-inch cut in both directions with the bleeders and the main blades in the Black Hornet. They are also much thicker blades. So, they should be less prone to bend if they hit a heavy bone.
These are both great heads for my purposes. But, if I’m taking one out in the deer woods, it’s going to be the Black Hornet.
In this review, I tested the Ozcut Hurricane broadheads.
Ozcut is a company outside of Australia and the time of this review, they are a relatively new company. I’ve been intrigued by these broadheads and was excited to test them out.
I have a passion for single bevel heads. So, I love it when someone comes out with a single bevel, 3-blade head.
Now, I’ve seen some other single bevel multi-blade heads that had some design flaws that prevented them from getting the full benefit of the single bevel.
However, I was intrigued by this one for a few reasons that we’ll get into right now.
Ozcut hurricane broadheads
My Initial Impression of the Ozcut Hurricane
First of all, the Hurricane is one piece, solid construction, and made out high-carbon steel.
The blades are really thick. And, for a single bevel to be of a benefit, they need to be thick like that.
There’s a nice tanto tip, so it’s a really durable tip and the back of the blades are sharpened. So, if it doesn’t go all the way through the animal, that head is going to stay in there doing some cutting. It also makes it easier to pull them out of your target.
So, there’s a lot about this head that I really like. I did some of my normal testing. I shot it through a couple of different layers of MDF with a rubber foam mat in the front. I also shot it at long distance. And, I shot it through some steel as well as into a cinder block. I also shot into ballistic gel to test rotation.
So, let’s see how the head holds up, how it penetrates, and how it does in this testing.
The Ozcut Hurricane flew exceptionally well in the long-range shot testing. I was able to pop a balloon at 80 yards with ease.
Penetration Testing
The first penetration test was through MDF boards that had a layer of foam matting in front of them…
On the entrance into this foam mat, you can see you got a little bit of rotation from the Hurricane as evidenced by the “S-cut.”
Here, you can see the penetration through the first board right there.
And then through the second MDF board…
It bulged out of the back of the 3rd MDF board.
Upon inspection of the head after going through two layers of MDF, you can see that there are no signs of wear whatsoever. The edges maintain very well and they still shave nail.
In the next penetration test, I shot the Ozcut Hurricane into a steel plate, followed by a layer of MDF behind it.
There’s the hole of the steel plate. It made a nice, good triangular hole and you can see again the offset blades making that extra “S-cut.”
See the head after it went through the steel plate. You can see that the edge got quite a bit nicked up and dulled. You can see it here on the edges. Overall, it did well. And the structural integrity of the head was fantastic. This has now gone through three layers of MDF and one layer of steel plate there. But, the edges did get more dinged up than I would have expected.
Because it’s a solid machine broadhead, I shot the Hurricane into a concrete block. Not many heads have held up really well through this. the Bishop held up well, and also the Iron Will. The Tooth of the Arrow broadheads, Exodus, and A-TAC broadheads also held up quite well.
Let’s see how the Ozcut does.
Here’s the chunk (right side) that the Hurricane head took out of the concrete block. Not as big as some of the other broadheads that I’ve shot but it did penetrate and take a chunk out of it.
The Hurricane broadhead after it went into the concrete block. You can see that it got mangled quite a bit. It’s hitting concrete, so I understand that. (We are not hunting concrete. I understand that. But, I was testing it to see its overall durability and it stayed in one piece). If this did go into an animal like that, it would stay in there still cutting away but it did get mangled beyond repair going into the concrete.
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03/07/2024 11:40 am GMT
Ballistic Gel Test
I was curious to see how the rotation of the Hurricane would do in a ballistic gel. So, I shot it into the ballistic gel (below). I also had some MDF behind it.
In this test, I compared it to a single bevel, 2-blade head, the Bishop Scientific Method to see how it rotates in the same medium. I also compared it to the Exodus broadheads.
You can see the penetration difference between these three heads as they all go through the gel and then stop. You see at the top, you see the Exodus that came in third and then you see the Ozcut Hurricane came in first right below that and then you see Bishop Scientific Method 2-blade right below that.
You can see the wound channel of the Ozcut in the middle. The lighter areas are where the blades are rotating around. It looks like it almost made one full rotation.
This the second layer of MDF after going through the ballistic gel. The Hurricane went through the first layer and then bulged out of the back of the second layer. This is where it went into that second layer. It doesn’t have the biggest cutting diameter, but it does make a really cool cut. You see it’s not just a typical 3-blade cut. You get a good glimpse of that S-rotation and that weird angle that it’s cutting at. You can imagine what that would be doing to tissue in an animal.
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03/07/2024 08:00 am GMT
Final thoughts on the Ozcut Hurricane
So there you have it, the Ozcut Hurricane. This broadhead is a winner. There’s a lot I really like about it. It flies really well.
They say the single bevel design helps to speed up the rotation. I can’t verify that because I can’t quantify the rotation. But, I can tell you, I shoot a lot of single-bevel heads at long range and man, this one was really easy to pop balloons with. It was automatic.
Here is the report card for the Ozcut Hurricane broadheads.
This head is right up there with the A-TAC. It just flies really well.
This head also penetrates really well. You can see through all those mediums and where it rotated really well through the gel. You could see that S-cut in the steel and see it starting into the wood as well.
There are two things about this head that I think they could have done differently.
What could have made it like even better is using a higher quality steel. Not that this is bad – it’s a good machined head, out of a solid chunk of carbon steel. But, when you’re using a single bevel broadhead, the rotational force and the pressure that is put on that one blade angle is intense. This calls for premium steel.
If it was like 1-1/8 inch, even or 1-1/4 inch, that would be awesome. If it was just a little bit bigger entrance and exit hole, I would like it even more.
In this broadheads review, I tested a really creative broadhead on the market – the Zeus, by New Era Archery.
When you read the package, it says, “Zeus Broadheads – Smart Head Technology – Cut The Zeus Loose.”
So, what is a Zeus broadhead?
When I first saw these, my first thought was, “what in the world is that? Is it a mechanical? Is it a fixed? What is it?”
It never ceases to amaze me how creative people can be in designing broadheads. How creative can you be just putting a sharp object on the end of a stick?
Zeus broadheads refer to “Smart Head Technology.” What that means is you’re getting the best of both worlds of a both a mechanical broadhead as well as a fixed blade broadhead.
Let me explain…
First of all, the diameter of the upper fixed blades is 1-1/2 inches. Then, the bleeders are 7/8 of and inch wide. So, you’ve got 1-1/2-inches in one direction, and 7/8 of an inch this way, providing almost 2-1/2 inches of total cut.
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Additionally, they have a tip containing many little grooves.
And so, it’s designed to fly through the air, and as it spins, to circulate the air around it, much like a golf ball with dimples prevents a vacuum on the back of the ball from making it fly off course.
Similarly, the grooves on the tip help prevent a vacuum on the broadhead. And so, as the head rotates, it rifles and stays right on track, thus flying more like a mechanical.
Additionally, the way the Zeus broadhead penetrates is interesting.
In the wide-open position, it penetrates through normal tissue with that 1-1/2-inch cut. But, when it encounters a hard medium, the upper blades retract. (It takes 48 pounds of pressure to compress the internal steel spring). Once that amount of pressure is achieved, the blades compress all the way down to 7/8 of an inch, the same diameter as the lower bleeder blades.
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03/07/2024 09:00 am GMT
So, say if they compress all the way into a bone and you go, “Well, then I don’t have a blade.” No, you still have 7/8 of an inch this way and 7/8 of an inch the other way. It’s not that much different from a Slick Trick standard. So anyway, it’s designed to do that.
But, after it cuts through whatever hard surface it has encountered, the spring forces the blades back open to their full 1-1/2″ diameter.
Before testing, I was thinking, “Oh, that’s creative!” But, to be honest, I was a bit skeptical, so I wanted to put these broadheads through the wringer and see how they performed.
So, again, the thought here is that you get the best of both worlds. You get deep penetration due to the the blades compressing when they hit a hard surface. But, you get a larger cut through softer mediums like animal tissue and hide.
I realize that some might say, “Hey, I don’t care about that test, because I don’t hunt MDF and I don’t hunt steel plates.” Good for you. They would be kind of hard to eat anyway!
It’s easy to read the back of a package and gain some information on the specs of a broadhead. And, you can certainly read magazine ads about a head or look online to get info. But, if you’re like me, you want to know, “How well is this head going to hold up and how well does it penetrate?”
Well, hopefully my testing will give you some data points to consider as you are selecting your broadhead.
In terms of materials, the Zeus broadhead tip is really interesting. It’s constructed of 441 steel, so it’s a really strong, hardened steel. The ferrule is 7075 aluminum. So, it’s stronger aluminum than any other broadheads are using right now.
All of the blades are stainless steel. The tip of the head unscrews. You can take out the 100-grain hardened tip and then screw in a longer tip that weighs 25 grains more, thus making it a 125-grain broadhead. I like that.
The Zeus flew extremely well at both 60 and 80 yards.
Direct Penetration Test
In regards to total penetration, these heads did really well. They blew all the way through two boards there and completely came out the back board.
Now, as we examine the impact of the broadheads into the rubber mat, we see in the entrance there a perfect entrance and that is 1-1/2 inches by 7/8 inch just as the blades themselves are. Those main blades did not close in.
Then as we look at first board, you can see the blades cutting right there and the main blade was an inch upon impact there. The bleeders is a 7/8 of an inch cross ways.
The Zeus blew right through the first MDF board.
As it came out, it made a nice hole coming out of the second MDF board as well.
This picture shows the Zeus poking through here. None of the blades made it all the way through, but the head got really deep penetration.
And then it embedded in the final board. Here, you can see the bleeders didn’t quite go all the way into the board, but the blades had reopened up after they closed in the previous boards. So, that spring opened them back up a bit and you see a little less than one inch of cut right there from the main blades on this board and didn’t reach to the bleeders.
Here’s the Zeus after it went through those MDF boards. It wasn’t easy to get out. I had to push it all the way through which put a lot of extra pressure on it and it still held up remarkably well. The blades are just – it seems like just as sharp as they were. They are still shaven nail. They didn’t bend. The ferrule spins through. Everything held really well.The spring contracted a bit extra in there to where they are just a little bit – the blades are a little bit looser so they collapsed a little bit more than the original 1 1/2 inch. You can see there, it’s about 1 1/4 inch. But other than that, they just help up remarkably, and honestly, surprisingly well.
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Angled shot penetration test
In the angled shot test, I set up boards at a 45 degree angle. Let’s see how the Zeus broadheads did in this test…
In the angled penetration test, the Zeus stuck in really well. Here you see the impact of the angled shot. As for penetration, it stayed on course. It stayed straight and penetrated right through very easily. The blade and the head help up really well.
You can see the hole in the entrance hole that the head made in the angled shot and it blew right through. The blades contracted as designed and then it continued to penetrate right after it got through that board. The blade sprung back open and here they are at their full deployment again of 1 1/2 inches. And as for durability, it held up super well. The spring is fully intact. The blades are just as sharp as they were, and still able to shave my fingernail. nail. The head still spun true. A very good performance in the angled shot.
Steel plate penetration test
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see this head would do on a steel plate…
The head easily penetrated the steel plate.
The penetration here was amazing. It went through the steel plate, blew through the second half inch MDF, and then almost made it to the third.
Here you see the head after it went through the steel plate and then another layer of MDF (and also after the angled shot). You can see that it held up remarkably well. The blades are a little bit loose because that spring is a little bit contracted. They are not the full 1.5-inch. They contracted just slightly. And you see those bleeder blades bent just a little bit. But, they did surprisingly well. A little bend like that big of an issue because they’re continuing to cut as they go in.
I’ll be honest. This head surprised me. When I first was reading about it, I thought, “Oh man, what kind of a newfangled weird thing is that?”
But, as you saw, even at 80 yards, it flew just like my field points. I was really impressed. It flies extremely well, just as advertised.
I was also a little suspicious of the durability. But, shooting it into two half inch sheets of this MDF, it held up really well. The blades were like brand new.
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03/07/2024 04:35 pm GMT
And then I shot it through another layer of MDF that was preceded by a stainless steel plate. And, it held up well to that as well. There was a little bit of bending in the bleeders, but that’s a lot better than breaking. If they bend, I can live with that. If they break off, I get concerned about that. And the tip, of course, held up well.
The blades still stayed in great shape as well.
The spring got some damage, causing the blades to collapse a little bit more than the full inch and a half. But, they are coming out with a little assembly package where you can put in a new spring there and get it replaced like that.
The Zeus broadhead scored very well in each category tested.
So overall, I would say this is a really creative head. Penetration wise, it did really well. The penetration is the best I’ve tested so far in terms of this medium.
To this point, I’ve been shooting this medium of MDF with the foam in front of it on a dozen different broadheads. The Zeus penetrated the best of any of them.
Now, I will say, the blades collapsed. So, by design, it didn’t cut all that tissue as it’s going through all those mediums. But, it did penetrate deeply.
This head will give you a deep penetration, but if you hit that bone, it’s not going to cut the bone all the way through, but then again, that’s what’s going to allow it to penetrate more deeply, right? So it’s a good tradeoff. I
