Evolution Outdoors Jeykll and Hyde system caught my attention this year. Dale Perry over at Evolution is super knowledgeable and has done extensive testing on these heads . For starters his heads are 100% made in America, and offered in 3 weights ( in the screw in version and glue in version ) and touts that the Hyde is guaranteed to open. Also the ferrule is modular between the fixed blade and mechanical variations. I love this aspect.
First, the leading edge on both the fixed and hybrid versions if this head is 3/4" , with the main blade being 1" on the fixed variation , and 2" on the hybrid version. ( he also offers some wider ones if that's your thing ).
Now normally I'm not a huge fan of a over the top deploying head vs a rear deploying head for the simple fact that they typically have a smaller entry hole. However, with the Hyde the exposed part of the mechanical blades are sharpened (and yes they are very sharp ) so let's say that something went catastrophically wrong and the head just didn't open at all , that head would still give you a total of 1 1/8th cutting surface ( the same as the slick trick standard , cut throat 3 blade , etc etc ) now I wouldn't expect that to happen as throughout dales testing and after speaking to many many many people that also shoot the Hyde they have NEVER had one not open properly. But if it didn't it's still going to cut . And when it does open your at a 2 3/4" cut diameter. Pretty sweet and kinda fool proof . And with that leading edge you really open up that hole and theoretically should get more consistent blood trails. These hybrid version is also very easy to get in and out of a foam insert in your quiver hood .
Now onto the fixed version , being that this head is modular you can swap from fixed to mechanical on the ferrule in the matter of a min or so . The fixed blades are both .06 thick ( main blade and leading blade ) which is fairly stout compared to other on the market compared to the Hyde which is .060 leading blade and then two .030 blades for the mechanical , also rather stout for a broadhead of these design . Aswell the fixed design is pretty compact for the cutting surface you get out of this head at 1 3/4" .
Second thing with the evolution I wanna talk about is flight. Man do these things fly good. My bow is properly tuned and I can typically screw any head I want on and group out to 80 yards . But these heads fly phenomenal right out the gate with no adjustments necessary.
Third let's talk about the few things that might be a hindrance to you or a frustration point. On the hybrid style head the retention system is a little plastic / polymer pin that is inserted into the ferrule and the system works incredibly , however getting the pin out can be a challenge after it has been marred from opening the blades on the shot. But if you have ever changed blades on a SEVR it's really not any more time consuming then that in my opinion .
Additionally , you don't want to over tighten the set screw that holds the mechanical blades in either as this makes them harder to open , just hand snug will do . I don't know about you guys but I tend to like to really lock stuff down, don't do that. They come out of the case ready to hunt as long as you don't go opening the blades a ton of times. I would certainly recommend replacing the pin after each harvest . I also tend to carry a allen set with me so it's easy to close the blades back up once you find your arrow and lock that set screw in tight and shove it back in your quiver in a matter of seconds.
Lastly, the over the top design is inherently known for deflecting on a hard quartering shot . In my opinion this head kinda defeats that deflection based on how the blades open and it should be a non issue , also on a shot that is hard quartering and a shot I'm going to take the animal is probably sub 40 yards and I'll be using a fixed blade anyway in that situation.
Over all initial thoughts is that the modularity of this head is going to be a game changer for my set up as I like to carry both fixed and mechanicals in the field , and with the very limited effort it takes to tune the fixed blades it's a real winner in my book . I'll have more information on this head as I lay down some animals with it in the 2024 season.
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