IMO Rage brought the heat on themselves with that shock collar design and then kept it there by continuing to push it for years. They deserve the reputation they've gotten from it.
I was a big fan of the old o-ring Rage heads and still believe they are fantastic heads. When the shock collar design came out Rage pushed a huge marketing campaign for it, and I bought a pack because to see what it was all about. As I do with every head I hunt with, I target shot them. First shots were great, no issues. Every shot after that had a whistle/rattle noise in flight, and after a few shots the blades began deploying prematurely. So I bought a pack of the replacement collars. Sure enough first shot with new collar was great. Every shot after was noisy and soon blades prematurely deployed.
My thoughts were and still are that it's a horrible design, but it does work as advertised when used as advertised. If everybody followed the instructions and replaced the collar with new after every shot, there likely wouldn't be any issues. That's neither reasonable nor realistic given the circumstances. No other broadhead on the market I know of requires replacing the proprietary retention device each & every shot. Somebody at Rage should have been sensible enough to realize that but as far as I know that design is still available so maybe not. Unfortunate because the head design is actually pretty clever and works well. The issue that ruined their reputation spurs almost entirely from that dang retention collar.
