Brass Insert or Steel Adaptor?

[Caleb the bow breaker]

Gang,

I have been using 100 grain brass inserts and guess I just forgot how expensive they are.  I noticed that you can get steel BH adaptors for about half the price of the brass inserts.  What would be the pros and cons of switching to steel adaptors rather than using brass inserts?

C

[hickstick]

the most major con on not using the brass insert is then you're left with the standard aluminum insert which (according to the ashby report) is a major weak point in the arrow broadhead connection....

[DarkTimber]

I'd much rather have a steel broadhead adapter and aluminum insert than an aluminum broadhead adapter and brass insert if that's what you're asking.   I want strength in my broadhead first.

[Caleb the bow breaker]

I guess I didnt think about the strength aspect of the equation yet.  

I am currently using glue on broadheads with an aluminum adapter going into a brass insert.  I did bend an adapter this year...

So what is the stronger combination

alum adapter and brass insert or steel adapter and aluminum insert???

C

[hickstick]

I use brass and steel....I've got almost 300grns up front.       WW glue on, steel adaptor, brass insert.

but that said...you can still bend those too.....don't ask.  lol

[lt-m-grow]

My goal is two fold, to get enough weight upfront and have the same weight for my field points, BHs, and blunts.

So I somewhat arbitrarily have come up with 200 grams for the head.  This gives me plenty of options for the various head types I want to use.  Thus I use brass inserts for more weight.  

FWIW...you don't  necessarily need one or the other...sometimes you can have it both ways :-)

[last arrow]

I've bent or broken about every combination of insert and adapter (about 90% of my practice is with broadheads).  But never on an animal (primarily deer) so I don't think it matters. Unless, of coarse, you are hunting really big tough game.

I usually choose for the weight I need to tune.  Now days I try and use brass glue in BH adapters to only need one piece. 125 brass adapter and 125 to 175 broadhead depending on what tunes.

[Pheonixarcher]

Just an FYI, if you change your inserts from a longer brass with less wight out front, to a shorter aluminum with more weight out front, it will weaken the dynamic spine of your arrows.

[recurvehunt]

I use the 100 brass insert and 46 steel adapter, gets me to about 300 up front with broadhead.

[Ray Lyon]

If it's one or the other I'd go steel point insert and aluminum shaft insert. The shaft will help strengthen the aluminum shaft insert but where an aluminum point insert bends is right where the point and screw post meet, so the steel point insert is your best defense there.

Personally I have brass inserts in my Easton Axis shafts and I don't mind going from a Grizzly head with a steel point insert to a 145 grain Kustom King Trailmaker one piece steel head depending on what point weight I need to get the arrow to fly well.

[Alvey]

Originally posted by DarkTimber:
I'd much rather have a steel broadhead adapter and aluminum insert than an aluminum broadhead adapter and brass insert if that's what you're asking.   I want strength in my broadhead first.

[JimB]

I use steel adapters and brass inserts but do remember Ed Ashby saying that if you had to choose between the two,that the brass insert would be stronger as most of the failures happened at the adapter's shank,behind the taper.

[JamesKerr]

I use brass inserts with aluminum adapters. I have bent the steel adapters when I used them and interestingly enough they bend at the exact same point the aluminum ones do right where the threads end on the adapter. Aluminum paired with the brass adapter has proven itself to me. I have a friend that is older and all he ever shot was aluminum broadhead adapters and he never bent one.

[WESTBROOK]

I think the strongest setup is the glue-in/glue-on adapters. you can get them in 100 & 125g...Tuffhead has them heavier than that.

[kennym]

I think the weak point is the carbon shaft IMO

Here is a Delta on a 100 gr. steel adapter and an alum. insert.

Spine shot a buck and he rolled on it splitting the arrow. If I was worried about it I would sleeve it with an alum arrow shaft a couple inches long. But it would prob break at the back of that in a case like this.


 

BTW, it bent something , either the broadhead or the insert. I haven't had time to mount the head on a new adapter but I'm bettin it is the adapter that bent as stated above at the end of threads.....