Although not completely without merit, I’m glad to see you point out that your testing was purely experimental and not very scientific Taylor. Too often people will do some brief test comparison shooting like this and come to what they believe to be rock solid, set in stone conclusions.
I need to preface what I’m about to say with the following statement:
Good, easy to follow, bloodtrails that result in relatively simple recovery are always the result of 3 primary contributing factors, and we have to have all 3 in combination:
1) Shot placement
2) Penetration
3) The level of broadhead sharpness
Shot placement is of course number 1. The sharpest BHD in the world won’t make up for a bad hit. Penetration is equally important because 2 holes will always bleed better than one, and broken glass sharpness promotes unimpeded blood flow far more than marginally sharp blades do.
That said, there is another factor which while hardly ever discussed or mentioned is quite possibly the most important contributor to successful game recovery:
The animal’s reaction to being shot or “flight response”. Flight response is critical because it’s a whole lot easier to recover an animal that doesn’t run off after being shot than it is to recover one that heads for the next county at light speed the instant the arrow and broadhead connect. Long 3:1 broadheads impart far less “Whack” or perceived impact than do shorter more compact Delta style broadheads no matter the blade count. (although this is a pretty clear instance where less (blades) is actually more (greater reduction in perceived impact).
I’m in a very fortunate position in that I get to hear many detailed follow up and recovery stories from our friends and customers mainly because I always ask for these reports after helping people learn to sharpen their BHDs. I honestly can’t count the stories I heard of deer that never even ran after being shot. Too many instances to count of deer making a quick jump or two then just standing there looking around like “what was that”? I’ve heard of several deer that walked back and sniffed the bloody shaft sticking in the ground, and quite a few instances where the deer actually went back to feeding after being shot. All of the above after complete pass-throughs, and with blood pouring out both sides the whole time. The longest recovery distance I can remember was about 75 yards with the great majority of these type shots resulting in recovery distances of 35 yards or so. (I can’t say why but 35 yards seems to be the recovery distance I most often hear). While I’m sure this can be achieved with almost any COC broadhead when everything goes just right, all of these “zero flight response” stories I’ve heard have been from people shooting relatively heavy arrows with long 3:1 two blade heads and most were single bevel as well.
Just something else to think about when we’re choosing our broadheads.
Ron
Topic: unofficial grizzly/simmons broadhead testing/remarks (Read 995 times)
