Howard Hill Broadhead Test Results :)

[Trad Man 25]

ok,, just ill talk about when you see the other sets,, but just so you now,, the one i shrpened was the one with better penertration,,

ok now the second set,, obviously,, i cant shoot the next set in to the same area beacuse there are 2 great big holes in that area,,  so i moved a little to one side,, so as a result,, the mattress could be  more compresed in that section for example,, resulting in being harder to shoot thought,, and vis vursa,, but what i did was to shoot the 2 arrws in the same area,, so al least both arrows would go in to the same condidions,,    hope i made that clear,,

so here is the second set,
 

and yes again the sharp arrow is the one with better penertration,, but nether of the arrows managed to come out the other side,, dont now exactly why,, may be more mattress to go thought,, ect,,

so with no exit holes to show you,, i took a picture of the entry hole,,  and with the rula,,  you can see that it is aproximatly 1inch accross,
 

[Trad Man 25]

When looking at the picture above,, the one of the entry holes you can actualy see that the fabric going around the mattress looks really quite different,, the arrow on the left is the sharp arrow,, and you can see that the fibers of the fabric look like they have been cut with a relertivly sharp instroment where as the one on the right the fibers have not been cut,, more riped and snaped from the force of the head making a hole,, you can see there are strands over the hole,, for me that is a sign that the sharp head has cut on entry,, where as the blunt one had made its entry just by force,,    

[Trad Man 25]

ok now to set three,,

 


this time are arrows came out of the other side,,

and yes again the sharp one is the one with best penertration,,  

 

i dont now if youll be able to see now iv shrunk them to put on here,, but in this picture you can see ,, at least on my computer the originals,, show a cleaner entry hole on the sharper arrow,, ( bottom one )

[Trad Man 25]

sorry up 2 pictures,, of the entry not the exit  

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Nice photos! Great indoor shooting range, too!

[Trad Man 25]

ok so just so you get a better understanding,, of the ammount of mattress these arrows were going in to,, i got another picture here,, that will hopefully show this,, now,, since i have not shot any other Head in to this target except Field points,, ( i havent got a picture but the field points have now where near as much penertration,, i might even go as far to say the field points some times have less than half the ammount of penertration than the Boradheads,, even thought there the same weight,

sorry,, ok back to the point    haha,, theres my little joke,,  
sorry, ok,, so since i have not tested any other bhs,, i dont now what other heads would get for penertration,, but personally i think these heads go along way ,,

so heres the picture,, of the top of the target,, i cant shoot stright in to the broard side of the target beacuse thats all shot up,, so i have to move around a little to fine new bits,, so iv put the arrow in the general angle that the arrow are going in and exiting,, but i made a mistake and put the arrow upsidedown,, where the point is,,, is where the arrows are entering,, and the top of the shaft is where they exit,,

 

so from the picture you can see that 4 out of the 6 arrows i shot came out of the other side,, passing through about 16 inches of foam,, give or take with the shot angle ect,,,

Now with my big Zero,, experience of hunting with a bow an arrow,, ( as a result of coming from the UK) im only talking from what iv read and personal opinion,, but it was a long time,, ago and cant remmber exactly but i remmber that for  most of the smaller Planes Game ,, iv read that penertration is not such an importance,, beacuse they dont have large shilds i think you could call them,, the 3inch thick bit in the wild bore have around the ribs, protecting the chest cavity,, and there hides are not insulated with feathers or large amounts of hair,, and if shooting from a hide,, your shots mostly will be under 20 yards,, so your arrow still has a large ammount of speed and energy to go throught the ribs of the Game species,,

But obviously,, getting your arrow to go throught 16iches of Foam is quite different from that getting it to go throught 16inches of  flesh and bones,, ??
May be thats another test for another day,        then a funny looking Sunday roast at the end of it    

But from my tests,, i have convined to myslef,, don't now about you guys,,, but dosent matter,, at least i now think that i was right in changing the bevel angle of the Head to make them sharper,, so  now that im happy that i have made them sharper,,  i think i have to now compare the penertration from the Hill Bh,, to another make of head,, so i can compare them both,,,  

and allso i have been thinking alot about the weekness that was mentioned earlyer about the Broardhead breaking when hiting bone or chipbord    at an angle,, so i think ill ring home and get my brother to send me the rest of my heads,,, and ill look in to doing some tests,, just to see how much of a problem this is,,  

also,, i would quite like to look in to seeing if these heads fly as accuraly,, as others,,

and i quite fancy puting a few in to some meat,, so ill have a think about it and see if i can get some think for dinner on the weekend,,

and if you want i can post results on here,, if your interested,and out would like to see the results,,

Many Thanks

James

[d. ward]

TM 25 great testing idea...you nailed it.The sharper broadhead does start to cut a fraction of a second sooner and for longer cuts.I did that old drop the arrow & broadhead onto a bucket with elk hide stretched over the opening.The super sharp cut on contact broadheads would go right into the bucket when mounted on a heavy arrow.I did try to shoot a few thru some hide.But the spine of the arrow was to stiff.So I climbed on the ladder and just dropped them on the bucket(worked great).Hey Doc,I did a little testing on some old collecter type broadheads I had...H.Hills for one(see other pic) a StCharles Mickey Finn and a few others.I noted the Glenn StCharles MF has a spot weld almost right on the tip(all MF's do).I shot the plywood test...not great target matiral but it's a good broadhead testing backstop.Everything went well,until the slight-est angle shot again.Broke the tip of the Mickey Finn right at the spot weld and stopped penatraion.The weak link ???? bowdoc

[Trad Man 25]

haha,, yes my indore shooting rang has some nice chunks out of the plaster as well,,      nothing some white bluetak cant hide  

[Trad Man 25]

ow one last thing i forgot to mention,, in the first shot with the head,, when i has just finished sharpening,, had by far the best penertration out of all the arrows,, and now i dont now if that was just a fluke,, or if it had some thing to do with being the sharpest in the fist shot and getting duler in the second and third shot,, as i did not touch up after each shot,, personally i think yes it problly was the sharpest out of all the shots,, but i allso think it was a little bit of a fluke as well,, but may be i should look in to how well the matal holds a sharp edge,,

woo,, looks like i got my work cut out,, but actually now im really interested to see how this older design of Bh holds up agains the new modles,,, obviously Howard thought they were good enoght for him,, and he dident seem to have any problems,, but im curious to now if he would stick by this design ,, if he got to try out the ne mobles on todays market,, ????  

Thanks BowDoc,, i got a lot of work to do till i can get these heads to go straight through elk hide,,,
ps,, would it be possible to get some pictures of these Heads,,  
and i hope you dont get in to the habbit of smashing old collecter broadheads,,      

Thanks

James

[Stone Knife]

Hill killed a lot of game with those babies, they'll do the trick.

[d. ward]

Oh no please guy's..I don't want to beat on Howard Hill broadheads or Howard for that matter..Just a little something to share.Early HH's had a brass pin rather then a steel pin holding the blade to ferrule also.TM25 here is a pic of the Mickey Finn after I reshaped the tip,it still did the job.bowdoc

[Nate Steen .]

James,

An interesting test I did with the Hill heads a couple of years ago against Zwicky Eskimos, Eclipse, and Ribtek......

I sharpened all heads one time at the beginning and then not again.  The first shot was through a steel belted all terrain truck tire through both sidewalls and the Hill head penetrated the farthest through the far side, with the Eclipse coming in second.  Then I shot all the heads 10 times into a 55 gallon steel drum, with the penetration of all heads being comparable and no heads being damaged even though the surface of the drum is curved and not straight and flat.  I finished with several shots with all heads directly face-on into the tread of the tire through the steel belts and the Hill heads were even with the Ribtek and then I finished off where I started with the shots being into the sidewalls of the tires, the Hill head penetrating the most, 1/2 way through the far wall of the tire.  Remember that all the tests were used on dull heads after the first shot.

I use the Hill head with confidence over here in the States for our game..............

[laddy]

I use mainly single bevel Hills either serrated or shaving sharp, I have not seen a lot of difference in effectiveness either way.  I like hunting arrows that fly flat and straight in the wind, I think if an arrow kicks around a the breeze you will lose penetration. I have never broken one, other than when they getting buried in a tree. I have gotten deeper penetration on trees than some guys get with expandables on deer.

[Brian Krebs]

Laddy...      

[B.O.D.]

Do you guys notice more noise with a Hill head than other solid 2 blade heads??

I know snuffers whistle 'cause of the vents; how about the Hill's?

BD

[laddy]

They may hiss a bit more than grizzlies, more if they are mounted crooked, but the grizzly will out penetrate a Hill on burr oak most of the time.

[Orion]

Trad man:  Am I missing something here, or did you just show that a sharpened broadhead penetrates better than a dull one?  Any effect changing the bevel may have had was confounded with the sharpness of the blade.  If you wanted to compare the effect of bevel, you would have needed to shoot sharp broadheads of the original and modified bevels.  Maybe I missed it, did you say you sharpened the original bevels as well?  They're not very sharp out of the box.

   

[maineac]

So what were the results of the matress test?

[d. ward]

TM25...I had to do a little digging in cigar boxes last night.But I finally found the older style hill broadhead....Please note the brass pin holding the blade to ferrule...Rather then the later model with an aluminum pin...Never figured out why they changed it...Maybe Dr Ashby has some idea on that...Also Howard had at least one dozen broadheads cumtom made,I did get to look at and handle one several years ago...Built the same as all Howard Hill broadheads,but nearly 6 inches long and weighed around 2000 grains..I do not have a pic of that one but I do know a couple broadhead collecters that have then,they may be able to provide use with a couple pics...They are huge and by far the biggest broadhead I have ever seen.Although Howard did take them to Africa with him..He did not ever arrow any critters with them..They are really cool looking broadhead though....bowdoc

[maineac]

OOps, didn't mean to sound like an idiot, I missed page two.  Nice job on the report and photos,.