Best penetrating broadheads

[Pat B.]

Well said LF !!  

I too have killed a batch of pigs and my experiences mimic yours. Since I've started trying to break the shoulder, blood trails have been profuse and short!

[Littlefeather]

Have you had any arrows stopped while contacting bone that didn't kill the animal?

[frassettor]

[Pat B.]

No, I haven't -- that I recall... But I only hunt deer and pigs. Not an elk, moose, or other heavy game hunter, unfortunately!

[IronCreekArcher]

Curt...He hit four in the shoulder and lost 3 of those...thats how I got the 75% loss of those hit in the shoulder.  He has taken around 40 whitetails and hit 10 in the paunch and lost thus the 25%.    

Pat...think the whitetails are a little more slightly built down there than up here?

I shot and hit a doe square in the shoulder last fall with a well tuned setup pushing Woodsmans with a 575 grain arrow and I lost that deer due to lack of penetration...I waited a while for the follow up and had tracking snow to boot.  I am curious as to how everyone is getting "great" penetration through shoulders with multiple bladed heads?  What is the poundage of your guys setups?  I am shooting around 50 lbs...could this be my issue with lack of penetration using multiple bladed heads on heavy bone hits?  I am assuming the lower poundage was a factor thus my switch to the single bevel heads in hopes it will help if I hit the shoulder again.

[IronCreekArcher]

Originally posted by Littlefeather:
Capitalize on the energy, momentum, rotation that is already present and you'll never have a bone problem. CK

Right on!     Thats what I am striving for...I hope all this is helping the thread starter not confusing him more...lol.

[IronCreekArcher]

Curt...one more thing that I did not think of is the fact that he was shooting either wood arrows or aluminum in the shoulder hits with less than desirable broadhead design for those type of hits i.e. Thunderheads on the aluminum and Zwickey Deltas on the wood...don't tell Terry about the Deltas though... :eek:  

The bow poundage was in the mid-sixties as a side note.

[rastaman]

Thanks Curtis and the rest of you guys...good stuff here.  

[George D. Stout]

"littlefeather" said this: "in days of old everyone shy'd away from the shoulder. We've got to remember that the performance difference in the old wood bows and wood arrows wasn't near what todays glass bows, carbon arrows, FOC, and incredible broadheads."

What are you classifying as old....son 8^).  I've had 1956 bows that will shoot with todays models. I have a 1966 that will shoot with any 2009 bow.  Todays bows have only one thing over the old models for performance.....fastflight strings.  

We shouldn't be shooting at shoulders, but I fear the use of some magic, single-bevel, will make shoulder aimers come out of the closet.  Single-bevels, no matter how much they cost, will not be a solution for bad shooting, whether it is accidental or on purpose.  A bad hit is a bad hit, and usually results in a bad outcome.  I wouldn't spend money on a broadhead that "may" help on a bad hit.

I'm quite sure the  single-bevel heads are great heads; however, they are not the only heads, and they are not the only heads that will plow through a shoulder and kill deer.  It would be best to use what you think will do the best job for your, and  let everyone else do the same.  Good accurate shooting, and knowing when to release an arrow, is a better bet than what the head is made of or how it's designed.

[rastaman]

Well said Mr. Stout!  That's why i practice so much.

[Pat B.]

ICA, I'm sure that you're correct in saying that the deer I hunt are more slightly built, probably 2 to 1 !!!!!  However, some of the pigs get pretty large, well over 200 on occassion. You're comment about multiblade heads jogged my memory too.. I killed a fair number of pigs last season while I was deer hunting.. The only one I lost was hit in the shoulder with a big snuffer, I got no penetration. The rest were hit with either 2 bladed Zwickeys or 2 bladed Eclipses, mostly used the Eclipse and they performed very well.  
        George, the above cited incident of the lost pig supports your idea as well but the others gave me no problem. I'm positive than in most cases the actual shoulder bone was not hit. I try to go straight up the front leg, on broadside shots, not quite 1/2 way up the body, and place the arrow there. Niney percent of my shots have been very close, 15 yards and under, which permits pretty accurate arrow placement. The one thing I'm sure of is, I do NOT like to hit game too far back.. All to often paunch hits lead to undesirable results..

[Littlefeather]

What I said and you also quoted me as saying was "days of old" and "wood bows".

I've also got older glass bows just like yourself. I most certainly don't have any that perform as well as my modern bows(carbon limbs, foam cores, etc). I stand corrected anyway. I do respect the view of those who've been around archery far longer than I've been alive. Thanks for your input. CK

[Pat B.]

Curtis, I agree with your first statement. While I'm not as "seasoned" as George I have been around for a spell, just as you have. The bows that I shot 35-40 years ago tended to be heavier to get the performance that I was comfortable with. Todays materials along with FF strings have allowed me to drop poundage and retain wonderful performance.  I also agree that the experience of our older shooters is invaluble and appreciate their input always.  Hell, I'm one of 'em !!

[SlowBowinMO]

Curtis, have you shot Tuskers recently?  The hardness has been increased to over 50 rockwell, and they take and hold an incredible edge in my experience with them.

[The Vanilla Gorilla]

Originally posted by Littlefeather:
Have you had any arrows stopped while contacting bone that didn't kill the animal?

Once. On a whitetail, of all animals. And I attribute it to too light of an arrow (unweighted MFX 500 Classic) and too much of an needle tip on my broadhead. I heard the crack of bone, got no bloodtrail and found my arrow 200 yards away with very little blood on it, and the broadhead tip rolled back halfway back to the ferrule.  

I didn't let this situation scare me away from "breaking the shoulder".  Instead, I weighted up my Beman MFX 500s to 570 grains (75gr adapter with a almost chisel tiped 160gr Ribtek) while shooting it out of a 48# recurve.

Gotta use the right tool for the job, I say.  I hunt hogs mostly, and having that in mind I wanted a heavy arrow that I could deliver accurate placement with.  So far, the hogs agree that I've achieved my goal.

[Littlefeather]

No Tim, I have not shot Tuskers in about 6 years. They weren't bad heads then but I just couldn't get a face shaving edge that stayed. They seem to be generally shot in Oz where guys don't try and retrieve their broadheads from hogs. Did they bevel the edges or do you still have to break the edge? CK

[Wannabe1]

With the utmost respect to everyone who has posted here, I have enjoyed the experience and knowledge shared. Also the respect showed to one and alls opinions. I have learned some things here and can now say that I can make an educated decision on my next broad head to use. Especially since I am currently trying to decide what to put on some shafts I am having made up.

Just want to say thank you gentleman, and hope others will share there insight as favorably.

[SlowBowinMO]

Curtis, they've made a bunch of changes since then and they've all been good ones.

The double bevels still need quite a bit of work (John is working on that) but they have a start anyway.  The grind on the new single bevels has been greatly improved.  The newest heads now have a very durable protective coating, and as I mentioned earlier the rockwell hardness has been boosted to over 50.  Good stuff all.  

[Benny Nganabbarru]

We bend more Tusker 160s in pigs than STOS 160s (haven't bent one yet, despite sending one through a shoulder blade and embedding it in the offside rib). We've all used Tuskers, and they've done the trick, but the triple thickness of the STOS head makes it our "go to" (speaking for my mate Tony and I - other lads here prefer Zwickey or Magnus).

As for aiming at the shoulder versus behind the leg, we sometimes joke that we wish our pigs were whitetail, which, from the movies, seem to be all lung from tip of nose to tip of tail (with our exaggerated Aussie sense of humour - well, it's exaggerated sometimes; often it's under-exaggerated) - of course, whitetail don't have that much lung, but we are jealous that you can hit the animal so far back and still double lung it, whereas with our pigs, we have to aim straight up that leg line for best results (on the side-on view). When we hit them there, there is never need for a second arrow.

That's my two-bob worth. Here's a photo of the shot described above (STOS 160, double bevel of course):

 
He was close, and slightly quartering on. I wouldn't try this shot with lighter gear (80+# of Silvertip and 775 grains of Douglas fir and STOS).

 
Here's what we found as we dug-in. We really had to yank hard to get it out of the rib on the other side. The broadhead was perfect, and the busted arrow will look good mounted on a shield with the teeth.

[Benny Nganabbarru]

By the way, and this is a whole other debate, but as there was only an entry wound, you can see how bad the blood trail was (non-existent).