Penetration failure

[Cabal]

Tonight I finally managed to get everything to come together and made a 15 yard shot on a small 4 point. I was using my homemade recurve 53#@29" chronoed at 150fps shooting 525 grain arrows tipped with 125 grain magnus II broadheads. The arrow hit high and behind the shoulder and should have hit the dorsal portion of the left lung and had a fighting chance at hitting the aorta. However my arrow failed to penetrate beyond the broadhead. There was no blood trail, only my arrow, found 30 yards from the place the deer was shot with blood 6 inches up the shaft but no blood trail. I heard the buck blowing at me for 30 minutes after the shot and me and 4 guys combed the woods for 3.5 hours before deciding that it likely wasn't a kill shot and that we would check tomorrow. I just don't understand. So many people post about their setups being able to get pass throughs and pulverize the scapula and shoulder joint when their setup seems to be the same as or less powered than mine. This is just a massive dissapointment and really makes me rather sick. I'll feel better tomorrow or the next day, but right now, I am extremely upset and just can't figure why my arrow wouldn't pass through the ribs or maybe the edge of the scapula at such a short distance.

[vermonster13]

Did you hit at an angle? Are you sure you weren't more forward than you thought? Lots of things come into play. Your bow is generating 26#s of KE which isn't a real lot of error room for shots.

[Cabal]

It wasn't at an angle. It was a straight, flat shot. What kind of KE do most trad bows that people use get?

[vermonster13]

Lets just say with the speed your bow is shooting that weight arrow at your draw length, you're at the lower end of the scale. You can kill a whitetail with that set-up, but you need to put the arrow in the boiler room.

[ckruse]

The shoulder blade "floats" and absorbs a bunch of force from a striking arrow. Angles also come into play greatly as pointed out above. If the buck heard the shot at all, which is likely, he may have been in the beginning stages of dropping down and spinning away. It happens. I bet the deer is just fine. Learn from it and move on. Also check your arrow/broadhead combinations for good flight and extreme sharpness.

Not trying to be argumentative, but being realistic, some of the recent posts of shooting at the shoulder blade of a dead deer, or the bone itself don't prove a lot in the real world. The animal's weight being on his feet also factors in to the floating aspect of this joint. I think the only thing proven by these tests is that some setups are more likely to get far enough through in the event the shoulder is struck, but odds of a clean kill are poor at best under actual hunting situations.

[T-Bone]

That sounds like a spinal shot to me.  That bone is most times impossible to penetrate.  I hit one there aand the deer dropped in his tracks because it sliced the spinal cord.(very lucky)The arrow only penetrated about an inch though.
Your bow has plenty to get pass throughs on deer provided you don't hit the shoulder or spine.

[Curtiss Cardinal]

Are you sure you came to full draw? You could have hit a rib at a curve near the top that is where a rib is thickest and strongest.

[Cabal]

I know with 100% certainty that I was at full draw.

[uncowboy]

There are a few things that could be the problem. I have seen the same thing with compound bows and aluminum arrows twice!
 Arrow flight could have stoped penatration. If the arrow was still flexing or corecting from a bad releas it would dump all it's energy in the wrong direction. Just one of them things that sometimes happen. Sorry for your bad luck. J.Michael

[Richie Nell]

Cabal, you do have plenty of arrow weight and bow poundage to go through ribs and soft tissue.
You had to have hit scapula or spine. Probably scapula.

[Aeronut]

I hit a buck in the shoulder blade (clipped an unseen limb) with a 67# bow at 12 yards a few years back.  The arrow nearly knocked the deer off its feet and I watched as he ran over two hundred yards without slowing down.  I finally found the arrow two days later with just a small amount of blood on the broadhead.  I saw the buck some time later with a slight limp but he did fine.

Dennis

[George D. Stout]

It's not your bow and arrows at all.  There's plenty of punch to even pass thorough a whitetails ribs and body at the lung/heart area.

Stuff happens out there and you made a bad shot.

[Minuteman]

6" of penetration is alot for a scapula hit. Was the broadhead still on the arrow or did it break off?

[jon]

Had a similar experience with a Magnus head on a black bear. The tip curled up on a rib and got only 4-5" of penetration. Went to grizzlies after that. No further issues. What did your tip look like when you recovered the arrow?

[Bjorn]

Cheryl Knapper who runs Shiloh Ranch says whenever they go out to recover an animal, the arrow is never where the hunter thought it was-there is just too much going on at the moment of truth. We see all these threads about 'how low' and 'how light' and things have to be perfect to get the job done with 'too low' or 'too light'. With your set up it should be enough with a really sharp 2 blade or very low profile sharp 3 blade, like a Woodsman, if you get it in the right spot.

[Rick McGowan]

Arrows don't pulverize bone regardless of what they print in broadhead ads, they just don't pentrate bone well, soft tissue great, bone not. This is one reason why I am not a fan of using lighter weight gear. It isn't a cure all, but it can help on borderline hits. If the deer was broadside and you hit the scapula, the arrow wasn't going to hit the lungs, on a broadside standing deer the scapula is way higher and farther forward than most people think, it dosn't block the heart or lungs at all, the only time that could happen would be from a high(treestand) quartering on shot. If as you say it was "behind the shoulder" then it most likely hit the spine and it would have been a very lucky thing to penetrate that.

[Labs4me]

Cabal:

Sorry for the unsettling experience. We have all been through that same gut wrenching situation before. No way else to describe it other than to say it just sucks. Period. Chances are, you did nothing wrong. Probably just a combination of various things coming together to conspire against the penetration that should have occurred. A little more archer's paradox on THAT particular shot; the animal absorbing some of the arrows' energy by falling away from the arrow at the sound of the shot; the arrow horizontally hitting the mathematical center of the thickest rib, or any one of a myriad of other factors that taken together, greatly hindered penetration in this instance.

Had the same thing happen to me a couple years ago on a smallish, unalarmed buck at about 12 yards. Was shooting 2216s tipped with VERY SHARP two-blade Eskimos out of a 57# Widow. Made one of the best shot's of my 25 year bowhunting career and to my horror, CLEARLY RECALL seeing the arrow suddenly stop upon impact. I've made bad shots before- THAT SHOT was not one of them. In sharing the story with a few fellow bowhunters, everyone tried to convince me that I didn't come to full draw or that I must have hit the shoulder, etc., etc. NONSENSE!!!

IT just happens sometimes. Probably nothing you did wrong and therefore no lesson to be learned from this experience. You'll feel better in a few days. Shrug it off and get back on the horse!

[Cabal]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I found the arrow 30 yards from where the deer was standing with the broadhead still on it. It had a good coating of blood and hair up the shaft about 4 inches and with the broadhead length a total of 6 inches. There was more blood on one side of the shaft than the other. The broadhead looked fine for the most part but the actual edge of the blade on both sides is folded and on one side the blade has a dent one centimeter down from the point. I had used a fiskars blade sharpener, prolly not the best tool for the job but it got them sharp. Didn't find a single drop of blood or serous fluid, not even where the arrow was found.

[Kip]

Probably not fatal but you lost the blood trail if there was a coating of blood on it there was more somewhere.The deer took a hard turn or arrow flew out and trail was lost.sound like a more muscle than vitals. Kip

[Cabal]

I just went ahead and resharpened all my broadheads and tested their cuts and all seem in tip top condition. We're keeping an eye out for buzzards just in case he dies but I'm thinking based on what we concluded last night and by what folks have said here that he is likely fine. I'll try my luck out there again come Thursday night and aim 6 inches lower.