Hey guys, new to bow hunting here. 2020 was my first season. I bought some of the whitetail specials for turkey hunting this spring, but my question is if I should use them for deer this fall? I like the idea of the large cut diameter. According to their website I should have enough KE with my set up (72 ftlbs). Looking for some real world experience. Assuming I do my part should I see pass throughs? should I go with a smaller cut diameter? Whole different broadhead? TIA! Hoyt Torrex 28” draw 70lbs 430ish gr arrow w/ broadhead
Welcome to the forum. I think you have the specs to use them. I would throw a few at paper or a French tune just to see how they fly. There is hundreds of choices out there. And you have lots of time before season. Good luck and let us know what you decide
Thanks for the welcome and quick reply Fix. I’ve been shooting the practice tip a fair amount with my field points and it seems to fly true. How much can I rely on practice head flying like the real deal?
Unfortunately practise heads are not a perfect measure of the BH flight. I like to designate one BH and tune to it after I am close with the practise tip.
I can vouch for the whitetail specials for turkeys. I shot a jake with one last year and as hoped, it stuck in the bird and was easily recoverable. I had my bow turned down as low as it would go (~60 lbs) and a very similar weight arrow. I have killed a few does with the whitetail special and have never gotten a passthrough.... but regardless I have been rewarded with extremely efficient kills. If the head is in the boiler room while the deer runs off, it "messes up" their insides really bad. The doe I shot this season was the shortest recovery I have ever witnessed with archery (never spined one personally). It ran 15 yards. I'm not saying this is the greatest broadhead for every single scenario, but wanted to share my real world experiences. Good luck!
They are great heads for turkeys. They're not the most durable blades though, and the retention cup on the 100 gr mechs is really weak. I like using the cup of the 125 heads when shooting a GR 100gr. That being said, I'm sure they can get the job done. I'm not a huge fan of over the top deploying mechs for deer, cause they tend to have a really small entrance hole. And IF you don't get a pass thru, then all of the blood will be inside the animal. They will cut A LOT of tissue inside the animal and it will likely die quickly with a good shot...but I prefer a rear deploying mech on deer cause I know I'll get at least one big hole. For turkey, I prefer an over the top mech like the GR, cause those tail feather quills can be hard to penetrated with a rear deploying mech.
I used the white tail specials and razor cuts this past season. I too am at 72#, but 30” DL. Every kill was a pass through.
I love the WS for turkeys--one of my faves. But it's not my favorite for deer--the blades are fairly weak and the 100 gr cup is MUCH weaker than the 125 gr. When I do use GRs at 100gr , I buy the extra cups for the 125s and switch them out.
I was hoping you would chime in. I’ve watched a few of your BH reviews and found them very helpful. Still undecided on what to use for deer this fall, but luckily I have time on my side yet.
Thanks. And yeah, the tinkering around, testing, and researching is half the fun—at least it keeps us going during the off season Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
WS would be good for turkey but as stated above the longer blades of the WS are a little on the weak side. I love the GR 1 3/8'' Razor Tip. Here is the last turkey I got with on e.
Thanks to a donation from a buddy, I’m finally doing an official test on the WS. I should have the test and vid done in a few weeks. Really interested to see how it performs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Wear eye protection. Unless they have upped their quality by a lot, expect immediate detonation on your durability tests...or even during your penetration test. I know some people like them, but I could not get a 3 pack of them to group when I tried them years ago- that's right, a mech broadhead would not group.
Haha. I have experienced that a bit already. Those cups really tend to fly apart...especially on the 100 gr heads.
This is interesting. I shot Grim Reaper 1 3/4" broadheads for a long time and I never had any problems with structural integrity or grouping. I always shot the 125 grain model, so maybe that had something to do with it, but I never had a Grim Reaper break going through a deer. I did have one disintegrate once when I missed and hit a big rock in the Ozarks. My biggest problem with and my reason for leaving Grim Reapers was how dull they were out of the package. I made some great shots and ended up with terrible blood trails because they were dragging organ tissue and plugging the exit hole up a bit. I just bought two packages of the 100 grain Pro Series Whitetail Specials to try out. They seem to be a LOT sharper than they were back then.
Question for you. If you put the 125 grain cup on a 100 grain Grim Reaper, isn't that making it a 125 grain head? It seems to me that back when I shot them the only difference in the 100 grain and the 125 grain was that the cup was 25 grains "beefier".
