I have to disagree that all broad head designs have the same inherited amount of accuracy and they only thing that prevents that is an untuned bow. The amount of surface area will always have the effect of stearing the arrow, and to generalize the less surface area up front the better in terms of accuracy. A good example of that is longer range Broadhead competitions, where most competitors use the smallest Broadheads allowed....think ulmer edge. I also think there is some truth to a smaller head being more forgiving to lapses in form. Broadhead " tuning " in it's most purest form using the inherited directional influence of the Broadhead to your bows advantage. Your tuning the bow to take advantage of the steering the broads does. No doubt that the smaller the surface area up front the more accurate the arrow can be steered. Because the directional influence will come from the bow rather then the broad head. Now don't take any of what I said and convolute it to be a endorsement of mechs vs fixed blades. They both have there place and both can be equally miss used. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ill never shoot a rage because of the poor quality, i have shot both fixed and mechanicals, and every year i get a new broadhead, i shoot slick tricks right now and love em, im switching to ram cats next year not because i dont like fixed blades, but because i want to try all different tips and compare effects of them.
I agree with you on a few points. A smaller, lower profile head will be more forgiving (i.e. Bunker Buster vs. Original Snuffer) in high wind or torqued shots. I think, given your examples, that you would agree that ANY given head, providing the bow is tuned for the arrow and shooter is consistent, can be made to shoot within an acceptable limitation in a hunting situation from head to head. Drawing from that then, all heads will have the same inherited amount of accuracy from the get go. Granted, limiting factors will affect every head differently and at different exponents. There are other things to combat that effect, though. I will argue that a large diameter head can fly just as well as any smaller head at longer distances given exact atmospheric conditions for each head on the shot.
We are not too far apart Most or almost all modern Broadheads can be shot thorough modern bows with an acceptable degree of accuracy for hunting. providing a proficient shooter, and the bow is tuned to accept the steering the Broadhead imparts. Couple of points though, some Broadheads by their design will be inherently harder to accomplish the above. To address your second point...we don't hunt or shoot in a vacuums, there is no sense trying to. Can a Broadhead of substantial surface area be as accurate ..in a vacuum yes, in the real world no. Give me two equally excellent shooters, one shooting a Broadhead and the other a field point, and they both shoot at the same time and distances over the course of a week and different weather and topography...I will put all my money on the field point shooter day in and out... That said we dont use field points on deer...no sense thinking vacuum's.. Last point about Broadhead tuning or any imparted directional tuning of a bow, 90% of bow hunters don't understand or really need to understand it... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Agreed on all accounts. I guess the main point I am trying to stress is that a "good" shooter can take any head, regardless of size and shoot it with an accepted "killing accuracy" at hunting distances. I am currently shooting 100gr SlickTrick Standards.. fairly small head. I know I can take a NAP Thunderhead, Magnus Stinger, or a Wensel Woodsman and hit the same spot +/- 3" at 40 yards as I would compared to the SlickTrick. I don't think you would see a serious difference until a longer distance, 50+. But, I agree at those distances the effect of wind or torque will make a more apparent effect on the larger heads.
Agreed as can I. One point I want to make and it's separate but related to the discussion. I often hear guys say they have to tune there Broadheads to" shoot the same as field points" ...this a very common misconception. And in many cases detrimental to their accuracy with the Broadhead. In most cases when tuning we adjust some part of the bow to impart direction and force it upon the arrow till we achieve our desired flight. when we extend that thinking out to our Broadhead tipped arrow is where we may loose accuracy compared to a field point. The new force that steering of the Broadhead imparts on the arrow needs to harnessed rather then forced back in line with field tips. Don't assume that co grouping both is the most accurate outcome. I think this situation is where most guys get the idea that Broadheads are less accurate. Why? because they caused them to be by tuning (think force) them to fly the same a field point. Their primary focus becomes getting them to group the same, rather then getting the best group from the broad head. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I am not going to shoot with bad form because I have a mechanical. Bad form is bad form regardless of the head used. The only heads I am cautious about are the three blade 2 inch cut mechs. That takes too much energy to get a pass through. I did buy a Wasp expandable that I threw in the garbage as soon as I opened the package. It looks like the G5 expandable. Its doo-doo.
I have always been a coc fixed blade guy and swore since the day i picked up a compound, over 4 yrs ago, that I would never shoot expandables. For some reason, I think it can be linked to watching too much outdoor channel, I decided to give G5 T3's a shot after always using Montecs. What a mistake. 8 ptr at 30 yds broadside, let it fly, hit him a bit higher then i anticipated but the T3 simply did not penetrate, like at all. I watched the buck run off with the arrow in his side flapping in the wind, sick to my stomach. I tracked the deer for a total of 12 hrs in two days until I was on my hands and knees looking for the last drop of blood. What happened? After replaying the scenario in my head over and over i came to a few conclusions. 1. The broadhead did not open upon impact, thus not penetrating. 2. the broadhead opened mid flight, not penetrating. 3. the broadhead hit rib and failed to open. The world will never know. I found the arrow, the threads of the bh were snapped off inside the insert. Also I shoot a lighter arrow 7.7 gpi which i dont think helps when you need that extra weight to drive the expandable home. I have experienced plenty of 30yd pass throughs with the same arrow and a montec. Had the arrow penetrated the deer would be dead despite the high hit.There is good news, a week later the same buck was on my trail cam very alive with a gnarly patch of hair missing where i hit him. I havent seen him since shotgun season and can only hot he is still alive and well. Plenty of hunters use expandables and have never had a problem and in fact swear by them. I will never use one again. If you could ask Fred Bear what he thinks about expandables I'm sure he would tell you they are totally unnessary. He managed to kill almost every animal on the planet with a fixed blade coc. Todays high performance bows are obviously very different from Fred's set up, however if you have the right set-up and sight in with your broadheads not field points and make a quality shot, a coc will out perform an expandable every time.
What broadhead won't I use? Anything besides a Magnus Stinger or Magnus Stinger Buzzcut both with bleeders. Too many amazing blood trails, too many pass throughs, too many dead deer with the same broadhead (6 deer over the course of 2 seasons with the same head), excellent flight out to 50 yards and a lifetime warranty. I guess I keep a small game "thumper" in my quiver for squirrels and such, but for big game is Stingers. My brother in law shoots Meat Seekers usually and they always break after the shot. He was amazed that one Stinger killed as many deer as 75 bucks worth of Meat Seekers.
Nap Shockwaves are hard to beat for the money. Good penetration, big wounds, never heard of a fail from one.
I have never shot a mechanical head in 30 some years of bowhunting. Have no reason to start now. I have shot Bear, Savora, Satellite, Muzzy 3 and 4 blades, Allen and Slick Trick broadheads. The only one I didn't like out of those were the Allen Broadheads. The flew great, nice blood trails but the blades would break very easy. After having 3 heads do that and wondering where the blades were in the deer while skinning and cutting up... I said screw it and am using them on arrows set up for coyotes. Never had a problem getting any of them to fly with my field tips. Tim
I have mix feelings on this...the first seires rage suck..i lost a nice buck on them cause the deer ran off with my arrow and never found blood..i went to my local bow shop and the guy that works there told me the same thing happen to him and told me to use the extremes and since then ive taken 2 more deer that havent ran more then 40 yards...i also like muzzy 3 blades that ive taken numerous deer with...
I would chalk that entire scenario up to poor shot placement. If a mechanical head doesn't open it would penetrate more, not less. I'm not a mech. fan but I dillude that most of the negative publicity they get is due to operator error. Opening too early or not opening is simply a crutch for a bad shot. Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2
Here is one reference to it. Not being argumentative but it is also implied in several posts. I realize that not everyone has the same desire or honestly the same need to understand the dynamics of broad head flight/tuning to any greater extent then to have them shoot well enough to hunt with. And I think that the majority of today's broad heads both fixed and mech can be set up and shot acceptably for most hunting with a pretty minuscule amount of effort. This fact lends itself to today's method of choosing a broad head( not everyone but I will go on the limb most bowhunters)...they pick what looks good to them that year, or what they used in successfully in the past and other then sighting them in(hopefully) no other thought gets put into their flight.
Which BH designs are inherently inaccurate? A BH by itself is not more accurate or less accurate than any other tip. Accuracy is determined by the shooter and the bow and arrow setup. You can have a mediocre shotter with a poorly tuned bow and even FP's will not group well. They may group better than a BH for reason you mention in earlier posts but the inaccuracy of both points, BH and FP, is do to the shooter and poorly set up bow and arrow. Bow and arrow tuning isn't just to make BH' as accurate as FP's although it will do that. The primary purpose, IMO, of a properly tuned bow and arrow is to get the most efficient energy transfer from the bow to the arrow. That will help with penetration and the effort to get a complete pass through, as you know. The problem with expandables is that they mask a poorly tuned bow and arrow which is really masking a problem with efficient energy transfer from bow to arrow. That is one of the reasons why, at least from what I have seen, we see so many non-passthroughs with expandables even out of 70# bows. I agree that most bowhunters put no more thought into the arrow flight than getting the BH to hit where they aim. But if we have a chance to dispel myths (fixed blades are not accurate, expandables are more accurate than fixed) then we should use that opportunity.
Tough question. I am not a big fan of the Montec fixed broadhead, just because the bloodtrails were sparse when I used them (that being said it was over 5 years ago, so they may be much better now). Also, never really liked the original spitfire, as I did not get a lot of penetration with it. All your major broadheads seem to be accurate and do the job. Still like Rage for expandable and Muzzy for fixed. I just don't understand how guys say that every broadhead will fly the same out of a properly tuned bow. Call me crazy, but I am willing to bet that if you take 100gr Rage, Muzzy, Montec, Rocket, NAP blood runners, NAP killzone, Grim Reaper, etc and shoot them from 30 yards that your contact points will be a little off with some. They may fly true due to being properly tuned, but their different wind resistance and shape will not allow them to all fly the same. I feel that way about expandables and fixed heads. Drives me crazy that the boxes say "flies like a field tip."
I BH tune my bow with 125 grain 3 blade Snuffers and 125 grain field points. After that, everything else I shoot hits pretty much the same hole except slight variances for trajectory changes. Arrow weight, correct spine and FOC come into play as to how much or how little impact the wind has on the flight. Obviously a heavier arrow is going to be harder to blow off course than a lighter one, but that is more a dynamic of an arrow being too light and it would be difficult to atribute that to broadhead design alone.
I have used 3 BH's so far this season. A silver flame, a slick trick and an outback supreme. They all fly/hit identically. I practice with at least one of them almost every day out to 50 yards. Neither of them is inherently more inaccurate.
