Does anyone have any experience with Ashby broadheads? A lot of research on Alaska Bowhunting website.
Yes, I use them with my homemade trad bowhunting setup. I wrote a companion piece for traditional Bowhunter Magazine in 2008 that was coupled with a Ashby piece. My testing on deer and havest sucess has me impressed with single bevel heads. Here is something I put together a while back that might be of some interest to you. After finishing my homemade broadheads and I was itching to try them out . I am really curious about the single bevel blades and what they will do. As luck would have it, a neighbor brought me a fresh archery kill to process for him. I asked him if it would be ok to test my heads on his deer. He didn't mind since he wanted the whole deer ground into sausage and/or burger. So here she is. All 68 pounds of her (dressed) I would have loved to be trying this on a 150 pound deer but beggars can't be choosers. I made three shots from 10 yards with my 45 pound longbow that shoots an arrow at a blazing 142 FPS. the first two were through the ribs and the final one hit the shoulder blade at the point where the flat and the "T" meet, right near the ball joint. This is (in my opinion) the largest and thickest bone section in the upper shoulder. I admit that hitting this far forward is not a good place to aim on a live animal but things happen beyond our control. I of course hit this spot with pin point precision on purpose. The rib shots were complete pass throughs but the shoulder shot ended up with just the fletches sticking out entrance side. I know there were no lungs in the deer but they don't offer much in the way of resistance any way. Also consider that this deer was cold and stiff as rigor mortise had set in so I consider all things equal. Right off the bat, I noticed the "S" shaped cuts that Dr. Ashby had spoke about. This was the case on both the entrance and exit holes. *** Word of caution*** When you pull the arrow back out of the deer (through a bone) and you have sharpened your broadheads on the trailing edge as well as the main edge. Make sure to keep your fingers clear even though you need to hold the deer steady while retrieving the arrow. After a brief bit of first aid, I began to skin the deer, I noticed that both of the rib shots had completely missed hitting ribs on both sides. My goal was to break a rib to see the results but I must have used up all my luck..... I mean skill on that shoulder shot. I then removed the shoulder and boned it out. Just as described by Dr. Ashby, the "S" shaped cut and the bone had split completely being held at the joint end by only some soft fibers. As expected, the single bevel head is a real bone breaker/splitter. I know this is a very small deer but again, I was using a rather low power bow. Take from this what you will but I am even more pleased with the single bevel heads. This sort of thing is not necessary with todays super fast and powerful bows hunting whitetails but for those using traditional archery gear, or those going after large or dangerous game, we are looking for every advantage we can get I was contacted by Dave Peterson who writes for Traditional Bowhunter Magazine and he asked to use the above info and pictures for a story in the magazine. Below are the first two of the new half dozen heads I made from the final design. They are similar to the heads I have made in prior years only these are a bit longer to give a better aspect ratio ( 2.6 : 1 ) and have the added weight I was looking for to be used with my longbow . They are just under 1 inch wide with a blade thickness of .039. The blades are single bevel. They are made the same way as prior heads where the blades are pinned to the ferrule. Here is a buck I took with those homemade broadheads and my homemade bow. I had hit the top of the near lung and the upper third of the far side lung. He traveled less than 100 yards before it expired. Exit side hole
That's pretty awesome Crabtree. Well done. Posts like this make me consider traditional style archery. I think I'll stick with the compound for a while yet though.
You can shoot a single bevel out of a compound too. These heads are just expensive. Hopefully Rob (KodiakArcher) will chime in on this when he returns from his buffalo hunt.
This is a good single bevel that flies out of compounds just fine. http://users.ncable.net.au./~woody/outback_supreme_single_bevel.htm
Thats a great review on those broadheads! Even better that you had a good testing medium as opposed to a foam target!!
