Should Mechanicals be legal here?

[BOWHUNTER45]

Can you tell how bored I am    and those fixed blades work good on varmits too .... what else can a guy want !!! All , I know ! for BH45 TO shut the hell up ....

[seth30]

Love the bear pic!

[colockumelk]

and I am sorry but there is no way in h--- your going to convince me an exspandable is going to penetrate as good as a fixed blade .... I am so sure of that , that I will speak with confidence on that one ... Most of the shows on T.V show that the majority are shooting a fixed blade ....I wonder why ? when someone finds a video on someone killing something with an exspandable at 50 yrds please let me know about it ...I can not find any  One word for them ( JUNK ) just my own opinion and I do respect all the compliments you guys have with exspandables 

I provided proof you just refuse to open the link to see for yourself. There were actually 3 or 4 mechanicals that out penetrated the Wasps. And I would be willing to bet that at least 2/3 to 3/4 of hunting shows shoot mechanicals. Even the guys who mostly do stuff out west.

[grundy53]

and I am sorry but there is no way in h--- your going to convince me an exspandable is going to penetrate as good as a fixed blade .... I am so sure of that , that I will speak with confidence on that one ... Most of the shows on T.V show that the majority are shooting a fixed blade ....I wonder why ? when someone finds a video on someone killing something with an exspandable at 50 yrds please let me know about it ...I can not find any  One word for them ( JUNK ) just my own opinion and I do respect all the compliments you guys have with exspandables 

I provided proof you just refuse to open the link to see for yourself. There were actually 3 or 4 mechanicals that out penetrated the Wasps. And I would be willing to bet that at least 2/3 to 3/4 of hunting shows shoot mechanicals. Even the guys who mostly do stuff out west.

BH45 don't let facts get in the way of a good story.....just like a liberal....

[BOWHUNTER45]

Colockum....I tried to open the dang link but it does not work ...for me anyway ..I just can not believe it  I have been laughing in my sleep over this 

[RadSav]

That link was loaded with so much factual based truth they had to pull it   Just like the Grim Reaper video that showed nothing more than sharp broadhead tipped arrows that enter ballistic gel straight penetrate better than dull broadhead tipped arrows that enter with a 30 degrees wobble. 

Good arrow flight leads to better penetration than the differences between broadheads these days.  If you are shooting 45# then maybe worry about how a head penetrates.  If you are like 98% of most American bowhunters you should worry far more about sharpness and reduction of air into the wound channel.  I'd much rather watch my animal go down than marvel at how deep my arrow penetrated the dirt on the other side.

Steel blunts penetrate plywood better than any broadhead.  An axe will break cinder blocks better than any broadhead.  And an X10 with target point will out penetrate a broadhead in ballistic gel.  Even with all that "Fact"  I would still prefer to shoot my elk with a nice sharp broadhead. 

[BOWHUNTER45]

Totally agree ...and thats why that little 100 gr Wasp is sooooooo deadly .... 

[colockumelk]

Not sure why the link didn't work. Maybe you have to he a member of Archery Talk to view it. I wasn't trying to push a certain broadhead. In fact the head that scored the best was the VPA. Until then I had never heard of them. I am agree with Radsav. If I have the energy I would prefer to shoot a broadhead with a bigger cutting diameter (Ulmer Edge) and blows threw the elk and is laying in the grass than a little broadhead that blows threw the elk and sticks in the dirt 8" because with that little broadhead there was a bunch of energy wasted.  Doesn't matter though because the Ulmer Edge still out penetrated the Wasp and it out penetrated my favorite broadhead the Slick Trick Magnum.

And the testing wasn't an infomercial ( see Grim Reaped or Swhacker or anything else produced by Wade Nolan). It was done by some guy with too much time on his hands. People donated broadheads to test just like Bwhnter has asked. If it was rigged then a big name like G5, Grim Reaper, or Rage or NAP would have won. ( Each actually did poorly). Instead the broadheads that did the best were names like VPA, Trophy Taker, Wasp, Slick Trick, grave Digger.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Colockum .. I am confused man ... I have killed alot of things with a wasp .. and most of my kills are pass threws and not many made it past 30 yrds before flopping over ...I do not believe there is an energy issue here ...as a matter of fact most have flopped over without making it to 30 yrds not counting the fact I have made a few shoulder shots and they blew threw like going threw butter ...just saying !I know there are some dang good broadheads out there but I am not buying the fact that a mechanical is better than a fixed blade ....its all good and thats why we are all here  i guess I better join this archery talk site and see what everyone is talking about ...they will proberly throw me off 

[colockumelk]

I never once said mechanicals were better than fixed. Show me where I said that?  I use a fixed. I am trying mechanicals this year just to try something new. I'm only hunting white tails so no big deal. But my broadhead of choice is the Slick Trick which is a fixed. Never said Wasps sucked, I'm sure they work fine. I'm just disputing your absurd statement that mechanicals are junk.  They are not. Many are very good, some suck. Just like some fixed suck. 

[BOWHUNTER45]

  calm down man    I just checked out the site ...looks confusing to me ...I look at it again tomorrow ! They are junk in my eyes  again just my opinion !

[fair-chase]

  i guess I better join this archery talk site and see what everyone is talking about ...they will proberly throw me off 

LOL. Those guys are more ego sensitive than waterfowlers. I'd love to see how that unfolds. 

[carpsniperg2]

They have come a long way since they first started out. I think most of them would work just fine and I don't see a reason not to have them be legal.

[RadSav]

Little broadhead is a relative thing.  Look down the barrel of a 12 gauge or 10 gauge shotgun bore.  Shotgun slugs rarely produce velocities that lead to much hydraulic terminal damage and yet their relative size for a super sonic projectile is extremely large.  Neither comes close to the minimum diameter requirement for broadheads.  And bowhunters tend to call that small.  The minimum diameter of a WASP broadhead is 1".  That is basically 1/4" larger in diameter than the 12 gauge shotgun bore and .225" larger than the 10 gauge bore.  So, not really so small in the grand scheme of things.  Add another .125 to .187" to that diameter for your industry standard heads.

Two blade heads in general have 30% less frictional drag than a similar shaped 3 blade broadhead of the same diameter.  Yes about 30% as regardless of popular conjecture and supposition point and ferrule design only effect about 3-4% of a legal broadheads frictional drag.  Thus, your two blade broadhead generally penetrates better than a three blade broadhead of equivalent profile.  Vented blades less than non-vented blades, thicker blades less than thinner blades...etc. 

The wound channel, however, is vastly different.  In a three blade broadhead design you are guaranteed to have a minimum of two blades cutting across the grain of tissue.  With two blades the possibility exists to have no cutting across the grain of tissue.  In the lungs this may not matter much.  But if solid muscle tissue is struck as in a Texas Heart shot or the spinal cord is struck this could lead to a lost animal.  And recovery distances lengthened greatly. 

I don't suggest people give up something they like, but there is far more to the lethality of a broadhead than penetration and/or cutting diameter.  And few get beyond the marketing spin and emotional response of hype to fully evaluate their broadhead choices.  Even fewer apply known facts through the study of medical/clinical, metallurgical and external/terminal ballistics.  Seems the emotional excitement of broadheads make so many forget basic physics classes of our youth.

Don't for a minute believe that a successful harvest means an efficient harvest.  In 1986 I won a national field testing and representation award on my very last hunt of the year taking a nice 7X7 bull in Oregon's Strawberry Mountains.  Much hype was created at the following SHOT show with that bull and the then production version of the 1.5" two blade broadhead prototype I was using.  Between pig and goat culling and general seasons in four states I had harvested 37 animals efficiently with that broadhead prior to the big bull.  That bull was only harvested successfully because of a fourth arrow placed through both lungs at 80 yards.  Two of the three previous arrows had gone high at distances of 15 and 20 yards driving completely though the spinal cord with both arrows (that's not the spinal column but the actual cord itself).  The third drove from thirty yards through the ham stopping short of the liver after making hard contact with bone.  Not one of those three shots saw the two blade broadhead cross the directional fiber of tissues needed for an efficient and quick harvest. 

While one out of 38 might not seem such bad odds, had I been shooting a three blade broadhead of even 1" diameter the results would have been 100% with 38 of 38 efficiently harvested.  I haven't shot a two blade broadhead without bleeders since.

I really hate it when I see penetration tests.  It means absolutely nothing about the efficiency of a broadhead.  It takes the focus off of sharp blades and edge maintaining steel.  It's like debating what car manufacturer makes the fastest car while not noticing that your test subjects have only steel rims and no tires.  It's completely senseless in my mind. 

Bowhunter45 - Please man!  Save yourself and stay away from Archery Talk.

[BOWHUNTER45]

  I agree ...this place is enough for me  but seriously I totally agree with you on sharpness .... between the sharpness , the toughness and the chiseled tip of a Wasp I can not see using anything else ... But if you guys want to shoot those mechanical things then if I have to vote on it to make you happy I will ...but you know how Washington is , they have there own theory on why you can not use them ...I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT !!!