legalizing mechanical broadheads in Washington

[Little Dave]

Now this is just a little joke so please take it seriously:  Let's keep balance in the purity of archery hunting by requiring mechanical broadheads when using recurve bows and fixed broadheads when using compound bows.   

Make it legal and don't use them.

[irishevox]

my wife shot a little button buck this weekend with a thunderhead.  The shot was head on and the arrow when in the chest hit the heart came out the back.  As the deer walked away she shot him again and it was a gut shot.  We went to check the deer after an hour of waiting and he was still alive.  I am sure with a mechanical broad head  it would have sliced up the heard.  the thunder head just cut it, it was a good shot and the Deer did expire, but the fact is that it shouldn't have taken that long I prefer mechanical over fixed any and all day. 

[SB]

Fixed blade, mechanical......whatever you shoot, it's all about hitting them in the right place. 

[billythekidrock]

Too many moving parts and potential for failure.

[BOWHUNTER45]

The only thing they are good for is shooting heads off of turkeys ...

[Jellymon]

As far as accuracy goes, if you take the 30 minutes to actually tune your bow a fixed blade is all of as accurate as a mech. Using mechs is no excuse for not tuning your bow. You get better accuracy, arrow flight, penetration with a tuned bow no matter the head. More animals are lost because of no practice/tuning, or taking bad angled/distance shots than because of the head thats used. Bottom line, put it in the right spot with responsible angles and the animal will die quicky no matter the head, don't practice and take risky shots and you will pay the price. I don't have any issue with mechs being legal but I won't use one. There are more important things to be fighting for, hunting wise, than mech broadheads. Every year we lose more and more land to hunt, and the cost just to hunt is killing our sport more than any anti campaign ever could.

[huntnphool]

 Just as with lumenoks, if you don't want to use them then dont, let everyone make their own decision.

[lokidog]

We had a hunter illegally use expandables twice that I now know of after I had instructed him he had to get legal broadheads, a big mule buck and a 6x6 bull, both wounded animals got away. I am not in favor of them. 

I can't imagine someone who is demonstrating these ethics worried a whole lot about shot placement though.   

I wanted to use these as my BHs never matched my target arrows for impact point, however, now that I have a better tuned bow, they match up much better and I'm not sure I would bother with them.

[northwesthunter84]

I have shot all of my whitetails in Illinois with them, but after switching to fixed blades here in Washington I don't really see the point.  If people want to shoot them you still have to practice because they do fly different, despite all the talk otherwise.  Specifically Nap Spitfires had a 6" drop at 30 yards, but that was years ago.  Never had a deployment issue though but I also only shot Rage 2 blades after that.  I would say I only had one shot not pass through with the Rages but that was a spine shot on a deer that ducked on the shot.  Given the choice with my set up I wouldn't change but I am not going to give someone crap if they are legal to use.  I will give my opinion on poor shot choice, we as hunters owe it to the animals to do the best we can, marginal shots are not wrong but they are poor taste.  Heck I could have taken a couple elk this year if I was not as strict as I am with shot choice.  I can sleep at night with a tag in my pocket, not a wounded animal though.  Oh and I will say that the only animal that I had the misfortune to loose was with a fixed blade.  He lived and was shot during gun season 2 weeks later.  Got my broadhead back though, clipped the shoulder blade and redirected straight across vice down through the lungs and heart.  Darn nice buck too.

[dreamingbig]

I am fairly new to this site so I'm sure this topic has been discussed before but have a few questions that maybe some of you who are more informed than I am could answer:

1. How strong is the push to legalize mechanical broadheads in Washington state/how close are we to being able to hunt large game with such equipment?

2. For anyone who knows the effectiveness of such broadheads, are mechanical heads simply a bunch of hype or are they truly above and beyond more effective than fixed blades?

It seems to me that if mechanical heads are as effective as some people claim, and the technology is at a point where the broadheads work as designed a high percentage of the time, then it only makes sense to legalize this equipment that would help make cleaner/more efficient kills. No true hunter wants to miss the mark by a little bit (as it happens sometimes to the best of us) and not be able to recover an animal only to have that animal suffer a slower death when there is technology out there that could have made that poor shot more effective.

Any insight into this topic would be much appreciated.

What broadheads do you have experience hunting with?


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[pianoman9701]

Mechanicals have come a long way. I have G5s, so I've got all I need for incredible killing power. But, I support allowing the use of mechanicals for those who want them. The wounding argument I don't believe is true. The department's objection to mechanicals is due to older technological difficulties which have long since been addressed by the major manufacturers. And the argument that they're too modern or add too much technology is crap unless you're shooting a longbow that you made from a yew, a string you made out of guts, arrows you made out of branches, bird feathers you found in the forest, and a broadhead of obsidian that you chiseled yourself, you don't get to play that card.

[dreamingbig]

They upgraded the string to arrow method...  http://pro-tracker.com

I pray it is never legal in the western states!


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[coachcw]

So I had discussed this issue with a couple professional archery people and have made a choice on my stand. First of all every time primitive equipment get advancements ie lighted nocks we loose something in terms of the season that's a point to ponder . secondly a well tuned bow with shoot fixed blades quite well  . when adding a mechanical devise to a bh to keep it at 100 grains you sacrifice blade thickness . I'd rather have a .041 blade on a marginal hit vrs a .021 blade . sure when punched through the pocket on a deer mechanical leave a nasty path . but anyone the has hit one with a quality fixed blade will see the same results . just one more thing that can go wrong with such advanced equipment. lighted nocks are nice because they help us find the arrow and determine the quality of the hit . I know legal or not when in elk woods my quiver will be full of sharp fixed blades !

[Netminder01]

If it ain't  broke you don't need to fix it....

Don't agree with that statement at all regardless of the potential passing making the use legal. Not sure I'd switch from fixed but I for one embrace a better way to do something. We as people will always do this no matter the avenue... cars, planes, phones.

I bet you don't have a flip phone or wait for the pony express to deliver mail.   

[huntnphool]

First of all every time primitive equipment get advancements ie lighted nocks we loose something in terms of the season

 With all due respect, you are sounding like a liberal politician.

 Please show me evidence of losing seasons as a result of equipment advancement!