Broadheads

[pianoman9701]

You can also kill one with a .22. That doesn't mean I'm going to use one. I understand you prefer a smaller broadhead. However, I have to compensate for my other shortcomings in life. I use a 125. They fly right, they do lots of damage, and I usually have a plethora of bodily fluids to follow to the downed animal.

can't argue about wanting a bigger hole. And I agree that more blood on the ground is better. My comment was more directed to the case of jechicdr blaming a lost elk on a trocar tip. I have used plenty of heads from muzzy to thunderhead to montec and stingers and shuttle t... nothing had issues killing what I shot at when placement was good.
I will most likely end up shooting 125s next year when I go moose hunting because I want an arrow that weighs 450+ with good foc.

I'm not sure how long your arrows are, but I'm shooting a 30" Beaman ICS Camo Hunters 340 +/- .003 tolerance. With the 125s, my arrow weight is 472, shooting 62 lbs. The shaft is 10 gr/inch.

[jechicdr]

You can also kill one with a .22. That doesn't mean I'm going to use one. I understand you prefer a smaller broadhead. However, I have to compensate for my other shortcomings in life. I use a 125. They fly right, they do lots of damage, and I usually have a plethora of bodily fluids to follow to the downed animal.

can't argue about wanting a bigger hole. And I agree that more blood on the ground is better. My comment was more directed to the case of jechicdr blaming a lost elk on a trocar tip. I have used plenty of heads from muzzy to thunderhead to montec and stingers and shuttle t... nothing had issues killing what I shot at when placement was good.
I will most likely end up shooting 125s next year when I go moose hunting because I want an arrow that weighs 450+ with good foc.

There were a lot of factors involved in that lost elk.  After I made the shot and heard the hollow *thwack*, the elk jumped and ran...about 20 yards and laid down.  I knew it was a good hit.  I did not see that the elk had stopped, as she was on the other side of some thick brush.  All I could see at that time was torrents of rain that began to fall shortly after the shot.  I waited 15 minutes imagining the blood trail washing away the longer I sat there.  First mistake was getting up, but if she had run 75 or 100 yards, my mistake would have been continuing to sit there.  When I cleared the brush, she jumped from her bedded position and ran, leaving behind a large puddle of blood in the bed she just vacated.  Saw her run another 50 yards before I lost sight of her.  At that point, I stopped and waited as I became wetter and wetter with the continued torrent of rain, and darkness falling.  Yard by yard, I followed a decent blood trail about 40 yards (by now pitch black outside).  I had to touch every drop of rain on every red spot on those darn berry bush leaves to see if it was blood or just a red spot on the leaf.  I would lose the trail and backtrack to the last known spot of confirmed blood and return to the search.  The blood trail became thicker and I found a bed with a pool of blood in it.  Only problem was that the bed was the same place I started originally.  I had followed the trail backwards back to my starting point.  I had no "visible" landmarks to tell me I was going back over my steps.  I attempted to follow the trail again back the other direction and only got 25 yards before I lost the trail again.  I resigned to return in the morning when it was light.  I walked home in 6 inches of standing water to camp and crawled into the tent.  The rain let up a little, long enough for me to get to sleep (which is quite some time when you have just lost an elk).  I woke just past midnight with the rain pouring down again just to remind me that any hope of a blood trail still being there would be lost.  By morning the sun was shining and the water had mostly seeped into the soil.  I returned to the area and found some blood in the bed.  I followed my arrows I had stuck in the ground and on occasion would find a small drop of blood either under an overhanging log or on the underside of some of the berry leaves.  Once the patch opened up away from the trees and thick brush, not a single drop of blood could be found.  I followed the elk trail as it first split into two, then 5, then many trails going through the berry patch cris-crossed with old creek beds and interrupted by strips of trees and bushes, unable to tell which trail would lead to the downed elk.  I started tracing increasingly larger circles in the hopes of finding a drop or smear of blood to no avail.  There were so many places within a hundred yards where that elk could have gone.  It could have fallen 5 yards from many of the spots I was in and I would not have seen her.  I searched until about an hour before dark that day and the entire time I was searching was running through the things I could have done differently.  The trochar tip was just one of those things.  The same shot with a cut on contact with a pass through that evening might have killed the elk a few yards/minutes sooner, made it somewhat easier to track in the dark with pouring rain in a huge thick berry patch that transitioned to very thick forest and a network of trails down any one of which that elk could have gone.  I also blamed my headlight, that had enough light to follow a blood trail, but not enough light to see where I was in the big picture, so I invested in a nicer headlight that I save just for tracking game, and use my cheaper headlight for the treks away from and to camp in the dark.  I now carry reflective clips and pushpins (pins would have been useless in the berry patch).  It was likely a fluke set of circumstances, but it made me consider all the variables that led to losing that elk.  If there had been no rain, if it had been earlier in the day, if the blood trail was bigger, if I had not gotten up so soon.  I made a lot of changes that day to hopefully prevent that from happening again.  If those had been in place that day...who knows.

[huntnnw]

I could put any 100 gr broadhead on my bow and it will shoot just fine..bow tuning

[TommyH]

bow tuning is very important. Right behind practice, practice, practice.

[BOWHUNTER45]

You can also kill one with a .22. That doesn't mean I'm going to use one. I understand you prefer a smaller broadhead. However, I have to compensate for my other shortcomings in life. I use a 125. They fly right, they do lots of damage, and I usually have a plethora of bodily fluids to follow to the downed animal.

can't argue about wanting a bigger hole. And I agree that more blood on the ground is better. My comment was more directed to the case of jechicdr blaming a lost elk on a trocar tip. I have used plenty of heads from muzzy to thunderhead to montec and stingers and shuttle t... nothing had issues killing what I shot at when placement was good.
I will most likely end up shooting 125s next year when I go moose hunting because I want an arrow that weighs 450+ with good foc.

There were a lot of factors involved in that lost elk.  After I made the shot and heard the hollow *thwack*, the elk jumped and ran...about 20 yards and laid down.  I knew it was a good hit.  I did not see that the elk had stopped, as she was on the other side of some thick brush.  All I could see at that time was torrents of rain that began to fall shortly after the shot.  I waited 15 minutes imagining the blood trail washing away the longer I sat there.  First mistake was getting up, but if she had run 75 or 100 yards, my mistake would have been continuing to sit there.  When I cleared the brush, she jumped from her bedded position and ran, leaving behind a large puddle of blood in the bed she just vacated.  Saw her run another 50 yards before I lost sight of her.  At that point, I stopped and waited as I became wetter and wetter with the continued torrent of rain, and darkness falling.  Yard by yard, I followed a decent blood trail about 40 yards (by now pitch black outside).  I had to touch every drop of rain on every red spot on those darn berry bush leaves to see if it was blood or just a red spot on the leaf.  I would lose the trail and backtrack to the last known spot of confirmed blood and return to the search.  The blood trail became thicker and I found a bed with a pool of blood in it.  Only problem was that the bed was the same place I started originally.  I had followed the trail backwards back to my starting point.  I had no "visible" landmarks to tell me I was going back over my steps.  I attempted to follow the trail again back the other direction and only got 25 yards before I lost the trail again.  I resigned to return in the morning when it was light.  I walked home in 6 inches of standing water to camp and crawled into the tent.  The rain let up a little, long enough for me to get to sleep (which is quite some time when you have just lost an elk).  I woke just past midnight with the rain pouring down again just to remind me that any hope of a blood trail still being there would be lost.  By morning the sun was shining and the water had mostly seeped into the soil.  I returned to the area and found some blood in the bed.  I followed my arrows I had stuck in the ground and on occasion would find a small drop of blood either under an overhanging log or on the underside of some of the berry leaves.  Once the patch opened up away from the trees and thick brush, not a single drop of blood could be found.  I followed the elk trail as it first split into two, then 5, then many trails going through the berry patch cris-crossed with old creek beds and interrupted by strips of trees and bushes, unable to tell which trail would lead to the downed elk.  I started tracing increasingly larger circles in the hopes of finding a drop or smear of blood to no avail.  There were so many places within a hundred yards where that elk could have gone.  It could have fallen 5 yards from many of the spots I was in and I would not have seen her.  I searched until about an hour before dark that day and the entire time I was searching was running through the things I could have done differently.  The trochar tip was just one of those things.  The same shot with a cut on contact with a pass through that evening might have killed the elk a few yards/minutes sooner, made it somewhat easier to track in the dark with pouring rain in a huge thick berry patch that transitioned to very thick forest and a network of trails down any one of which that elk could have gone.  I also blamed my headlight, that had enough light to follow a blood trail, but not enough light to see where I was in the big picture, so I invested in a nicer headlight that I save just for tracking game, and use my cheaper headlight for the treks away from and to camp in the dark.  I now carry reflective clips and pushpins (pins would have been useless in the berry patch).  It was likely a fluke set of circumstances, but it made me consider all the variables that led to losing that elk.  If there had been no rain, if it had been earlier in the day, if the blood trail was bigger, if I had not gotten up so soon.  I made a lot of changes that day to hopefully prevent that from happening again.  If those had been in place that day...who knows.

I need to find the pictures of my big bull I shot at 60yrds with a 70# mathews and a 85gr wasp .... blood trail Well I will just say this ....when I got home that evening I looked at my pants and jacket and their was blood everywhere from me just tracking it ....not counting puddles of blood everywhere....you hit them in the right spot and you have nothen to worry about ....most elk I have shot have died while I was watching them and all with a wasp 

[BULLBLASTER]

Bh45... you must havejust gotten very lucky each time you made a kill with a wasp... you should probably try some real broadheads next time... 



Just trying to ruffle some feathers.

[kentrek]

If the elk didn't die within 150 yards it wasn't the broadheads fault... if you put any broad head into the lungs the animal will die. I have had passthroughs on elk up to 65 yards with a 100 gr shuttle t on a 365 grain arrow out of a 60 lb bow. Also not had pass through inside 30 yards with same set up. Both elk dead inside 40 yards from hit.

i used to agree with your train of thought,but after the 2010 season i have a new found respect for how tough these animals are. no doubt the animal will die with an arrow in its lungs but if your useing a dull blade and that broad head didnt pass all the way through and isnt tearing things up on the inside i have no doubt an elk can live for quit some time with dull broad head in em,regardless of weight.

[BOWHUNTER45]

yeah we all have our own opinion but some never learn .... when I was a kid I could remember my dad and I trying every broadhead made and still to this day I think wasp has done the best job for us....I have taken my share of game back in the day with a bear broadhead ...remember the ones with the bleeder blade ? One theory I have learned regardless of what broadhead you like is for one having the chiseled tip is a most and going with the smaller diameter broadhead with penetrate bone much better than a big one 

[BULLBLASTER]

Bowhunter, that reply was much too nice for what I was expecting...
...no fun! I wanted.to get you wound up about them heads again...

[BOWHUNTER45]

Now everyone knows my opinion and knows what I shoot I will never comment on broadheads again  PROMISE !

[johnnyaustin44]

Now everyone knows my opinion and knows what I shoot I will never comment on broadheads again  PROMISE !

dangit... how is anyone gonna know about the wasp BOSS if your not preachin it. so many animals are gonna be runing around wounded from a lesser broadhead now that your outta the picture.

[windygorge]

a blade broke off on my bull using slick tricks last year. wasnt a fan of that and wont be shooting them anymore.

Between my partner and I, we have killed 13 elk in the last five years with ST's (and a lot of deer). About half of the elk we got second arrows into also. We have not had a single blade break and I have used the same ferrule on 5 animals before it no longer spun true. I think you got really unlucky if that makes you feel better. ST's are probably the most reliable and toughest head on the market.

I'm curious what head you are thinking about going to because I am willing to bet I could direct you to multiple horror stories about it breaking.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

innerloc.  better dig deep

[windygorge]

don't let the marketing hype of all these new smaller broadheads cloud your judgement.  i.e. slick trick, shuttle t, whack em.....  shoot a broadhead that penetrates, is durable, has replaceable razor sharp blades, and has a longer cutting surface.  i personally think that all steel broadheads are going to lead to more animal loss.  there are too many lazy people out there that won't take the time to sharpen their broadheads the proper way.  a razor sharp broadhead is a must.  an animal shot with fresh blades will go down quickly more times than not, even with poor placement. most broadheads will penetrate bone.  those that have shot through bone with type "A" have not used type "B" and will think type "A" is the best, bar none, don't use anything else.  type "B" users think they are shooting the best.  vicious circle.  me, at the current time, i have been using thunderheads 100.  i used innerlocs and muzzy for a while and yes wasp, waaaaay back in the day.  i have had no problems with any of them.  tuning with thunderheads is easier.     
as for tuning.  and to keep it simple, do the bare shaft test.  its very reliable and use a shaft alignment tool.  (basically a thing that you can roll the arrow on to indicate arrows that are not true and to test if your broad is true). pick your best arrows out of a dozen for hunting and tune them.  set them aside for just hunting.  use the others for farting around with on the range. 

[MADMAX]

Hard to beat a Muzzy
My bull last year was a clean pass through breaking ribs and still buried in a tree, and will use it again this year

[D-Rock425]

I like shooting my wac'ems, slick tricks, and innerlocs.  All of them shoot well for me when I have everything tuned right arrows,broadheads and bow.