What effects blood trails more, BH selection or shot implementation?

wild_musk said:

I vote shot placement. I think any sharp BH will work as long as you hit both lungs, so it mostly needs to fly well with your setup. Since switching to recurve I've tried Iron Will, Magnus, VPA, RMS Cutthroats, and several more. I liked some better than others mostly for the materials, and second for design. I can sharpen some better than others because of the steel, but like the design of a few that I cannot get as sharp (Ive made knives for about 30 years fwiw). Last year I started making my own with 8670 steel and using a titanium body..it's a combination of my favorite design features, but with a steel I can control the heat treatment of to be both sharp and tough. The titanium body is prob overkill but the weight comes out at 150g and they look cool. Deer die the same with them as any others I've used, but it's very difficult to make the all the same with my manual lathe and mill...I wouldn't use them with my compound unless I really upped my consistency.
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Truly, Wow! Hate to guess how many hours you have in your custom broad heads. I am impressed. How would the 8670 steel compare in characteristics to say S7 tool steel?

Rosebud said:

This advice comes from someone who has killed roughly150+conservatively deer with a bow, Worked in a archery shop and practiced year round plus shot competition 3D. Unless you are a very accomplished archer, not someone who practices three weeks prior to season avoid frontal and hard quartering to shots. To much leeway for bad stuff.
But if you can put a arrow into the pocket between the brisket and shoulder, dead very fast. TV bow hunters have caused to many normal hunters into believing they are Levi Morgan and Lee Lakoski those people practice year round.
Yes, the style and shape of the broad head matters, but not as much as taking out both lungs. A deer hit in one lung and the liver will make you follow it a long way if you bump it out of its bed to soon.
If I killed150 plus, I also lost quite a few figuring out what I was doing wrong.
If you think how can you kill that many with a bow, Alabama has a two deer a day season. At one point you could kill two does and a buck a day all season. Now its a three buck limit, but still a doe per day. kill eight to ten a year for thirty years. It adds up.

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Same sown here. I think our limit was 8 deer but we also had dmap tags. As a young bow hunter with a high deer density and liberal limits. Fun times. I think I shot every broadhead popular at the time. The mechanical heads we shot back then could be deadly but had their limits on quartering shots and or shoulder impacts. The newer models are much better and will put a double lung shot deer down quick. For a fixed blade the slick trick 4 blade was very good. My least favorite shot is the hard quartering to as well. Very easy to only get one lung. One thing I always tried to remember is to shoot for the exit.

sdakotaguy said:

Truly, Wow! Hate to guess how many hours you have in your custom broad heads. I am impressed. How would the 8670 steel compare in characteristics to say S7 tool steel?

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Hah, it set me back on other projects for sure. I havent used s7 for anything I've made, but it's a very tough tool steel. It will not hold an edge well because it lacks enough carbide. Knifesteelnerds says it will only get to about 57RC, but imo that is good for a BH that only needs to cut once. 8670 is also extremely tough - both overkill for this application. Honestly if I found s7 in 1/16" stock I'm willing to bet it would be great. Not sure which is cheaper...sorry, I'm hijacking

wild_musk said:

Hah, it set me back on other projects for sure. I havent used s7 for anything I've made, but it's a very tough tool steel. It will not hold an edge well because it lacks enough carbide. Knifesteelnerds says it will only get to about 57RC, but imo that is good for a BH that only needs to cut once. 8670 is also extremely tough - both overkill for this application. Honestly if I found s7 in 1/16" stock I'm willing to bet it would be great. Not sure which is cheaper...sorry, I'm hijacking

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I think you meant carbon as opposed to carbide. I feel a hardness of 57 RC is near perfect as if you get much harder we tend to start getting brittle. As I recall S7 had been a common steel used for shear blades for shearing low carbon steel.

cajun said:

Same sown here. I think our limit was 8 deer but we also had dmap tags. As a young bow hunter with a high deer density and liberal limits. Fun times. I think I shot every broadhead popular at the time. The mechanical heads we shot back then could be deadly but had their limits on quartering shots and or shoulder impacts. The newer models are much better and will put a double lung shot deer down quick. For a fixed blade the slick trick 4 blade was very good. My least favorite shot is the hard quartering to as well. Very easy to only get one lung. One thing I always tried to remember is to shoot for the exit.

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When the 1st expanding broad head came out I tried it. The 1st deer I shot was quarter away. The arrow hit the last rib skated up the side of the spike buck then turned into the chest cavity just behind the shoulder. I'd never heard a deer make a sound like that before. It looked like a sword swipe across its left rib cage. Ghastly sight. But it entered and took out the heart and lungs. It stumbled about twenty yards gushing blood. I went back to the three blade I'd been using.

I bow hunted for somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years until I had shoulder surgery...and haven't drawn a bow since. I tried the mechanical broadheads when they first came out and wasn't impressed, I know they're a lot better now though, and went back to the fixed blade and never looked back using the Shuttle T-Lock for probably the last 10 years that I bow hunted.

I think that broadhead selection is important but shot placement is key, hell, you can kill an elephant with a pencil if you put it in the right place. But even more important is the shot itself. If you take a marginal shot all you can expect is a marginal outcome. It may be the biggest critter you've ever had in front of you, be patient and wait for the right shot, the animal deserves that. Probably one discussion I had that ****ed me off the most was a guy told me that you can't kill em if you don't draw blood. My immediate response was to ask how many animals he had lost. His answer...oh I've lost my share. I had to walk away.

Ya know, we always preach ethics but it boils down to more than just a broadhead or shot placement, If you don't wait on the right shot the rest does not matter.

Rosebud said:

When the 1st expanding broad head came out I tried it. The 1st deer I shot was quarter away. The arrow hit the last rib skated up the side of the spike buck then turned into the chest cavity just behind the shoulder. I'd never heard a deer make a sound like that before. It looked like a sword swipe across its left rib cage. Ghastly sight. But it entered and took out the heart and lungs. It stumbled about twenty yards gushing blood. I went back to the three blade I'd been using.

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Yea the early ones like vortex came out at 90 degrees and on hard quartering shots they would do that. We later switched to 3 blade rockets. They came back at a much greater angle and would not do that. But they were disposable. I shot thunder heads for years but they left terrible blood trails. The 4 blade slick trick was tough and put a good hole on exit. Probably my favorite fixed blade.

Rosebud said:

This advice comes from someone who has killed roughly150+conservatively deer with a bow, Worked in a archery shop and practiced year round plus shot competition 3D. Unless you are a very accomplished archer, not someone who practices three weeks prior to season avoid frontal and hard quartering to shots. To much leeway for bad stuff.
But if you can put a arrow into the pocket between the brisket and shoulder, dead very fast. TV bow hunters have caused to many normal hunters into believing they are Levi Morgan and Lee Lakoski those people practice year round.
Yes, the style and shape of the broad head matters, but not as much as taking out both lungs. A deer hit in one lung and the liver will make you follow it a long way if you bump it out of its bed to soon.
If I killed150 plus, I also lost quite a few figuring out what I was doing wrong.
If you think how can you kill that many with a bow, Alabama has a two deer a day season. At one point you could kill two does and a buck a day all season. Now its a three buck limit, but still a doe per day. kill eight to ten a year for thirty years. It adds up.

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Well said.

cajun said:

Yea the early ones like vortex came out at 90 degrees and on hard quartering shots they would do that. We later switched to 3 blade rockets. They came back at a much greater angle and would not do that. But they were disposable. I shot thunder heads for years but they left terrible blood trails. The 4 blade slick trick was tough and put a good hole on exit. Probably my favorite fixed blade.

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Like minds, three blade wasp was a badas# broad head for deer.

Rosebud said:

Like minds, three blade wasp was a badas# broad head for deer.

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I shot those early on as well.

I like a big wide broadhead, my primary is the grizzlystik sliverflame 200gr XXL (2" cut). Its a heavy, fixed blade. I have never lost a deer using these. But, shot placement is king. As a kid, our neighbor (who was ancient) never used a broadhead, he killed dozens of deer with his field points. When asked he always said "i shoot them in the heart, dont need nothing fancy". While I do not condone that tactic....he kept a lot of families in venison

Suppose I feel the field tip is a bit more than a bit extreme. Though structural integrity would be better than most offerings out there.

I think i'll stick with the S7 single bevels.

BH, but I'm not fan of mechanicals!
I've seen too many what I'd call failures with them. From a heart/lung shot that did not penetrate at all/25 yds broadside on a deer-65lb draw, to a turkey that the BH only went into the vitals, it did it's job though. The first mechanical was a Rage, the second was a G5. I have always used Fred Bear's razorhead broadhead's prior to these failures and have never had a penetration problem with anything I've ever shot, complete pass through. (my son thought I needed to move into the modern world) Of course with that said, if you shoot a deer in a non vital area then the best broadhead isn't going to do you much good either so it's pretty much of tie.

Looks like we have a lot of old seasoned bowhunters on here. Awesome! I also have a few years with a stick and string. I'm still going strong thanks to the Creator at 70yrs. old I'm still able to climb up in my loc-on spirit tree stand and started bowhunting at the age of 14yrs. old and started shooting a recurve bow at the age of 7. I still love it. I shoot a Black Widow recurve 58# @ 27" using a 2 blade Zwickey broadhead. Works for me!