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

I've bow hunted for probably 30 years and always used the plain Jane muzzy 3 blade with excellent results. With a good non mechanical BH shot placement is everything.
After a torn rotator cuff I had to switch to a crossbow and have shot a few deer. At crossbow speed I decided I needed to shoot mechanical and have been using rage. After taking a 20 yard chip shot at a buck I was amazed that he was still up at about 100 yards away. I was puzzled by the lack of blood on the bolt but there was a decent blood trail. After getting permission from the neighboring property owner I found him about 50 yards from where I last seen him.
This was not a super steep angle, less than 45 degrees. I will be shopping for a different BH for next year.

MW204 said:

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.

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Allen Lone wolf said:

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!

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Yep, love them Zwickey's and Grizzly's
Keep them sharp and most importantly put them where it counts!

Flatbow said:

Yep, love them Zwickey's and Grizzly's
Keep them sharp and most importantly put them where it counts!

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Very impressive. And congratulations on your successful hunting career.

MW204 said:

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.

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I butchered a buck, at a local butcher I help. It was killed by a Rage hitting the artery in the back leg. Died within 75 yards, Who would have thought ? I have unfortunately have had good & bad from mechanicals. I have some new Rage I am reluctant to use. I found the Swackers to be a slight better. But I have been giving more thought to using a fixed blade setup. If I don't get the results from the Swacker that I want.

birddog 68 said:

I've bow hunted for probably 30 years and always used the plain Jane muzzy 3 blade with excellent results. With a good non mechanical BH shot placement is everything.
After a torn rotator cuff I had to switch to a crossbow and have shot a few deer. At crossbow speed I decided I needed to shoot mechanical and have been using rage. After taking a 20 yard chip shot at a buck I was amazed that he was still up at about 100 yards away. I was puzzled by the lack of blood on the bolt but there was a decent blood trail. After getting permission from the neighboring property owner I found him about 50 yards from where I last seen him.
This was not a super steep angle, less than 45 degrees. I will be shopping for a different BH for next year.

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I have seen and heard of more failures from Rage than any other broadhead! Either deploying before impact this redirecting point of impact. Poor to terrible penetration, and what you experienced is deflection upon impact, fairly common. I, much like you, would rather shoot a fixed blade of some variety. However once you break the 320fps none I have ever tried will fly consistently. Long ago I settled on a mechanical with 1.5' max diameter , a trocar tip, as thin of a profile as possible, and very swept back blade profile. Many meet this description, and have had great success over the years. To the tune of over a hundred whitetail.
Some examples are spitfires, rockets, carbon express, and now reapers.

Agree on the frequency of shared poor Rage experiences. My preferred Expandable worked well for me due to my DL, DW & arrow weight along w shot selection. 125 grain, Nap spitfires worked well for me with my 30" DL, 70 LB DW & 450 grain plus total arrow weight. While I thought the deer expired extremely fast the Energy to make that over the top expandable designs work was not for everyone.

Past 3 years the longer 2 blade single bevels have been what I choose to hunt with from the tree saddle. Shots have been close & distance traveled after impact has been short. Cut on contact single bevels have yielded a different experience than when shooting the expandable heads. No worse experience, just different as they seem less startled after impact & tend to run less.

With this last deer the BH did impact bone on the off leg. Apparently the bone was more of a grazing hit as the bone was hit off center & caused some deflection while the bone was chewed up , it did not break or shatter. Apparently the arrow did not quite pass through as the arrow was recovered close to 10 yards after impact. Looked like the lower back legs were sliced up from the dangling arrow that had not quite passed through.

Looked like the deer inadvertently was kicking the arrow in his first few strides on his death run.

Doghunter23 said:

I have seen and heard of more failures from Rage than any other broadhead! Either deploying before impact this redirecting point of impact. Poor to terrible penetration, and what you experienced is deflection upon impact, fairly common. I, much like you, would rather shoot a fixed blade of some variety. However once you break the 320fps none I have ever tried will fly consistently. Long ago I settled on a mechanical with 1.5' max diameter , a trocar tip, as thin of a profile as possible, and very swept back blade profile. Many meet this description, and have had great success over the years. To the tune of over a hundred whitetail.
Some examples are spitfires, rockets, carbon express, and now reapers.

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Thank you for the suggestions. I will definitely look into these.

I've found that sharpness and shot location are most important for a quick kill and good blood trail. There's always going to be an outlier in every combination or shot situation. However, if you use a sharp head (check it out of the package because sometimes things get by the QC) and make a good vital shot, you'll get a dead animal. I am a mechanical guy for whitetail and have used fixed heads of every flavor as well. I like to put a big hole through deer and with my set up I have only had a couple of instances where I did not get a pass through. For me I get way more blood and shorter blood trails (plenty of blood). I've shot shwackers for many years with no complaints…prior to them I used wasp bullet broadhead and they did fine just hard to get anymore unless online. Latest archery kill was my son with a G5 MegaMeat and a crossbow, one of the best blood trails I've ever seen.

Now as a guy who finds 30-40 deer a year for people with my cur dog…. Most people can't tell you where they HONESTLY hit a deer…all the same story "right behind the shoulder, double lung, yada yada yada…" I bet most archery losses on animals ain't the broadhead fault but the archer. Just shoot a quality head out of a well tuned bow and you'll be fine.