Switching from GT pierce...

[PathFinder]

Define "hard stop impacts". Are you talking concrete?

The most durable arrows I've shot are the discontinued Trophy Ridge Crush 300's with HIT's. I've shot T-posts, trees, 2x4's, rocks, gravel, and several elk with them and never had an issue. I even put one arrow through both shoulder blades with the arrow sticking out each side, and that bull kept that arrow inside him for a mile and a half on that high hit, and the arrow came out unscathed......and used that same arrow on a bull a couple years later.

It's a shame that they discontinued those arrows. I even shot the back end of one at 20 yards that blew apart the nock and all it did was leave a small indentation in the nock end of the arrow. They are so tough that I sold my other two unused dozen Crush shafts because I couldn't imagine ever going through them all the rest of my lifetime. I've been shooting my original dozen since 2008.

Contrast all that with GT Kinetic 200's, and I've broken about a dozen and a half of those in just 2 years.

Hollow bricks are my favorite test medium. Anything similar works. The idea is that any arrow that fails on such a test can't reliability breach heavy bone. A rib or scapula on most animals should be easily penetrated. The heavier shoulder bones are the ones that stop/break most arrow setups, even on deer.
I've never seen the Trophy Ridge ones. The Easton HIT setups definitely don't survive.
One edit to my post above. Aluminum can work if it's beefed way up. Zelor arrows with their outserts outperformed the Grizzly Stiks in my testing. Their problem is keeping them spinning straight; they tend to get tweaked out of alignment over time. The valkyrie aluminum collars look to be beefed up enough to work.

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[5MilesBack]

The heavier shoulder bones are the ones that stop/break most arrow setups, even on deer.

The scapulas attach to what would be the humerus bone on a human, but that's about it for shoulder bones. The only thing that is a problem IMO is the knuckle, but also IMO.....the knuckle is a problem because of stopping penetration, not necessarily because of arrow or insert quality. I don't know any arrow/BH combo that is going through an elk knuckle. If it's out there, I'd like to see it.

I have shot a TR Crush completely through the humerus bone on the exit side on a decent sized bull, and that was with a mechanical BH from 54 yards. But in 2016 the BH stopped cold on the exit side right up against the elbow from 30 yards with a GT Kinetic XT 200.......and broke. In 2013 I hit the knuckle with a TR Crush......from 17 yards, and only got about 2" of penetration. The arrow was fine, but the BH (125gr Shuttle T) was pretty dinged up.

 

[PathFinder]

The scapulas attach to what would be the humerus bone on a human, but that's about it for shoulder bones. The only thing that is a problem IMO is the knuckle, but also IMO.....the knuckle is a problem because of stopping penetration, not necessarily because of arrow or insert quality. I don't know any arrow/BH combo that is going through an elk knuckle. If it's out there, I'd like to see it.

I have shot a TR Crush completely through the humerus bone on the exit side on a decent sized bull, and that was with a mechanical BH from 54 yards. But in 2016 the BH stopped cold on the exit side right up against the elbow from 30 yards with a GT Kinetic XT 200.......and broke. In 2013 I hit the knuckle with a TR Crush......from 17 yards, and only got about 2" of penetration. The arrow was fine, but the BH (125gr Shuttle T) was pretty dinged up.

You hit the nail on the head with your second two examples. Any time an arrow/insert fails, it's game over. Penetration stops cold at that point. That's the reason for the hard stop impact testing. The goal is to find an arrow that will not fail on any hard impact.
The second example (with the shuttle t) shows the other most important part. Only one broadhead design will breach heavy bone. It's got to be a very stoutly built two blade. There's a tradeoff there with cutting diameter, number of blades, and how that effects blood trails too.
The reason nobody does it is because it is an expensive PITA to build an arrow that can pull it off. But a sufficiently heavy impact proof arrow system (preferably out of a fast bow), coupled with the right broadhead, can break heavy bone on anything in NA. It's still best not to hit heavy bone, but such a setup makes any shot angle doable.
At any rate, I'm feel better about hunting with an overbuilt arrow than a pathetic one that gets stopped cold by something as light as a deer's shoulder. I've tried that, it was stupid.


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[5MilesBack]

The second example (with the shuttle t) shows the other most important part. Only one broadhead design will breach heavy bone. It's got to be a very stoutly built two blade. There's a tradeoff there with cutting diameter, number of blades, and how that effects blood trails too.
The reason nobody does it is because it is an expensive PITA to build an arrow that can pull it off. But a sufficiently heavy impact proof arrow system (preferably out of a fast bow), coupled with the right broadhead, can break heavy bone on anything in NA. It's still best not to hit heavy bone, but such a setup makes any shot angle doable.

Have you tried this type of setup on some knuckles? I tried a 644gr total weight TR Crush with 75gr brass HIT and a 210gr original Silverflame solid 2 blade head on a fresh beef knuckle from 20 yards a few years ago.......and it went nowhere, even after several shots. And even when the BH did split some of the bone, it still got no penetration past it. That was also at 71lbs and 32 1/2" draw.

I'm going to just try to avoid that spot as best I can. But sometimes I hug that > just a little too close. That 2016 bull I was only about an inch or so from the knuckle inside the > on a slightly quartering angle and his offside leg was back and against his hide. Only the tip penetrated the hide on the offside, so that was just a FP sized hole but still dumped a lot of blood after he went down.

 

[PathFinder]

Have you tried this type of setup on some knuckles? I tried a 644gr total weight TR Crush with 75gr brass HIT and a 210gr original Silverflame solid 2 blade head on a fresh beef knuckle from 20 yards a few years ago.......and it went nowhere, even after several shots. And even when the BH did split some of the bone, it still got no penetration past it. That was also at 71lbs and 32 1/2" draw.

I'm going to just try to avoid that spot as best I can. But sometimes I hug that > just a little too close. That 2016 bull I was only about an inch or so from the knuckle inside the > on a slightly quartering angle and his offside leg was back and against his hide. Only the tip penetrated the hide on the offside, so that was just a FP sized hole but still dumped a lot of blood after he went down.

That's my plan. I think I have the arrow setup figured out. Soon as I have all the heads I want to test I'll go to the butcher and get some bone.

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[PresTex]

If you’re going to run a micro shaft outsert system the Valkyrie system is the best out there. With that said, it’s expensive.

However for those of you who don’t wanna shell out hundreds of dollars for the Valkyrie broadheads don’t forget he sells the broadhead adapters so you can glue on your broadhead of choice and use it with the centerpin system.


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[FlyGuy]

The second example (with the shuttle t) shows the other most important part. Only one broadhead design will breach heavy bone. It's got to be a very stoutly built two blade. There's a tradeoff there with cutting diameter, number of blades, and how that effects blood trails too.

Are you referring specifically to the Grizzly Stick BH here?

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