Choosing New Broadheads

[Sbarrera185]

I started shooting archery last year, I’ve just been shooting at targets but planning to do OTC archery tag this year. Only thing I’m having issues is understanding broadheads. How do you go on choosing your broadheads, grains, bevels, fixed or mechanical, how will this affect the shooting? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hunterdanman]

No matter what you end up with shoot with your broadheads before you hunt, do not just believe they will hit with your field points without truthing it.
Grains- heavier generally will hit harder but have worse trajectory. Lighter will have better trajectory/shoot flatter and could penetrate less. For elk many people like to add some weight to their arrow to balance speed vs weight.

Bevel- the main advantage to single bevel is it is supposed to split the bone allowing the arrow to pass through easier if the arrow has enough force/weight behind it. Both will cut well if sharpened well. Good quality steel that stays sharp into the body cavity is probably more important than bevel.
Fixed vs mechanical- this may be the easiest way to start a fight on here! Fixed are usually thought of as more durable and mechanical are generally thought of as more accurate but with a well tuned bow and good broadheads each style can have similar qualities.
A good idea would be to buy 2 or more types and see what your bow likes and what you like. You can play with different weights by changing field points to get a idea of trajectory.
For reference I shoot gold tip hunter xt, 100 gn broadheads, 100 gn insert, playing with fletchings but my total arrow weight will be around 510. Tooth of the arrow or Magnus buzcut broadheads based on what shoots better. 60# bow

 

[Bump79]

Honestly, do not overthink it! Whatever you do, don't get on YouTube and listen to the Ranch Fairy. There's no such thing as a any fairy dust you can sprinkle on your arrow. A 125 grain head will do anything you need it to, as long as your arrow is already spined appropriately.

What are your specs? That is the driving factor in how you need to setup your arrow. Draw weight, length and bow IBO speed.

If you have standard specs, just get a one of these proven affordable heads based on what you like: QAD Exodus 125, Grim Reaper Hades 3b or Micro Hades 4b, Simmons Mako 125, or a maybe Magnus Black Hornet. There's so many good options without breaking the bank.

I haven't tried these but these are top notch materials. Ti Ferrule and good steel blades. Great option for 100 grain.

RAD DelMastro Broadheads

A collaboration between RAD and bowhunter Anthony DelMastro, these broadheads are tough and accurate. Buy 100 grain crossbow broadheads at Black Ovis!

www.blackovis.com

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I prefer 2 blade fixed heads and currently have Cutthroats and Iron Wills in my quiver. There are plenty of other good options out there.

Whatever you're going to get, get them soon so you have time to practice (and tune if necessary)...archery season is right around the corner.

 

[Sbarrera185]

That’s the plan. Been caught up with work and other stuff completely forgot. But now that I’m trying to buy im having trouble what I need to look for


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Zac]

What's your setup?

 

[LostArra]

Magnus Stingers
QAD Exodus
Vipertricks
Good heads, decent price, deadly.

If your budget is higher you can't go wrong with Iron Will or Cuthroat but then you head down the hall of mirrors: single or double bevel, vented or solid, bleeders or not. (Last year I tried IW double bevel solid with bleeders. One lacerated finger and two dead deer with same head).

 

[Sbarrera185]

What's your setup?

29.5 @ 60lbs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[feanor]

I’ve got Magnus stingers and iron wills. I really like both. I hate when I lose an iron will though.

 

[Bump79]

29.5 @ 60lbs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At this draw length with a modern compound don't think about it too much. You have plenty of ass behind your setup to do what it needs too. Personally, I don't see a "need" for a 2 blade at that energy range but some people like them. I'd make sure I have bleeders at least.

Find one you like based on the recommendations above and rock it. Just make sure it flies good.

 

[Zac]

Nothing wrong with a Sevr 1.5, or 1.75 as well. Sometimes when your beginning a mechanical can be a lot more forgiving.

 

[ResearchinStuff]

For a thought process, here's a good, lengthy one:

For a specific head recommendation:
Qad Exodus
Deadmeat v2
Rage trypan NC

Buy something today and get tuning, you're about 6 weeks late on that by my elk hunt prep calendar.

Editing: can no longer recommend deadmeat v2. The blades are only .033" thick, 10 thousandths thinner than the v1 or trypan/Exodus. What a terrible design decision.

 

[Dennis]

Animals can on do react or move during arrow flight and the only thing that kills animals is your broadhead. Quality of the steel and edge retention are extremely important during penetration along with perfect arrow flight. The Ranch Fairy and the Hunting Public guys are great sources of ongoing broadhead flight and lethality studies. Good luck

 

[Bump79]

Animals can on do react or move during arrow flight and the only thing that kills animals is your broadhead. Quality of the steel and edge retention are extremely important during penetration along with perfect arrow flight. The Ranch Fairy and the Hunting Public guys are great sources of ongoing broadhead flight and lethality studies. Good luck

While some of their advice is good - some of it is subpar for western hunting. I really like the THP guys but they don't have the broadhead arrow knowledge to back up their hunting skills. Skip the RF rabbit hole and listen to guys like Iron Will Bill, Cody Greenwood & Aaron Snyder.

Build an arrow that flies at around 280 FPS (give or take 10 fps), around 10-18% FOC (not a big factor realistically), top it with a sharp durable 3 or 4 blade fixed head and tune it. This setup will be in the top 5% of arrow builds. The next 5% is mainly gained in quality of broadhead and components.

Penetration is not the end all be all of lethality. I posted a poll on here, The Hunting Public FB page & Archery Talk. Only a small portion of reported lost animals and likely due to lack of penetration. It's not the #1 thing to optimize around as shots too far back or high is number #1. A pass through should be the goal but not at expense of tissue cut, range forgiveness or time to target. As an engineer I think about arrow setups as a equation where you input all the variables in and set it equal to a pass through in the most likely scenarios. The most likely scenario of a lost animal is not hitting a bone on the near side (for the average compound fixed blade shooter on north American game). You need to build a setup that works pretty damn good for bone you can actually plan to break (not the knuckle or ridge) but still causes enough damage on shot too far back. I can't be the only one who has thanked god for that extra 1/8" of cut or that extra blade on a subpar shot that just barely clipped a lung.

The video Ranch Fairy did on animal movement is the worst I've seen. Him portraying that garbage as math or science is embarrassing. Animals move but statically you might hit back rather than bone. Arrow speed absolutely matters in movement. I'll take my comment from his Arrow Speed Analysis (or lack of analysis) video and paste it below:

Time in flight is being irrelevant NOT a valid argument. The best case for minimizing movement using a heavy arrow is that brings down bow noise & arrow noise. Drag is proportional to velocity squared and a faster arrow will be louder in flight because of that. It will make that noise slightly longer though. A heavier arrow will bring down the noise of your bow over a really light arrow, but not that much over a moderate weight arrow.

All things equal - 1) Bow noise 2) Arrow noise 3) Same target in the exact same moment. The faster arrow will arrive in less time than the slower arrow = The deer will move less in less time. FULL STOP.

We can use Ranch Fairy's data from his velocity erosion video to do an example. At 30 yards it will take a 436 grain arrow (294 fps launch, 273 fps avg to 30 yds) around .33 seconds. A 718 grain arrow will take around .41 seconds. This means that the arrow will arrive 25% later than the faster arrow. Now this is only the time for the arrow to get there we need to deduct the amount of time it take for the sound to get there (1125 FPS to be simple) which is .08 seconds. Taking this into account the animal (if it choses to) has 33% more time to react. This is not irrelevant!! If you think that an animal won't react more given 33% more time you're on more crack than these whitetail are.

Think of it this way - in the additional time it takes for the 718 grain arrow to get to the target the 436 grain arrow will have traveled 37 yards. Can an animal react more if you take a shot at further distance? Yes. If you take this BS argument presented in this video then you have the believe that a 30 yd shot is no more ethical than 37 shorter shot as it relates to animal movement. Which is not true.

Yes, an animals movement is unpredictable. What we do know is that we want to minimize this unpredictability. You can minimize these by shooting a moderate weight arrow (450-550 depending on specs), a quiet bow, a quiet broadhead and quiet fletchings at a decent velocity.

 

[CB4]

How do you go on choosing your broadheads, grains, bevels, fixed or mechanical, how will this affect the shooting?

Grains = match your field points
Bevel = Single is better but double if sine
Fixed vs Mechanical = If you shoot enough poundage mechanical is fine, if not stick with fixed. Fixed wont fail.

Top Recommendations: Grim Reaper Micro Hades Pro, Iron Will, RMS Gear Cutthroat 3 Blade, VPA 3 Blade, Kudu Point Broadheads (I am not a fan of mechanicals but have 1 in my quiver at all times for long distance follow up shots)

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Build an arrow that flies at around 280 FPS (give or take 10 fps), around 10-18% FOC (not a big factor realistically), top it with a sharp durable 3 or 4 blade fixed head and tune it. This setup will be in the top 5% of arrow builds. The next 5% is mainly gained in quality of broadhead and components.

What about traditional archers? I'm guessing they are rarely hitting 280 fps with a stick bow. This level of performance sounds like overkill unless a guy is planning on shooting longer ranges.

The OP didn't specifically state whether he wa hunting deer or elk, and I'm not sure the set up changes significantly anyways.

I've never shot an elk with archery equipment. However, I've killed dozens of large Iowa whitetails with far less arrow performance than this.

My original setup was a late 90's Browning compound bow with solid limbs shooting around 200 fps with aluminum arrows and thunderhead 100s. I killed at least 20 deer with that set up from the ground and treestands without issues.

I stepped up to a Hoyt Ultrasport with ZR100 split limbs, whisker biscuit, and HHA single pin pendulum sight in the mid-2000s. This was a middle of the road bow for Hoyt and shoots around 225-230 fps @60 lb draw weight. I shot several different 100 and 125 grain fixed and mechanical broadheads to kill whitetails- thunderheads, muzzys, spitfires, rage-2, and slick trick to name a few. I went down the broadhead rabbit hole every year thinking I needed the latest and greatest. For arrows I used full length cabelas stalker extreme 65/80 340 grain carbon arrows. I would buy the arrows bare and apply those NAP quick fletch wraps with the built-in Hellfire vanes. These had tabs on them to spin the arrows in flight. This set up worked very well for me over the years and with practice I could easily shoot clover leafs out to 30 or a little farther. However, once I got it dialed in, I would shoot invidivual targets on my Block to prevent clipping off vanes or knocks.

I reviewed penetration tests from sevral sources prior to purchasing each broadhead. Then I bought and tested them by grains to see which ones flew closest to my matching field points. What I found was that most mechanicals required very little if any changes to rest or sights. Muzzy 3 and 4 blade flew and killed well but always required adjustments from field points to broadheads. The same for the thunderheads. The only fixed blade head that flew so close to field points that I didn't have to make adjustments was the Slick Trick Viper Trick 100. This is a sleek 4 blade head that penetrates extremely well and has been my go-to for at least 10 years. They kill extremely well and edge retention on the blades has been excellent.

High speed bows can be good given the archer practices frequently and knows his equipment. However, in my opinion, FPS is most often used as a marketing ploy to sell people a new bow ever year or every couple years. Unless a guy is shooting animals at long distance, which is a whole other can of worms, you don't need to spend $800-$2,000 on a bare bow to kill deer and elk.

My $.02 and YMMV.

 

[Bump79]

What about traditional archers? I'm guessing they are rarely hitting 280 fps with a stick bow. This level of performance sounds like overkill unless a guy is planning on shooting longer ranges.

Sorry, I typically preface that comment with "for the average compound shooter".

 

[mod-it]

There are many good heads out there. It is something that most of us overthink IMO, but it is kind of fun to geek out on the choices.

In general, a fixed will have higher penetration since they generally have a smaller cut diameter and are "cut on contact". They require a good tune to fly well and it takes fletching that can over-ride the planing blades on the front of the arrow. Most of them give you anywhere from a 1" to a 1-1/4" cutting diameter.

A mechanical uses some of the arrow's energy to deploy and has a bigger cut diameter. This means a setup is needed to ensure it has the energy to still penetrate well after deploying the blades and cutting more tissue as they go through. The blades are tucked into the ferrule in some manner, so they are easily steered by most fletching setups. But, beware that this can also mean that while they "fly like field tips", some energy could also be lost in flight while the arrow stabilizes if the bow isn't tuned very well. It is still pretty important to ensure you bow is tuned so the arrow leaves as straight as possible. Most mechanicals are going to be in the 1.5" to 2.5" range for cutting diameter. They often leave a better blood trail due to the larger wound channel (lots of variables with blood trails). Mechanicals do have a risk of failing, if the blades don't deploy it is like shooting them with a field point is some instances. There are some heads, the G5 Deadmeat comes to mind, that would still cut if the blades didn't actually deploy, it would just be a fairly small wound channel in comparison to the blades deploying. Some mechanicals are rear deploying vs. a front foldback style, rear deploying generally are seen as less energy robbing to deploy and also perhaps a bit less inclined to deflect on a hard quartering shot.

There are also hybrid broadheads, where they have something like a fixed two blade on the front and then a couple more blades that would deploy and give a larger cutting diameter like a "normal" mechanical. Some like these because even if the mechanical part of it should fail, they still basically get a fixed blade wound channel.

John Lusk has a bunch of Youtube videos of broadhead testing. He has an overall point system for them, as well as several categories such as sharpness out of the package and after being shot, toughness, accuracy, etc.
You can search "Lusk" and the name of the broadhead and it will usually come right up. He also usually has an "end of the year" video where he categorizes all the heads he tested that year, it is a nice chart to look through and help you determine which broadheads may fit your own personal requirements.

 

[Beendare]

OP, I will save you 30 years of learning curve- grin

I think a BH should be;
1) matched to your Bow/ Arrow
2) Part of a system that works for you

Guys make a big deal about BH size or big holes. In my experience, the shot location ( high or low) is a better indicator of blood on the ground vs the BH. I’ve seen high hits with big hole BHs and no blood…and low hits with 2 blades that were gushers. Shot location matters More than cutting.

Examples;
I want max penetration every time and I use both a low energy setup and sometimes a compound, My System;

A strong 2 blade is THE most efficient penetrator ( everyone knows that)
They are easy to spin check and tune
I can shoot each arrow to confirm perfect flight and touch up easily- ready to hunt
I reuse a bunch of these- so easy to sharpen and this lowers my cost per arrow

Another guy might not want to mess with sharpening and he has a high energy Compound;
Literally any BH works. The mech heads make it harder to test for perfect flight….and they put a priority on one big hole vs pass throughs but they work fine in high energy setups especially if they have some arrow weight behind them.

.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Holy frickin crap... some guys are hunting armor plated elephants I think.

OP. You're shooting a compound, so this is simple.
1. Get arrows spined and cut on the upper end of the recommended zone for your draw/poundage. Black eagle and easton have free charts
2. put any 3/4 blade fixed 125 gr head on the front of it.
3. tune that sucker to shoot bullet holes through paper with fletched arrows
4. pick some form of walk back tuning with broadheads
5. dial in your sights and go hunt.

It's an elk, their ribs are not that thick, contrary to popular opinion. I've killed them with a longbow and a 2" wide broadhead.