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Hunting & Fishing Which Broad Heads for Whitetail?

S

Spicerack

Misanthropic Ginger
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 6, 2013
309
449
Green Bay, WI
Good evening all,

Which broad heads are you having success with on white tails? I'm hunting WI and started bow hunting last year. Got a buck and a doe with some OLD school broad heads that I got from my FIL: four blade ferrule type. They came in a blister pack with the price tag still on: $6.99 for three with extra blades! Both deer were recovered in short order but the buck, with a nicked aorta, ran about 300yds. Both arrows were pass-through double lung shots and both had broken blades. Not much for blood trail on either deer too. So I'm looking to upgrade but there is such a wide variety I figured I would check with you all first.

Aaron
 
Here is the arrow from the buck...
 

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I've used spitfires for years and not had any issues. If I were to switch I would use rage 2 blades
 
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Rage all the way , they do an incredible amount of damage and leave a blood trail that Ray Charles could follow. I've never seen a deer make it more than 40 yards with a properly placed Rage 100 grain 2 blade .
 
I like Rage as well. Makes ‘tracking’ easy. And, they are available for good prices on Promotive / Experticity/ ExpertVoice or whatever they are calling it now.
 
Rage's leave a nasty hole for sure
 

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I think I will go with the 100gr chisel tip two blade. Looks like Amazon is cheaper than Experticity too, so maybe a trip to Cabela's after work tomorrow and see if they'll price match.

Thanks guys,
Aaron
 
Another vote for rage, the hypodermic will hold up better..... I’ve bent a couple ferrules in the original and chisel tip. Not to say they don’t all kill well because they do.

Also there are supposedly counterfeit rage broadheads out there. I will pay full price at a reputable dealer to make sure I get the performance needed to kill quickly.
 
I really don't know why anyone chooses not to shoot expandables. I took lots of deer (lost a few) with old broadheads before the expandables came out. Never liked how they flew, and there was lots of room for era. Since I started shooting expandables I have not lost an animal and you don't even have to bend over to follow the blood trail. The 2-1/2" ones make a hole like a 30'06, I even had a deflected arrow hit a deer in the ass and it only made it 50 yards before bleeding out.
 
Rage hypodermic 100 grain are pretty much all I use now, I've also had good experiences with the Grimm Reaper expandable.
I might get flamed for saying this but I ordered a dozen of the knock off rage hypodermic broadheads last year for $15 and can't really tell the difference other than the plastic retainers for the blades are a different color.
I bought them for shooting hogs with and tested a few on 3/4" plywood and flight tested to 70 yards and couldn't tell any difference.
 
For a COC broad head, I've really liked the QAD exodus head. I've literally shot one through a 55 gal oil drum and would still shoot that head at a trophy buck and feel confident. It's damn near indestructible. Leaves a real nice exit wound and plenty of blood. If u want an expandable, the new ish Rage Trypan seems to get a ton of likes. I've never used them but have read great things about them.
 
I'm a COC fan as well. I shoot my trusty old Montecs as well as Magnus Stingers, depending on game. I prefer Montecs for white and black tail, Stingers for muleys and elk.
 
I guess I will be the voice of dissent here. I'm not an expandable fan. I've had blades break off, lack of Penetration if you hit shoulder, and even seen some that didnt open. Granted, this is several different brands over a lot of years.

I shoot slick trick magnums. They fly like a field point, blast through bone, and are tough as a hammer. Look similar to a muzzy, but for some reason they seem to leave better blood and bigger holes.
 
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If sticking deer with in 20 yards any Broadhead your bow is tuned too will work. If slinging arrows past 20 yards then invest in the more expensive $10 per head options. This has worked for me for the last 20 some odd years of archery. I hunt year round for hogs till deer season starts. All spot and stalk. I will never understand $10 Broadheads on sub 20 yards shots. Tune your bow, build your arrows true, and stop thinking about 8” vital areas on deer and start thinking 2” area. I only use fixed blade browdheads as the risk of mechanical failure is to high in my experience. Again that’s my experience.
3 blade Phat heads, 3 blade shuttle t locks, and Muzzy mx3 for 20-50 yard shots. Anything less gets the 6 for $12 Amazon special. Hope this helps.
 
Another Rage vote.... BUT I would caution you on the standard Hypodermic. The blade angle is not very swept. I've had a couple deer where it's caused some deflection issues, not off the deer completely, but it had some bizarre exits on quartering deer. Rage fixed this issue with the Hypodermic Trypan. It is still a 2+ inch cut, but it more swept like the standard two blade, and still has the hypodermic point with improved shock collars. As long as you're pulling enough weight, mechanicals are sweet and there's not tuning issues from your field points.
 
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I have some 6"x10" plastic box (fishing type) that is full of mechanicals and fixed that sits in my bow case. I probably buy 3 new mechanical broadheads a year, and usually shoot two, and they're almost always ruint. The rest go in that box. There's probably 15 mechanicals and a dozzen fixed broadheads in there.

Who takes one arrow hunting? I usually have at least a dozzen, and all kinds of broadheads (like a library with the latest and greatest going back 20 years). My hunt might hinge on taking one bow, but it doesn't on any head or arrow.

I buy the ones with the biggest cutting area offered this year, and will have one or two left over for next year. They don't get away, and they're smoked out to 60 yards, which is double what I could kill them at when I was a kid. The new fast bows are incredible, and combined with the new big (3.5" mechanicals) the lethality is far greater IMO than with a rifle. They have no chance. It's harvesting.
 
i use magnus 2 blade heads and they havent failed me yet. my brother uses rage, and while they have worked well, i can not honestly say they work any better than the magnus heads. and, magnus guarentees the broadhead. theoretically, a guy could send in a damaged head and get a new one. but i have used and abused mine and gotten every penny out of them so i would never do that. but i like the fact that they are willing to do that.

i like keeping things simple and like to eliminate things that can go wrong. i've used magnus for many years, and see no need to switch.
 
I can't think of a time I've recovered one for many, many years. I used to recover them all the time, because I never had pass-thrus. I reused one, fixed broad head four years in a row on a couple of deer per season in the early '90s. It became a thing, "My lucky Broadhead". Those days are long gone.

The PSE I'm shooting now blows every arrow right through them. I haven't had one get stopped by a rib yet (chisel point?), but I have seen the broken ribs on autopsy. I assume the heads are making it through, but I couldn't tell you, because they either hit a tree or burry in the dirt and those thin mechanical blades are bent up at best. Some I might be able save if I had no access to more, but they're never going to be perfectly straight anymore, so I toss them.

You almost can't go wrong. All the stuff in the bubble packs ($10 or more per head) is scary lethal. 1" wheel keel just as certainly as 3". The 3" just gives you an expanded kill zone. The 3" just dumps blood. It almost doesn't look real there is so much blood. The last doe I took I was up in a high tripod stand shooting down @ about 20 yards (more like 10 effective), and after I hit her she took off about 30-40 yards I literally saw a geyser of blood when she fell. Her lung filled up in 2 seconds, and when she went down it shot out of the entry wound like a cannon and sprayed the leaves for 10' (the broadhead was buried in the dirt roont).

I would rather get shot with a gun 7 days a week and twice on Sunday than get hit with a broadhead. Unless you got shot at the doors to the ER you just wouldn't make it to help before you bled out.
 
i always get leery sticking my hands in the chest cavity of a deer unless i've inspected the broadhead and know it is intact. i believe the magnus are stronger and more likely to hold together.

that being said, i've seen the rage heads buried into the spine of a 2 year old buck and i was suprised the head was still intact. they take more abuse than i would have thought.
 
I have been shooting 100gr Montecs and Slick Tricks now for a few years. I was a Rage fan until I lost a big 10pt to a 100gr Hypodermic. Luckily he came back ~2 months later and I stuck him with a Montec. He went 30 yards and piled up. I know there are people who won't buy it, but I have pics that I can upload in a little while. The deer I lost was slightly quartering away and I hit him behind the shoulder. No pass through, don't know why. My DXT was slinging arrows at 290fps across a chrono and the bow was tuned perfectly.

The blades were broken off of the head when I found the arrow ~400yds down the blood trail. Maybe they sheared off on the ribs? That's all I can think of. Around a mile down the blood trail it stopped.

Pics to follow
 
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Here you can see the completely healed wound behind the new exit, remember the deer was quartering away.
20180913_233315.jpg


Close up, looks like it was repaired by a surgeon.
20180913_233246.jpg


And here he is
 

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Slick tricks have worked very well for me in the past. I'm mainly running the vipertricks. Lots of blood and they dont go very far.

Deano
 
One guide I hunt with in Kansas wont let you use mechanical anything broad heads due to too many lost deer.
I have had good results with Magnus on elk and deer for years. I use phat head fixed blade with crossbow.
 
Plus one for Rage. I just switch last year to them. I already was able to harvest a big doe this year and using Rage broad heads makes it look like I stabbed her with a broad sword.
 
I shot the G5 montec 125 grain broad heads for a few years. I liked them quite a lot. My only gripe is they didn't seem very sharp. Last year I switched to Iron Will broad heads. I have the 150 grain vented version. The fly great, and are very sharp. I shot mechanical broad heads for a looooong time, but since switching back to fixed (G5 montecs) that's where I'll stay.
 
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G5 Montec for me as well when using the recurve or crossbow. The Compound gets G5 T3 mechanicals. All have been brutal on whitetails and I've probably got 20 kills with each over the years.
 
Just switched over to these guys from the grim reaper pros. Only went to fixed just in case I hunt somewhere they don't allow mechanical broadheads
 

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The G5 Montec 100gr! and you can resharpen them really easy! My buddy uses the slick trick mag. Both our arrows fly to same POI and fly true to target points! Massive blood trails and exit wounds and no broken blades!
 
Fig said:
I can't think of a time I've recovered one for many, many years. I used to recover them all the time, because I never had pass-thrus. I reused one, fixed broad head four years in a row on a couple of deer per season in the early '90s. It became a thing, "My lucky Broadhead". Those days are long gone.

The PSE I'm shooting now blows every arrow right through them. I haven't had one get stopped by a rib yet (chisel point?), but I have seen the broken ribs on autopsy. I assume the heads are making it through, but I couldn't tell you, because they either hit a tree or burry in the dirt and those thin mechanical blades are bent up at best. Some I might be able save if I had no access to more, but they're never going to be perfectly straight anymore, so I toss them.

You almost can't go wrong. All the stuff in the bubble packs ($10 or more per head) is scary lethal. 1" wheel keel just as certainly as 3". The 3" just gives you an expanded kill zone. The 3" just dumps blood. It almost doesn't look real there is so much blood. The last doe I took I was up in a high tripod stand shooting down @ about 20 yards (more like 10 effective), and after I hit her she took off about 30-40 yards I literally saw a geyser of blood when she fell. Her lung filled up in 2 seconds, and when she went down it shot out of the entry wound like a cannon and sprayed the leaves for 10' (the broadhead was buried in the dirt roont).

I would rather get shot with a gun 7 days a week and twice on Sunday than get hit with a broadhead. Unless you got shot at the doors to the ER you just wouldn't make it to help before you bled out.
Click to expand...


Your lucky broadheads you mentioned wouldn't happen to be the Vortex would they ?
If so I really liked them to and still have a few that are intact.
 
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slick tricks.

first deer i shot with a slick trick was a high shot, hit the spine. dropped the deer and it bled out quick (i got a little lucky)

I had to remove the broadhead with a hatchet, changed the blades and used the same arrow/broadhead the next weekend for a clean double lung shot.

all lung shots with slick tricks or thunderheads have dropped within line of sight to the treestand.

I have seen a deer shot in the shoulder blade with a slick trick. it got about 6" of penetration through the shoulder blade and shredded the vitals.

i also saw a doe take a similar hit from a rage and she was never found. all anecdotes, so take it for what its worth. I will say that I like to minimize what can go wrong, and a fixed blade broadhead will not fail in "odd" conditions like a mechanical might.

also, a slicktrick magnum has a greater cutting surface area than a 2 blade rage
 
like said before G5 or Muzzy.
used to use mechanical until one year while sitting on the ground in a snow/ice storm.
had a good size doe walk by, good shot but the damn thing ran forever.
after i tracked down the doe i noticed the exit hole was a little smaller than usual.
went back and found the arrow, the damn mechanical never opened it was actually frozen in the closed position.
 
Whatever you shoot with confidence/skill will work. I'm a bit of a speed freak and shoot 75 grain mechanicals. Last deer I took with them was a 65 yard behind the rib cage shot that exited out his neck. The key is razor sharp blades on whatever you shoot. You don't need the latest and greatest. Magnus broadheads have worked for decades. Rage can be just as effective or ineffective, depending on the shot.
 
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Magnus Stingers 125grains always had pass throughs with them and no damage to the broad heads.
 
Just keep in mind that broadhead selection is based more on your bow than what u want.
Lower poundage and shorter draw length is a big factor as well as arrow wieght.

I shoot 55# and a 29.5" draw my arrows are 525gr with 200gr up front. I'm shooting an ironwill 125gr solid I haven't got a deer yet with them yet but my bow is tuned to shoot the broadhead not field points. They hit about 1" lower.
 
Mechanicals blow. Muzzy trocar 100gr for everything from dogs to moose.

Its all cam Hanes uses and he swears by them.
 
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