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Get The Point: Choosing The Right Broadhead
Doug Howlett
Step into your local bow shop, and you’re apt to find as many broadhead choices for big game hunters as an angler will find for fishing lures. And while fortunately color or presentation doesn’t have much impact on our choices, the terminal performance of a broadhead in how it affects arrow flight and target penetration does.
The most pressing dilemma among even experienced bowhunters is whether to go with a fixed-blade broadhead, a mechanical or maybe even a cut-on-contact blade. While the fixed-blade broadhead remains the staple of most deer and big game hunters, mechanicals have a growing legion of fans. Once regarded as slightly gimmicky and lacking the ability to adequately deploy or penetrate, mechanicals have enjoyed a resurgence of late courtesy of improved technology and the popularity of the Rage broadheads.
To help you make your own decision, here are the pros and cons of each. To offer their insight on the matter, I asked lifelong archer, former NASA engineer and bow industry consultant and writer, Todd Kuhn, as well as avid bowhunter and Field Logic media planner Jim Held to weigh in. Field Logic makes the Rage mechanical broadhead.
Fixed-Blade: Pros-Fixed-blade broadheads generally feature a sturdy chisel-shaped point and anywhere from three to as many as six blades-three or four being more of the norm. In the case of ribs or even shoulder bones, the fixed-blade broadhead is most forgiving of the three, though ample practice and the ability to properly place a shot can’t be overstated enough to bowhunters. The chisel-point is great for punching through hide and muscle as the blades begin cutting multiple wound channels. Most models cut a 1 ¼ or slightly larger hole, which is more than adequate to create an easily visible blood trail. There are no moving parts on these broadheads, so deployment of the blades is never a concern as it might be with some mechanicals. Because nothing is moving, energy also isn’t cycled from the arrow, ensuring more complete pass-through shots.
Cons-A broadhead still can’t defy physics, Todd Kuhn points out. No matter how it is launched, the broadhead’s blades are flat and will plane through the wind getting pushed up and down and side to side. (Crimson Talon employs air foils on their broadheads to spin-balance the arrow in flight in order to overcome this.) Hold your hand out your car window the next time you’re driving down the highway and place it flat in the crosswind. This will give you an idea of the forces at work on your broadhead. In fact, as bows have gotten faster over the years, that speed has actually worked to the detriment of wide-bladed broadheads.
Mechanicals: Pros-As bows got faster, hunters needed a broadhead that would fly more true like the field points many of us use for practice. Enter the redesigned mechanical of today. Rage has set the pace for this rising popularity with its slip cam design that actually completely deploys the blades (regardless of whether you’re using the two- or three-bladed model) prior to contact by pushing the shoulders of the leading head down upon contact. Jim Held says prior to the Rage, most mechanicals expanded as they attempted to penetrate hide. That meant a smaller blood trail since the blades weren’t fully deployed until they were inside the animal. By using a slip-cam or similar design, today’s mechanicals maintain more energy upon penetration and definitely maintain more field-point like accuracy. Mechanical broadheads also promise a wider cutting diameter-one Rage model has a 2-inch cutting diameter while other brands promise holes as large as 4 inches-as the blades can be made longer since planning in the air during flight isn’t a concern.
Cons-Kuhn says even with the obvious improvements, the disadvantages of mechanicals are the same as they have always been, though to a lesser degree. It still takes energy to open o-rings, blades and slip cams translating into more friction and reduced energy and, ultimately, the possibility of less penetration. The benefit of a wider cutting diameter also serves as a con as wider cutting area means it has to go through more hide and tissue, which will also serve to slow the arrow and potentially limit penetration. As with anything with moving parts, it also means there are more things to potentially malfunction or go wrong. Also, if still using mechanicals that deploy forward-facing blades, kick-outs remain a concern on angled shots. A kick-out occurs when only one part of the blade deploys causing it to deflect more of the animal rather than penetrate it.
Cut-on-Contact: Pros-These are a great option for hunters using low poundage bows such as youth, women or disabled hunters. Because cut-on-contact heads are designed to do just that, they require less energy to penetrate hide and tissue. They begin slicing upon impact and allow the arrow, particularly those launched from low-poundage bows, to penetrate deeper than other types of heads.
Cons-The downside is that you have only one main blade to create a wound channel. Even the addition of bleeder blades does little to improve upon this. In fact, while it makes them look more devastating, Kuhn says bleeder blades often serve better as a marketing tool than in improved field performance. The reason? They are too small to expand beyond the flat cutting plane of the main blade. While working with a team of six flight surgeons during his time as an environmental engineer for NASA’s manned-space flight program, Kuhn learned that humans have what are called skin tension lines-lines in the skin that a surgeon cuts along in order to minimize bleeding and scarring and improve healing. Animals have these lines as well. Cut across these lines, and the wound will bleed excessively and will close more slowly. Cut along them, and the broadhead will pass through the skin and close back up behind it leaving minimal blood to track. This isn’t a huge concern with multi-bladed fixed-blade broadheads or even most mechanicals. Cut-on-contact heads are also less forgiving than a chisel-point fixed-blade in instances where the arrow hits bone. In such situations, the thin cutting tip of the blade has a tendency to roll over and curl, rapidly decelerating arrow speed and limiting penetration.
What Size Grains? Regardless of which type of broadhead you chose, you’ll note that the shelves are still filled with both 100-grain and 125-grain models. So which way should you go there?
"Shoot 100s," says Kuhn. People used to shoot 125s to get 25 more grains of kinetic energy, he explains, but with today’s super-fast bows, the extra grains are simply unnecessary. Hundred-grain heads will fly truer and deliver all of the energy needed when launched on the right bow/arrow combination.
