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Broadhead Injury!

BowhunterXC

BowhunterXC

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2021
Messages
620
Location
N.W. Ohio
I certainly hope everyone knows to NOT shoot groups with broadheads!

There are individual target dots on a broadhead target for a reason. Shooting each dot and hitting the center of the dot, is the same as shooting a group. All arrows are hitting the same Point Of Impact, just like they would if you were shooting for a group. :cool:

I say this because I helped a guy that was shooting groups with broadheads, when one of the blades scored the shaft of one of the other arrows. He didn't notice it, until he shot that arrow and it exploded and splintered into his hand. I held his hand under running cold water, tried to get him to calm down a little and not pass out, until the EMS arrived to take him to the hospital. FORTUNATELY, he didn't lose any function in his hand. :rolleyes:

This is a photo (not his hand) of how it looked at the time. :)
z hand.jpg
 
BowhunterXC said:
I certainly hope everyone knows to NOT shoot groups with broadheads!

There are individual target dots on a broadhead target for a reason. Shooting each dot and hitting the center of the dot, is the same as shooting a group. All arrows are hitting the same Point Of Impact, just like they would if you were shooting for a group. :cool:

I say this because I helped a guy that was shooting groups with broadheads, when one of the blades scored the shaft of one of the other arrows. He didn't notice it, until he shot that arrow and it exploded and splintered into his hand. I held his hand under running cold water, tried to get him to calm down a little and not pass out, until the EMS arrived to take him to the hospital. FORTUNATELY, he didn't lose any function in his hand. :rolleyes:

This is a photo (not his hand) of how it looked at the time. :)
Click to expand...
This is good advice. I've been there done that.

It wasn't a broadhead though, just a field tip that nicked one of my arrows. I had been shooting in the basement at my block through the winter at under 15yds The last arrow I shot down there I heard a "tick" and thought, " Great, there goes another nock." I walked over and all looked good so I left the arrows in the block.

A couple of days Iater I pulled the block outside to shoot a bit further. First arrow I released blew up on release. It broke a few inches forward of the fletchings and the bowstring embedded it into my left forearm. The string slap where it stopped was actually up on my bicep. I walked around and picked up the pieces (the fletched end was 15ft behind me, the tip end in the neighbor's yard) and put my block in the back shed. When I walked into the house the wife, with her back to me said "Done already" and I thought she was going to faint when she turned around and saw my arm after I asked her for a towel. Initially I wasn't even planning on going to ER but after putting the two pieces of arrow back together it was 1-2 inches shorter than my others.

At that point I figured I had better go make sure I didn't still have a hunk of arrow in my arm. Unfortunately they weren't sure any of their methods of foreign object detection would detect carbon fiber in the arm so it was just a matter a digging around in there. I spent several hours in emergency with the doc probing and pulling bits of carbon fiber out of my arm and the scar still has bits of carbon surrounding it. Needless to say I never shoot groups anymore, always separate dots on the block.

1662421523844.png
 
This is a great reminder! I was broadhead tuning the other day and my non BH arrow hit the back edge of my broadhead and left a nice 4" score down the carbon shaft. "Well this one is toast" I thought to myself as I pulled it out of my BH target. There's no need to chance it folks! When in doubt, throw it out.
 
BowhunterXC said:
@boyne bowhunter ,
I'm glad to hear that you fully recovered and suffered no more serious/permanent damage. :)
Click to expand...
Thanks, I was definitely lucky. It was long enough ago that I don't remember when exactly it happened but based on my daughters age at the time I would say it was in neighborhood of 15-20 years ago. I had a pretty good flinch on release for a while (may still have a bit of that) and I switched from pure carbon arrows to FMJ's for quite while. I don't know if the aluminum skin would have helped or not but I couldn't get comfortable with all carbon again for quite a bit. I just went back to all carbon in the last couple of years. As I said though, I still refuse to shoot groups and never shoot flights of more than three arrows. It's just not worth it to me. I also retire arrows quickly if they hit something they're not supposed to.
 
boyne bowhunter said:
This is good advice. I've been there done that.

It wasn't a broadhead though, just a field tip that nicked one of my arrows. I had been shooting in the basement at my block through the winter at under 15yds The last arrow I shot down there I heard a "tick" and thought, " Great, there goes another nock." I walked over and all looked good so I left the arrows in the block.

A couple of days Iater I pulled the block outside to shoot a bit further. First arrow I released blew up on release. It broke a few inches forward of the fletchings and the bowstring embedded it into my left forearm. The string slap where it stopped was actually up on my bicep. I walked around and picked up the pieces (the fletched end was 15ft behind me, the tip end in the neighbor's yard) and put my block in the back shed. When I walked into the house the wife, with her back to me said "Done already" and I thought she was going to faint when she turned around and saw my arm after I asked her for a towel. Initially I wasn't even planning on going to ER but after putting the two pieces of arrow back together it was 1-2 inches shorter than my others.

At that point I figured I had better go make sure I didn't still have a hunk of arrow in my arm. Unfortunately they weren't sure any of their methods of foreign object detection would detect carbon fiber in the arm so it was just a matter a digging around in there. I spent several hours in emergency with the doc probing and pulling bits of carbon fiber out of my arm and the scar still has bits of carbon surrounding it. Needless to say I never shoot groups anymore, always separate dots on the block.

View attachment 70667
Click to expand...

One thing about being a self taught trad bow shooter, I don’t have to worry about my groups being that tight.
 
I admittedly don't practice much but when I do shoot I shoot 1 arrow at a time and have drilled into my head to flex an arrow whenever I pull it out of a target. I also prefer a broadhead target that will allow the arrow to penetrate enough to were the broadhead ends up outside of the target so I can unscrew the broadhead and remove tip and outsert collar before pulling shaft back out....3d target works great for that...I haven't built an arrow that gets thru the 6x6 block target yet hahahahaja
 
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