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Heavy arrow bone breaking results on large deer

I shot a 790 TAW last season with 24% FOC. Noticed arrow flight made for poor accuracy beyond 30 so I decided to make some changes this year.

So far I’m at 570TAW and around 17%. The 275FPS and better arrow flight will allow me to shoot longer distance and maybe even do some 3D this summer.

I’m not set on a broadhead yet but I believe as long as it’s not a mech I should still have good “plan B” abilities.

Doesn’t hurt that I’m a 29.5DL at 75#.
 
Sounds like you are gathering info to correlate arrow weight to a "heavy" bone breaking threshold for deer. That would of course be a cool piece of data to have.

IMO, it would be interesting data to know as well the distance between poi and poa (point of aim) on these bone breaking hits, as it would be great to see what (if any) deviation exists in poi vs poa with heavy vs light setups under field conditions.

Not for or against any setup, I encourage every hunter to use the most lethal setup for him/herself, whatever that may be. Just interested in a greater knowledge.
 
520 gr TAW

125 Grain Iron will Single Bevel with bleeders
Black eagle Rampage with 51 grain SS insert with 50 grain screw in weight.
17% FOC.
265 fps with 81 lb of FE and .61 slug feet per second

Absolutley destroy any bone and pass through both shoulders with ease.

After I had a 400 grain arrow literally stick in the chest of a booner and I watched him run away while my luminok danced in the dusk I vowed to never again have a penetrion or recovery issue.

I bought a blood tracking dog and fixed my arrow set up.

Have recovered every deer since that time in 2016. Still have vision of that buck running away, was teh perfect shot just zero penetration..... he was a monster.
That would haunt me because booner don't come around that often.. I can easily picture that Luminock dancing. You know why? Because I've seen it so MANY times on TV. Pumping their fists and saying "I smoked him!" Then saying "we reviewed the footage and we'd better back out and come back in the morning" What they don't show you is how many times they don't recover the the animal.
 
Ranch Fairy put out a video the other night and his numbers seemed lower than they used to be. I heard he is doing more testing on North American game to see if there are modern numbers for compound bow. Spoiler alert: he talked in the video about being 550 or above and 16% FOC. I wouldn’t be surprise if that is the new 650 19% numbers.
Last year I shot a small buck with a light arrow and a mechanical. Arrow deflected and went down the body of the deer. I started learning about how crappy mechanicals are and started watching RF to make the switch. He was saying last year 550 around 17% were a good starting point for NA hunting.
 
If someone wanted to replicate a deer shoulder using a bone from a cow which would be closest?

it seems a cow shoulder would be much tougher.

But if you got a stack of fresh cow scapula and we’re shooting though then then you can be confident on deer.

Too many tests use old dried up bones with no meat on them and you can see the the bone is brittle.

There are differences between shoulders and areas on the shoulder. You'd have to come up with a method that would control for that by using multiple tests per head and shoulder and then averaging penetration (or something). A Hooter Shooter would come in handy.
 
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If someone wanted to replicate a deer shoulder using a bone from a cow which would be closest?

it seems a cow shoulder would be much tougher.

But if you got a stack of fresh cow scapula and we’re shooting though then then you can be confident on deer.

Too many tests use old dried up bones with no meat on them and you can see the the bone is brittle.

There are differences between shoulders and areas on the shoulder. You'd have to come up with a method that would control for that by using multiple tests per head and shoulder and then averaging penetration (or something). A Hooter Shooter would come in handy.
No need to shoot cow carcasses.
Ashby has already done all this for us. He's tested it literally thousands of times on live game animals and he's tested it on freshly killed carcasses.
His results and data are quantified and documented.
 
No need to shoot cow carcasses.
Ashby has already done all this for us. He's tested it literally thousands of times on live game animals and he's tested it on freshly killed carcasses.
His results and data are quantified and documented.

i m saying to test your specific set up
 
If someone wanted to replicate a deer shoulder using a bone from a cow which would be closest?

it seems a cow shoulder would be much tougher.

But if you got a stack of fresh cow scapula and we’re shooting though then then you can be confident on deer.

Too many tests use old dried up bones with no meat on them and you can see the the bone is brittle.

There are differences between shoulders and areas on the shoulder. You'd have to come up with a method that would control for that by using multiple tests per head and shoulder and then averaging penetration (or something). A Hooter Shooter would come in handy.
It is very difficult to replicate the real thing. One of the early RF videos goes into that as the arrow is encountering hide,muscle,fat,sinew,and bone all in motion. Shooting a scapula pinned to a target is a very different thing.
In my opinion the best thing you could do is to shoot the next deer you killed through the shoulder at 20 yds to get the best real life idea of what your specific set up is gong to do.
 
It is very difficult to replicate the real thing. One of the early RF videos goes into that as the arrow is encountering hide,muscle,fat,sinew,and bone all in motion. Shooting a scapula pinned to a target is a very different thing.
In my opinion the best thing you could do is to shoot the next deer you killed through the shoulder at 20 yds to get the best real life idea of what your specific set up is gong to do.

Agreed, we should do more testing on recently killed animals. Another thing to point out is deer can weigh 300 lbs plus. I am referring to heavy bone (ie leg knuckle) on mature bucks/semi mature bucks


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340 spine arrow cut at 29.75"
Total arrow weight 435.375 grains per my PACT digital scale
Arrow speed: 268fps average of ten shots through my Caldwell Chronograph
Bow DW 58lbs
100 grain fixed three blade 1-1/16" CD Wasp Boss SST
Deer weight dressed 218lbs per my butchers scale putting his live weight at least close to 240lbs
Shot was from best guess 26' up from pin on treestand
Shot based on where arrow was in ground 18 yards arrow entered left rib cage at angle I aimed for off shoulder which I hit and shattered same as arrow was a complete pass through
Was nice 10 point buck who ran about 53 of my steps back the way he came and dropped mid stride
 
Sounds like you are gathering info to correlate arrow weight to a "heavy" bone breaking threshold for deer. That would of course be a cool piece of data to have.

IMO, it would be interesting data to know as well the distance between poi and poa (point of aim) on these bone breaking hits, as it would be great to see what (if any) deviation exists in poi vs poa with heavy vs light setups under field conditions.

Not for or against any setup, I encourage every hunter to use the most lethal setup for him/herself, whatever that may be. Just interested in a greater knowledge.

you’d have to have a very large sample size to be able to account for all the variables outside of time to target that you seek. I tend the think the difference would be immeasurable, if it exists at all.
 
520 gr TAW

125 Grain Iron will Single Bevel with bleeders
Black eagle Rampage with 51 grain SS insert with 50 grain screw in weight.
17% FOC.
265 fps with 81 lb of FE and .61 slug feet per second

Absolutley destroy any bone and pass through both shoulders with ease.

After I had a 400 grain arrow literally stick in the chest of a booner and I watched him run away while my luminok danced in the dusk I vowed to never again have a penetrion or recovery issue.

I bought a blood tracking dog and fixed my arrow set up.

Have recovered every deer since that time in 2016. Still have vision of that buck running away, was teh perfect shot just zero penetration..... he was a monster.
I shoot a 425 gr arrow at 300 fps with a slick trick standard or magnum.I've killed well over 100 deer with this combo and never not had a passthrough.My 15 year old son shoots the same arrow and BH but at 290 fps.Last year he had an arrow nick a branch and center punched a big doe in the hindquarter and the arrow was sticking in the dirt and the deer didn't make it 25 yards.i have a very hard time believing that you can get zero penetration with a perfect shot.I've made my share of imperfect hits but again,never failed to get a passthrough excpet years ago when I experimented with big mechanicals.
 
520 gr TAW

125 Grain Iron will Single Bevel with bleeders
Black eagle Rampage with 51 grain SS insert with 50 grain screw in weight.
17% FOC.
265 fps with 81 lb of FE and .61 slug feet per second

Absolutley destroy any bone and pass through both shoulders with ease.

After I had a 400 grain arrow literally stick in the chest of a booner and I watched him run away while my luminok danced in the dusk I vowed to never again have a penetrion or recovery issue.

I bought a blood tracking dog and fixed my arrow set up.

Have recovered every deer since that time in 2016. Still have vision of that buck running away, was teh perfect shot just zero penetration..... he was a monster.

When did you shoot a deer with the new IW single bevel?


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74# 28.5” draw
28” Gold Tip XT Hunter 200g inserts 100grain Grim Reaper WTS. 650 grain total @ 19-20% FOC. BS tuned, nock tuned..

24 yard shot, buck tucked and spun. Reaper broke his spine and dropped him there.

My Iron Will S100’s & Magnus Hornets have all been complete pass throughs in comparison with this arrow setup.
B47229CE-999A-46C5-A7AB-F285761BBF8E.jpegB47229CE-999A-46C5-A7AB-F285761BBF8E.jpeg
 
IMO as long as it's good steel I don't think the broadhead manufacturer makes much difference...I'm not trying to pimp grizzlystik...they just have good videos. Grizzlystik and tuffhead utube channels have great information.

I listen to some podcast the other night and RF said there is a video (hopefully posted to Ashby foundation) where a fmj arrow with a 200gr broadhead failed on entry on some african animal and the arrow stopped with only inches of penetration but the insert and broadhead had a pass thru when they separated from the shaft..
 
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