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Who Did Not Snort the Fairy Dust? And Why?

570 TAW grain blood sport indicator, 125 magnus buzzcut up front. Complete pass through a 155 lb 9 pointer and stuck 6 inches into the dirt on the other side. Quartering to shot at 18 yards, Broke the left scapula and exited out the bottom back of the second lung. Died within sight at 60 yards. Lots of blood. I am happy with this set up.
 
Yall can argue for years about high FOC and single bevels vs a rage in the cage but the truth of the matter is... if you dont use Amsteel as your bow strings then your not a real hunter and all your Ranch Fairy stuff is garbage
i have 7/64 on there now but i think im getting new cams and nocks to accommodate my 1/4in. BCY cant handle my rebar
 
No offence meant what so ever but I do not see the need for anything more than what I am shooting now. A Darton DS 3714 58lbs/DW chronoed at 268fps, with 28.625" long 6mm 340 spine Carbons, with three Fuzion QIIi 3" shield cut fletchings with a 3* helical with 100 grain Wasp Boss SST's total weight of arrow is around 460ish grains or darn near 8grns per lb of DW. I only need three pins out to 40 yards.

I have shot through scapulas, ribs and broke two legs on the way out. Never had an arrow stay in a deer on a broad side shot.
10 point I shot last year at 23 yard broad side shot arrow went completely through cut two ribs in half based on mud on shaft stuck over 10" into the partially frozen earth. What more does one need? These are compound bows not DJ rifles. Buck went 53 yards (measured by mt Sig LRF) and collapsed DRT in mid stride. Left a "Stevie Wonder" blood trail as i like to call it.
Have now killed 12 deer with this exact arrow BH set up and every deer behaved the same, and went less than 100 yards.
 
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So I ordered some of those Grizzlystik Masaai broadheads because... well they just looked cool and back in the day I used to put some powder under the ol' sniffer and I also drank some kool-aid... but that's neither here nor there.. I also ordered some silver flame 100gr's because I had kind of a crappy experience with a mechanical this season.

Anyway with those Masaai's... I thought I knew what sharp was. I thought my broadheads were sharp. My broadheads are not sharp. These Masaai's are insane. Sharpest things i've ever handled. I'm not worthy.
 
Anyway with those Masaai's... I thought I knew what sharp was. I thought my broadheads were sharp. My broadheads are not sharp. These Masaai's are insane. Sharpest things i've ever handled. I'm not worthy.

How do you think they get them that sharp? I can get a knife so sharp I would strongly advise AGAINST testing by shaving hair off your arm unless you wish to lose some of your epidermis.
I ask because short of hand sharpening I do know of a way to improve on automated mechanically sharpened broadheads. Not saying you can't just saying I don't know of a automated way to. I do test my Wasp blades on my new heads and replacement blades. Not every one but one from a pack of replacements and one from a set of three new heads and Wasp blades have never disappointed me with not maintaining their hair popping scary sharpness.
 
Anyway with those Masaai's... I thought I knew what sharp was. I thought my broadheads were sharp. My broadheads are not sharp. These Masaai's are insane. Sharpest things i've ever handled. I'm not worthy.

How do you think they get them that sharp? I can get a knife so sharp I would strongly advise AGAINST testing by shaving hair off your arm unless you wish to lose some of your epidermis.
I ask because short of hand sharpening I do know of a way to improve on automated mechanically sharpened broadheads. Not saying you can't just saying I don't know of a automated way to. I do test my Wasp blades on my new heads and replacement blades. Not every one but one from a pack of replacements and one from a set of three new heads and Wasp blades have never disappointed me with not maintaining their hair popping scary sharpness.

I believe they strop on leather or take it to a buffing wheel on a bench grinder. In both cases they probably use buffing compound. Probably to a bench grinder if I had to guess.

I’ve always been able to get my heads sharp but never “I can shave with this sharp”. The Masaais came that sharp out of the box. It just made me realize there’s sharp and then there’s “I can shave with this sharp”. Kind of eye opening actually.

Knives is a different story since I have a large surface to work with and after taking them to a diamond stone I’d usually use honing steel on them.


Sent from d_mobile
 
No offence meant what so ever but I do not see the need for anything more than what I am shooting now. A Darton DS 3714 58lbs/DW chronoed at 268fps, with 28.625" long 6mm 340 spine Carbons, with three Fuzion QIIi 3" shield cut fletchings with a 3* helical with 100 grain Wasp Boss SST's total weight of arrow is around 460ish grains or darn near 8grns per lb of DW. I only need three pins out to 40 yards.

I have shot through scapulas, ribs and broke two legs on the way out. Never had an arrow stay in a deer on a broad side shot.
10 point I shot last year at 23 yard broad side shot arrow went completely through cut two ribs in half based on mud on shaft stuck over 10" into the partially frozen earth. What more does one need? These are compound bows not DJ rifles. Buck went 53 yards (measured by mt Sig LRF) and collapsed DRT in mid stride. Left a "Stevie Wonder" blood trail as i like to call it.
Have now killed 12 deer with this exact arrow BH set up and every deer behaved the same, and went less than 100 yards.

one doesn’t need any more... if they intend on only shooting a dozen deer. Or if they intend on having perfect form on every shot they take, out of their perfectly tuned bow, so that every arrow flies perfectly true without any side loading, And of course without ever clipping any leaf or twig on the way to the target. And if they intend on hitting within 2-3” horizontally of where they aim every time - and the deer, which can move 12” forward backwards up or down in the time it takes your arrow to get there, decides to play along and stay still.

While I almost agree with your “good enough” setup, I’d be curious to see if you still think “what more can you need?” After you’ve killed 30 deer. Or 50. This isn’t to say you’re not a bona fide killer, or that you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s just that one small sample of things going right for you a few times in a row, doesn’t really help anyone. There’s 10,000 hunters out there that can give you the same argument, replacing 460 grain arrow with 750 grain arrow. Or 350 grain arrow.

I advocate for a simple down the middle approach with compounds(500-600grains, and 250+fps). But I do so after having seen a great many sub 500 grain arrows fail to achieve enough penetration to do their job. I think the returns largely diminish past 600 grains when you factor in how difficult/expensive it can be to get into a proper setup.

I make that suggestion in full recognition that literally millions of sub 500 grain arrows have made they’re way completely through a deers vitals, killing deader than dead. But I’ve also seen a pile of deer with 20” of a 27” light arrow sticking out of their ribs or scapula never to be recovered. Lots of factors go into it. Mass is a big one.
 
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one doesn’t need any more... if they intend on only shooting a dozen deer. Or if they intend on having perfect form on every shot they take, out of their perfectly tuned bow, so that every arrow flies perfectly true without any side loading, And of course without ever clipping any leaf or twig on the way to the target. And if they intend on hitting within 2-3” horizontally of where they aim every time - and the deer, which can move 12” forward backwards up or down in the time it takes your arrow to get there, decides to play along and stay still.

I think over several millennia countless thousands of native Americans who killed countless 10s of thousands of 1Klb+ American bison with basic longbows using wooden shaft arrows tipped with flint arrowheads might just give you a valid counter argument.

For the record I have successfully killed 43-46 whitetail deer (yes I have kinda lost count of the numbers of doe I've killed) in 37 years of bow hunting 22 were bucks admittedly mostly were 2 year old bucks. And I do not see how cleanly killing 10, 20 or hundred deer differ from 10 in terms of proving anything as long as all or as in my case 99+% were clean quick kills with short under 100 yards tracking and recoveries. Only two went farther than 100 yards and I still recovered them. So far I have hit and failed to recover only two deer. The first one I literally still have no idea what the h#!! happened. I shot and as far as i could tell nothing unusual happened to the arrow in flight, deer never reacted till after being hit, no strange noises no wild odd arrow flight just released the arrow, the familiar smacking noise of hitting a deer and deer ran off. 22-23 yard standing still broadside shot. Found my XX78 AL arrow intact but bent. Shot was towards end of shooting light. At the hit buck took off like he fully lit his afterburners never really had a buck I arrowed react quite so violently before or since that I can recall. I was honestly quite startled. Arrow had blood all over it. Was VERY early in my deer hunting career and was my 11th deer a averaged sized 6 point. Positive it was only muscle blood on arrow. Spent three days looking never found him.
Sulked a very very long time about that one. Having gone 10 for 10 in my first four years of bow hunting on making well placed shots and fast recoveries most I heard or saw go down gave me a false sense of infallibility. Only other deer I hit and lost is to long a story suffice to say I screwed up wore heavy insulated one piece I never practiced in that my bow string hit the breast pocket at release and my ineptitude caused my poor hit and never found that buck. Again no evidence of a lung, liver or stomach hit just muscle blood. In both instances no matter how heavy an arrow I used wouldn't have made a wooden nickels worth of difference as both arrows went all the way through the deer.

You want to shoot 600-700 grain arrows and 1.5-2" fixed blade BH's by all means do so. It certainly wont diminish your killing effectiveness. But I don't see how it's at all needed to kill a deer. I mean how dead do you need dead to be? We all know killing deer begins and ends with shot placement. Shot placement is what kills deer or any animal for that matter. Put a razor sharp BH through both a deer's lungs and your odds of quickly recovering it are 99% in my experience.
 
one doesn’t need any more... if they intend on only shooting a dozen deer. Or if they intend on having perfect form on every shot they take, out of their perfectly tuned bow, so that every arrow flies perfectly true without any side loading, And of course without ever clipping any leaf or twig on the way to the target. And if they intend on hitting within 2-3” horizontally of where they aim every time - and the deer, which can move 12” forward backwards up or down in the time it takes your arrow to get there, decides to play along and stay still.

I think over several millennia countless thousands of native Americans who killed countless 10s of thousands of 1Klb+ American bison with basic longbows using wooden shaft arrows tipped with flint arrowheads might just give you a valid counter argument.

For the record I have successfully killed 43-46 whitetail deer (yes I have kinda lost count of the numbers of doe I've killed) in 37 years of bow hunting 22 were bucks admittedly mostly were 2 year old bucks. And I do not see how cleanly killing 10, 20 or hundred deer differ from 10 in terms of proving anything as long as all or as in my case 99+% were clean quick kills with short under 100 yards tracking and recoveries. Only two went farther than 100 yards and I still recovered them. So far I have hit and failed to recover only two deer. The first one I literally still have no idea what the h#!! happened. I shot and as far as i could tell nothing unusual happened to the arrow in flight, deer never reacted till after being hit, no strange noises no wild odd arrow flight just released the arrow, the familiar smacking noise of hitting a deer and deer ran off. 22-23 yard standing still broadside shot. Found my XX78 AL arrow intact but bent. Shot was towards end of shooting light. At the hit buck took off like he fully lit his afterburners never really had a buck I arrowed react quite so violently before or since that I can recall. I was honestly quite startled. Arrow had blood all over it. Was VERY early in my deer hunting career and was my 11th deer a averaged sized 6 point. Positive it was only muscle blood on arrow. Spent three days looking never found him.
Sulked a very very long time about that one. Having gone 10 for 10 in my first four years of bow hunting on making well placed shots and fast recoveries most I heard or saw go down gave me a false sense of infallibility. Only other deer I hit and lost is to long a story suffice to say I screwed up wore heavy insulated one piece I never practiced in that my bow string hit the breast pocket at release and my ineptitude caused my poor hit and never found that buck. Again no evidence of a lung, liver or stomach hit just muscle blood. In both instances no matter how heavy an arrow I used wouldn't have made a wooden nickels worth of difference as both arrows went all the way through the deer.

You want to shoot 600-700 grain arrows and 1.5-2" fixed blade BH's by all means do so. It certainly wont diminish your killing effectiveness. But I don't see how it's at all needed to kill a deer. I mean how dead do you need dead to be? We all know killing deer begins and ends with shot placement. Shot placement is what kills deer or any animal for that matter. Put a razor sharp BH through both a deer's lungs and your odds of quickly recovering it are 99% in my experience.

I made the assumption that you have killed 12 because you said you did.

i Did not advocate for shooting over a 600 grain arrow at deer for both time/effort/money of doing it, and because I think 500-600 will do the job.

we both agree that if you poke two holes, odds are in your favor.

On the other 30(ish) deer you shot prior to your current setup - what arrow weight/broadhead combo did you shoot them with? How many were full pass throughs? Of those that weren’t, how many left more than half the arrow sticking out?

you and I agree on more than we disagree on - a lot more. And sounds like we have similar experiences.

I was only pointing out that a dozen deer killed by a setup that I’ve personally seen hanging out of a deer on multiple occasions isn’t a great sample.

Of course shot placement is everything. I’m glad most of your deer and circumstances have played along. I pay attention to anyone who’s killed that many deer!
 
I began deer hunting with PRETTY SURE 2317 XX78's 100 three blade T-Head broadhead to kill about 60% of my deer. Started with Rocky MT Supreme BH's killed my first 4-6 deer and went to NAP T-Heads because they flew better. Tried Beaman external carbons when they first came out because I was already shooting a Muzzy ZE drop away rest. Then went to Gold Tips kept the NAP T/H's, then when GT's moved to Mexico tried USA made for Cabelas by Beman carbons and stayed with Beman ever since. Then I came across Wasp Boss SST's and tried them back in 1999 or 2000, 2001 or 2002 can't be absolutely sure. Lost a lot of my bow hunting notes in a move to a new home under lets just say extraordinary circumstances beyond my control. Loved how the Wasp's flew and they are literally bomb proof tough.

All of my bow killed deer have been broadside shots EXCEPT my very first deer I ever killed in 1983. That was a literal shot dead center between the eyes into her brain on a very large mature doe. All my other deer were broad side shots. My best estimate is 90-93% of my shots were complete pass throughs. I can not be certain but 4 or 5 of my shots on deer were at such sharp downward angles due to the deer being under 10 yards from my tree that based on finding the aluminum arrow bent and not stuck in the earth that the arrow went all the way through but stopped when it hit the earth but was still partially in the chest cavity of the deer and was pulled out either by the deer itself or when the deer bolted after being shot. I stopped years ago taking such sharp angled shots as they are very low percentage shots IMHO. One buck I shot almost directly below my feet my BH entered the top of his right lung went all the way through the right lung and thank God just caught the bottom of the other lung as it exited the bottom of his chest cavity stuck in the earth and was one of the bent aluminum arrows I spoke of earlier. I figured this based on the wounds to his lungs i saw when I gutted him. If the BH had not hit the other lung I feel I would not have found that deer can deer can live a LONG time on one lung and even recover.
Two or thee times on quartering away shots my arrow passed through and the broad head hit and broke the opposite leg on the way out, but still went all the way through.
Only my last 12 or 14 deer have I dropped down to under 60lb DW. I began with 70-72lbs then tried 80lbs for 4-5 seasons didn't like it went back to 70lbs and developed shoulder issues and dropped down to my current 58lb DW.
So far have not had a arrow stay in a deer or more accurately stated have not recovered a deer with my arrow still in it. I have recovered every arrow I have ever shot a deer with so I can not say for sure if any were pulled out by the deer because I found all arrows within a few yards of the shot and over 90% stuck into the earth. Based on my friends experiences if the arrow stays in the deer and the deer manages to pull it out it has always been found quite some distance into the tracking job.

Based on all of this is why when I watch the VERY few bow hunting shows I do, I am utterly perplexed as to why the vast majority of the time the arrow gets what is in my opinion very poor penetration and more often than ot do not pass all the way through.

I have learned a GREAT deal over the years about setting up and tuning my bow to get it to give me maximum performance and ensure my arrow and BH get the job done. One thing I learned very early on was I only take broad side shots with a 90% or better chance of full pass throughs. I will avoid sharp angling quartering shots were the arrow can not possibly pass all the way through unless the deer is standing still and I have time to make a very well executed shot.
 
Troy is just another dude trying to get a piece of the pie.

Ashby and he data is his data and his alone. One guys data in his controlled little world.

I can tell you that troy wants you to spend money on expensive things.

How many big bucks have you seen him shoot?

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Troy is just another dude trying to get a piece of the pie.

Ashby and he data is his data and his alone. One guys data in his controlled little world.

I can tell you that troy wants you to spend money on expensive things.

How many big bucks have you seen him shoot?

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I think you have completely missed the purpose of the ranch fairy.
 
I think you have completely missed the purpose of the ranch fairy.
Maybe. Maybe not.

I remember when Easton first came out with the fmj dangerous game arrows in 250 spine. I ended up putting a brass 100 gr insert with a heavy two blade zwicky out front. 766 grains total. FOC was something like 28.5 percent.

Why did i do this?

Because I came from the trad world. Ashby has been around a while, but the idea of heavy arrows with high foc has been around much longer.

Trad guys in my day would try to reach 10-12 grains per pound and how did we do it? Heavy weights up front.

I purchased point test kits at 3 rivers, surrounded myself in all the trad broadhead weights from 125 to 300 grains. All at a very affordable price.

Then these clowns like troy come along. Now he is pushing "ranch fairy" test kits and broadheads at prices that are very inflated.

Don't blame the guy hey sell away. But he has a crap attitude, he treats foc like it is a make or break idea. Truth is, any aluminum arrow with a zwicky will perform just as well, maybe even better for less than half the cost as any of troys recommend arrows.

I'm a little sick a tired of the marketing in the hunting industry. Jeezuz some dumbass is selling a nose button for pete's sake!

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Definitely missing it, he plays with a lot of expensive stuff but you can do the same thing with walmart gold tips and Magnus broadheads. Also to get anywhere close to 28% foc with a 250 spine fmj you would need 2 zwickeys on the front of that arrow. A heavy arrow will not perform the same as a high foc arrow. Troy is hard to stomach for a lot of people but the info he puts out is gold, I think a lot of people miss the message because he rubs them the wrong way.

And I like the nose button.
 
Maybe. Maybe not.

I remember when Easton first came out with the fmj dangerous game arrows in 250 spine. I ended up putting a brass 100 gr insert with a heavy two blade zwicky out front. 766 grains total. FOC was something like 28.5 percent.

Why did i do this?

Because I came from the trad world. Ashby has been around a while, but the idea of heavy arrows with high foc has been around much longer.

Trad guys in my day would try to reach 10-12 grains per pound and how did we do it? Heavy weights up front.

I purchased point test kits at 3 rivers, surrounded myself in all the trad broadhead weights from 125 to 300 grains. All at a very affordable price.

Then these clowns like troy come along. Now he is pushing "ranch fairy" test kits and broadheads at prices that are very inflated.

Don't blame the guy hey sell away. But he has a crap attitude, he treats foc like it is a make or break idea. Truth is, any aluminum arrow with a zwicky will perform just as well, maybe even better for less than half the cost as any of troys recommend arrows.

I'm a little sick a tired of the marketing in the hunting industry. Jeezuz some dumbass is selling a nose button for pete's sake!

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just did a little math using Gold Tips FOC calculator, no possible way you had that high of an FOC using that shaft. May have been 766 grains, but with that shaft it’s impossible to have that weight with a 28.5 percent FOC. I’ve communicated with Troy quite a bit while I was building my arrow setup this year and he did not attempt to market anything, he actually encouraged me to run my idea of using zwickeys. I get he rubs some people the wrong way but the study he’s basing all these arrow setups on is sound. Who cares how many big bucks he’s shot, I can tell you right now all of the hogs he has shot have been far better test subjects. Compared to a hog, a deer is nothing
 
Compared to a hog, a deer is nothing

That's why a lot of us think that his arrows are overkill for deer based upon our experience, and are often so heavy that you run into an issue shooting accurately at unknown yardages (which is true at least somewhat if you didn't exactly range the tree the deer is standing by before the deer got there....very few people range the actual deer while saddle hunting but do landmarks beforehand).

EDIT: Also, even if you know the exact yardage, unless you are dialing in a single pin that is adjustable for yardage to that exact yardage, then you have to hold over or below or split pins. The slower your bow, the more you have to hold above or below and the more your pins you split or do kentucky windage with are not on the vitals. With a faster arrow, if your pin is set at 25 yards and the deer steps out at a ranged 30 yards, you can hold dead center vitals and hit low vitals or aim slightly high vitals and hit center. Your pin never leaves the kill, and this is much easier than trying to remember and then execute a 1 foot holdover.
 
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A heavy arrow will not perform the same as a high foc arrow.

And I like the nose button.

Yes I'm sure the foc I quoted was off it's been a while.

Regardless, show me the data that says a 15 percent foc arrow is not as effective as a 30 percent foc arrow.

There is no data on this. A lot of speculation, a lot of guessing.

No data.

About the nose button....I'm sorry you support a poacher.



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That's why a lot of us think that his arrows are overkill for deer based upon our experience, and are often so heavy that you run into an issue shooting accurately at unknown yardages (which is true at least somewhat if you didn't exactly range the tree the deer is standing by before the deer got there....very few people range the actual deer while saddle hunting but do landmarks beforehand).
I do agree most of his arrow setups are overkill for whitetails however to me overkill is fine, to an extent. A 243 will kill a deer just fine but that didn’t stop me from using a 30-06 on deer before I started only bowhunting. Yes the drawback on extremely heavy arrows is the drop, that’s why a majority of people are gravitating towards a mid range arrow, typically around 500-600 grains with a strong cut on contact head. That allows your arrow to still be around 250 FPS out of most modern bows which typically allows you to have an acceptable trajectory. My arrow setup is around 540 grains right now and with a 27 yard pin I hit within 3 inches out to 33 yards. While a lighter arrow has a better trajectory, I would prefer to sacrifice some speed for a better chance of reaching vitals if I were to accidentally hit heavy bone. Plus, it’s always nice to have these heavy arrows where hogs are around, which is every area I hunt
 
Yes I'm sure the foc I quoted was off it's been a while.

Regardless, show me the data that says a 15 percent foc arrow is not as effective as a 30 percent foc arrow.

There is no data on this. A lot of speculation, a lot of guessing.

No data.

About the nose button....I'm sorry you support a poacher.



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The whole fairy thing is based on the data you say doesn’t exist.


Just because he is a poacher doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea, I’m not a bowmar fan at all but I’d be an idiot to not use something that was to my advantage.
 
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