Home › Forums › Bows and Equipment › Needless to say, the arrow did not penetrate
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I found the following posted on a web site devoted mostly to compound shooters, and though it worth having here.
On Saturday, I had a clear shot on a doe. She was broadside to me and right as I was releasing, she turn quartering towards me. Instead of hitting the pocket behind the front right shoulder, I believe I hit the actual shoulder. Needless to say, the arrow did not penetrate. As she was running off, it looked as if the arrow only penetrated a couple inches. I’m shooting a Destroyer 340, 60#, 27.5″ draw with Buzzcut Stingers 100gr. My arrows come out to 410gr.
Unfortunately, I was unable to locate the deer. Since this was the second nerfed shot, I decided to check the paper tuning of my bow and found out it was low and to the left. I had a bow shop previously paper tune my destroyer. I guess they didn’t. That is now correct.
How many of you had this happen before? Do you believe the deer is still alive? I feel horrible to injure an animal and not have a clean kill. I’m just shocked the arrow didn’t penetrate the shoulder.
The typical reply is best summed up by the following response:
that stuff happens in bowhunting, even though you might feel like crap the next couple of days—keep your head up.
Not one person (so far) has metioned that a better arrow setup could have given a different outcome. As the Study outcomes have repeatedly demonstarted, use the right arrow setup, with correctly tuned arrow flight, and the bow he was using would be capable of reliably penetrating the ribs of an Asian buffalo; a bone harder to penetrate than any bone in a deer’s shoulder; and give thorax traversing penetration after breaching the rib.
Another fact overlooked be everyone (so far) is that NO ONE can tune your bow/arrow setup for you, regardless of the type of bow you shoot. You individual shooting style is a factor in the tuning. Even the pattern of your hand pressure on the bow affects what arrow will tune correctly. Tuning your bow/arrow setup is something that YOU must do for yourself. (Disregarding that, who would go hunting with a setup someone else had ‘tuning’ without even checking to see how – and WHERE – the setup shot for them?)
There is much to be learned from shots that fail, if we will just do so. Try for the best, but plan for the worst!
Ed
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Ed — You’ve hit here on a, perhaps the, central ethical problem of contemporary hi-tech bowhunting: the addiction to light arrows (and though it wasn’t mentioned in this post, crazy-long shots) combined with broadheads that in many instances are so ineffective they should be illegal. For a quick cross-section of some of the worst heads on the market, just check out your local WalMart offerings. So how to cure this disease of ignorance and lack of personal engagement on the part of hi-tech shooters? “Easy” — we simply reform the bowhunting industry, the American way of doing business, and personal laziness! Right. Bottom line is that industry steers most bowhunting magazines via advertising dollars (same with ATVs), and the media and tin-horn “bowhunting heroes” steer well-meaning but willfully lazy wannabee bowhunters in unethical directions. Ed, your work to educate hunters and reform this problem from the ground up is singularly admirable. And some are getting the message! But so long as magazines are in business to make maximum profit (TBM is a golden exception!), advertisers’ dollars will continue to lead them around like spineless slugs on short leashes. Meanwhile, my attempts to use your work to get CO to outlaw mechanical broadheads came real close to succeeding and would have had I had the support of CBA, which is a mixed trad and pully group, mostly pullies, whose positions I almost always disagree with. Next time I’ll develop a coalition before going to the state game commission. That’s my recommendation: Since we’ll never be able to reform the media or force hunters to seek the truth and act on it, we have no choice but to organize (assuming we care enough) and work through the regulatory system. Our deer, elk and other game, and our public image and self-respect, demand it. Dave p
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I have been reading alot of these posts around the web as of late. Seems there are some huge misconceptions about heavy arrows, one reply to heavier arrows stated somthing about a loss of accuracy with heavier arrows. I have found this to be exactly backwards, it seems that the heavier shafts I shoot the more accuracy I get.
Other than range estimation I do not understand why someone with sights would worry so much about trajectory.I do see more and more people discussing heavier arrows even in the wheelie world so word is getting around although somewhat slowly. It is working, keep up the good fight Dr. Ashby
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I got a phone call after dark last night from a “friend” who shoots a compound. He knows that I am a good tracker and have found other folks deer when they thought it was over. What I found made me want to hurl: light carbon arrow, mechanical broadhead, and a 40 yard shot. No arrow to be found, and a very sparse blood trail. Needless to say it was a rough track and I had to give up the ghost to put my kids to bed. I am going back out today to try again knowing that the meat is lost but I want some answers. When my “friend” asked what he did wrong, I asked him if he had ever heard of Dr Ashby. He got a link today with the right information. I told him point blank why he doesn’t have a dead deer within a 100 yards. I told him the right arrow is heavier, the shots are closer, and mechanical heads are the devil. Now trying to get this concept across to this 3 headed monster that has become the hunting “industry” is just going to be very hard. Going to each individual hunter I know and showing them the research will be the best I can do. Thanks for your work Dr Ashby! MD
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Wapiti792, it took me about 4 years to convince my good friend Wesley too. And I don’t think it was me that convinced him; it was the four deer he lost because his light arrows and multiblade broadheads failed to penetrate bones on Georgia whitetails … from his 70 pound compound. He no longer has that problem and, after much testing with the arrow setup he now uses (perfectly tuned, 654 grains, 190 grain Grizzly tipped, 27% FOC), I doubt he ever will. On test shots on freshly downed deer we have yet to be able to get a single one to stop in a whitetail; even when BOTH shoulder or BOTH hip ball joints are hit).
Ed
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Wow! I love that set-up on my whitetails here. My FOC is not quite that high but everything else is right on. 650 gr, Doug Fir, 23 % FOC, Aboyer 2 blade internally footed. I never found that buck yesterday for him after 3 hours of grid searching and no arrow. I think I convinced my friend to change his set-up. This is the 3rd deer in 3 years for him. The problem is he has killed that many good bucks with the same set-up but his shots were perfect. I take it this shot was not and perhaps this will change his thoughts on that superfast, superlight, non-lethal setup.
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Back in the early eighties I had a supposed bowhunting expert talk me into trying an expandable broadhead. He was twenty-five years older than me and a lot more experienced. I shot a small spike-horned deer in the ribs. The arrow killed it quickly but it barely made it to the other side of the ribcage. That was the only expandable I have ever launched at an animal. In fact, I still had them until earlier this year I gave them to a broadhead collector. I argued a few times with the expert about how the heads sucked. He defended them furiously. I have always hated them ever since. Shortly after that experience I went back to a recurve from a short-lived compound adventure. I also went to two blade heads because I figured I was disadvantaged in the penetration department because of the lower power of the recurve. I have since found that even if I shot a compound at animals now I would shoot two blade heads. I really think expandables should be outlawed. Gary
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I have tried to lead many to the living waters of the heavy arrow, and Dr Ed Ashby’s report. But like a knott headed horse they refuse to drink of the living waters.
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sagebrush wrote: Back in the early eighties I had a supposed bowhunting expert talk me into trying an expandable broadhead. He was twenty-five years older than me and a lot more experienced. I shot a small spike-horned deer in the ribs. The arrow killed it quickly but it barely made it to the other side of the ribcage. That was the only expandable I have ever launched at an animal. In fact, I still had them until earlier this year I gave them to a broadhead collector. I argued a few times with the expert about how the heads sucked. He defended them furiously. I have always hated them ever since. Shortly after that experience I went back to a recurve from a short-lived compound adventure. I also went to two blade heads because I figured I was disadvantaged in the penetration department because of the lower power of the recurve. I have since found that even if I shot a compound at animals now I would shoot two blade heads. I really think expandables should be outlawed. Gary
It was the early 90s for me when I crossed over to a compound and was having tuning problems. I didn’t know a lot about compounds and the local shop wasn’t a lot of help either. They just handed me some Spitfire 100s expandables and said these will fix your problem. Well they did, I hit right where I was aiming everytime. Opening morning that year I didn’t see anything but that afternoon a fat doe passed almost right under my stand. I made a good shot and had it not been a good shot I know we would have never found that deer. My arrow did pass all the way through the deer (missed ribs on both sides) but the blades never opened. The deer went close to 100 yards and went down, but again if this hadn’t been in the open we would have had a tough track as there was little or no blood. Took those heads back to the shop and told them where to put them, then started reading and learning how to tune bows and arrows. My affair with compounds soon ended and I was back to my longbow and I know it is just as deadly as any of these new compounds out there because I have the right arrows and heads.
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I want to spend this next yr getting my grains up on my arrows – will have to go tot 340 axis to do so just why I didn’t carry it so far this yr. It is interesting to me that you mention Georgia whitetails as stopping arrows on bones?
I had this happen to me yrs ago – though I later found that one deer survived my hit and unsure about the other. But it gets me when someone states that whitails are like butter and anything goes through em.It is really these two deer that drive me to want a proper set up with a heavy arrow.
J
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J-Dog, those Georgia whitetails surely must be tougher than the ‘butter soft’ whitetails found elsewhere. I had a couple of Georgia meat processers saving the broadheads they found in rifle-killed deer they processed. Most were brought to me still stuck into the bones. Tough, those massive, armor plated Georgia whitetails! LOL
Ed
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