I have shot the Montecs for a couple of seasons now, and the sharpness is easy to get with a few minutes and a stone. As far as the hardness goes, regardless of what it is, it is certainly not nearly as hard as all of the !@#$%^& rocks we have in the dirt out here in PA. I have yet to have a head make it through a deer and into the groud without meeting a rock. I have more "practice heads" with bent or blunted points due to these incidental rock strikes. I am certainly not nocking them.....heck, any head will meet it's demise when it hits a rock head on, but come on.......once in awhile it would be nice to hit a soft patch of ground instead of a buried boulder.