BGfisher

First it's good to see you admit that you are relatively new to the sport. Also good that you are asking advice and trying to learn from seasoned hunter/shooters.

Now I'm going tmake some assumptions and you tell me if I'm wrong:

Thos echeap arrows you were using last year. Were they the proper spine for your bow? Had you spin-tested your broadheads on the arrows before tuning? Had you really tuned the bow/arrow combination with those broadheads attached? And I mean broadhead tuning, not paper tuning.

What I'm getting at is that the bad arrow flight might not have been the arrows so much as things weren't tuned as well as they should have been. Those arrows have to be made by one of the major arrow makers such as Easton, Gold Tip, or Carbon Express so they can't be all that bad. They might not have the tightest tolerances but if tuned properly most will perform well enough within average hunting distances.

Here's another one to test your knowledge. You say you're shooting a 400 grain arrow. Are you sure the arrow weighs 400 grains or is it a 400 (.400") spine? There is a difference. grains refers to weight. Spine refers to the stiffness of the shaft.

Hope you don't take offense here. I'm only trying to educate you to some terminology and other things you might not know, but will help as you learn more.

I will relent and agree with 3children. Long shots may be necessary in the case of a second shot on a wounded animal. In a case like this you really have nothing to lose. But I'll stick to my belief that the size of a deer's antlers does not justify haphazard shots or shots beyond your known ability. This is what we refer to as ethics and you are your own policeman while hunting.