buckfevr - that blood you see at the base of the neck is actually the clotting from under the shoulder - the last picture with the shoulder removed shows the massive blood loss, clotting and general trauma - don't know what artery or ? got cut but it bled bigtime - but it wasn't the arrow INSIDE the ribs. There was no blood for about 30 or so yards but the last 20 or so was POURING!!!(my theory is that it had to bleed 'up' to the enterance hole before spewing onto the ground)

As for Gary taking it personally I wouldn't expect anything different - he's got pride in ownership and I applaude him discussing it on the board. I wish I would have talked to him directly about it prior posting, and I'm not taking anything personally, and my experience isn't an indictment of him as I also agree he's a super nice guy. I know my shot was an X - ALL THREE OF THEM in question, and I am at peace with the decision I made. I can't however, knowing what I've experienced, go into the woods and risk this happening again - I owe it to the game I'm chasing and I felt I owed it to you guys to let you know what happened to me.

After thinking about this for the last several hours I'd again like to reiterate - on the 2nd doe I took - she was close & not 1/4ing much - and the head slid past 3 ribs before penetrating & coming out the opposite side through the scapula. If you think of where it entered and where it exited you can imagine the angle and it's not very steep - if you can agree that the angle isn't very steep (i.e steep enough to slide but not 'out of the norm' for hunting) then why would it slide past 3 ribs before penetrating & passing through?

I too wish the best for Gary & Slick Tricks's & also agree that if you only take broadside shots you owe it to yourself to shoot these things. I don't know if they are better than f/p's though - I shoot 53-57X 300's with fieldpoints on my hunting rig - the slicktricks scored within 53-57X range so I'd say they were neither better or worse, but as consistant.





Aim small miss small

huntingbry, I plan on doing just that for the tests I will start with a slight quartering shot, and progress to the point at wich the maximum angle that could still be considerd "ethical" for the shot. I will shoot a muzzy side by side for comparison. Just for the record, I can make any head deflect if I want, but the point of the tests is to honestly see at what point the heads begin to "skip". It will probably be Saterday afternoon before I get to them. After I get them done I will post the results, whatever they may be.

TAKE YOUR KIDS HUNTING AND YOU WON'T BE HUNTING FOR YOUR KIDS

5shot -

Do you need more heads?

I seem to remember you saying you've done this before - which heads gave you problems then (if any)?

Aim small miss small

huntmup,

What I'm trying to get at in that picture is where the head wound up. If I'm seeing that correctly the broadhead slid along the ribs under the shoulder, basically in between the ribs and the shoulder. Were you able to tell where the head stopped?

Now I'm not disputing that you're a good shot and that the shots you took were reasonable. But is there any chance that the deer moved on you?

I just want to share with you, last week I had a buck come into a scrape like in your case real close no more than twelve yards. He's slightly quartering away as he comes in. I've set up the scrape five feet past the tree so that I can draw. His head goes behind the tree and I draw. As his head gets past the tree he looks up at me, just for a second or two and he continues on to put his nose in the scrape. I put the pin on the x and let fly. I knew he jumped the string but I just thought he dropped a little and moved forward.

When I find him the arrow is sticking out with only 10 inches of penetration. I'm shooting a Mathjews FX bottomed out with the minimax 100 grain naildriver 7595 goldtips getting around 263-264. When I field dress him I've only got liver and near lung. I was bummed.

Two days later when I'm processing him I say to my dad what the hell happened to the ham? We find that the broadhead had gone through the ham, and the only reason that it didn't pass through is because one of the blades caught the leg bone. By the time I found him the arrow had backed out a good bit, confusing the issue.

Anyways, the deer was quartering away at twelve yards, by the time the shot got there the deer had dropped and spun quartering towards me. The shot got near lung took out the liver and went through the opposite ham, but not penetrating the far hide.

He dropped and spun and I didn't see it. These animals can move awfully fast and also you're looking at where you are shooting, so you're not going to catch that intial movement.

I think you did a great job of documenting your findings and while your interpretation of what happened certainly seems reasonable, the more I look at it, I'm just not sure about the conclusions.

Definitely interesting though and congratulations on the buck.

Huntmup, I have a few heads laying around, I even have some sharp blades, LOL. We all need to keep in mind all the "odd" things that happen when shooting at game. Sometimes what you think you see isn't always so. I know several times I have made great hits, but they looked "bad". I wait a long time before trailing, and bam, there the deer is 50 yards from the shot. Other times I have made "great" hits, only to learn that they were not. Their are just so many things that can happen in the deer woods to alter our judgement and perception. Heck I wonder how I manage to keep things straight some times!!!

TAKE YOUR KIDS HUNTING AND YOU WON'T BE HUNTING FOR YOUR KIDS

I have to agree with 5shot and Buckfevr. I have seen some strange things where everthing was perfect on the shot. Unfortunately, nobody told the deer that and the arrow ended up somewhere it was not supposed to be. Last year I took a doe at 8 yards. She was broadside and stopped. I settled my 20 yard pin slightly low on her chest and I was perfectly settled because I had been watching this deer for over 20 minutes. I squeezed of the shot and it hit her back and in the spine. That is a full 1 1/2 feet high and 2 feet back from where I was aiming. She was able to move that far that fast. I am convinced that if she had not been so close I would have missed her completely. That's why we go out there and hunt these suckers, because you never know. If these things didn't happen we would have just as much fun shooting 3D targets.

I fully concurr with all you guys that things happen - but - and again this is my experience - it has happend 3 times THIS year and has NEVER happened before. That again may be coincidence - and maybe lucky past years & unlucky this year but this is what I've experienced.

So what's different this year?

1) I'm shooting about 100% better than in any year past
2) I've got a faster, quieter bow, more KE, more accurate
3) I'm shooting a different head - because it's does not decrease my accuracy - again these thing fly AWESOME!!!

buckfevr - yes the head slid between the shoulder and ribs and then stopped at the base of the neck - it eventually slid back out a bit but the deer expired with the arrow in it still. And again - I don't know what artery or ? got cut but it bled like a pig!!!!





Aim small miss small

again, that is MY reason for not using this head for now. This is the FIRST time this happened to me, first time using the head on game, and then find someone who had the SAME problem....3 times!
Just TOO much for me to chalk up to dumb luck.
It MIGHT be coincidence, but can you really blame me for NOT gambling?

I talked to my buddy who also uses slick tricks and he has seen no such problems. He has taken 34 deer and used Muzzy's up until this year.

It is his opinion that it was more likely due to hunter error in taking a shot at a deer at too steep an angle.

And on a side note:

Regardless of the thing you are trying to study, you need to have 100 times the date we have been presented to make any kind of valid conclusion. Say 100 guys here use Slick Tricks and have taken 1.5 deer per person were talking 150 shots and 2 deflections. But if there have only been 10 quartering shots and 2 deflections THEN we have a problem.

huntmup,

See that is the paradox regarding this discussion. If these results were just chance and it is not deflection, it speaks volumes for the lethality of this head, on marginal shots. I am really looking forward to 5shot's findings in his deflection testing.