When I still shot Muzzy that was the way I did it as well.

I would not even consider reusing otherwise.

Personally, I've never killed a deer with a broadhead that hasn't been fired at least once into a foam target - just to verify that it's flying right on my arrow. If I haven't checked it, it doesn't go into my quiver.

Regarding the head "dulling down" after a practice shot or after going through a deer or into the dirt: If it's halfway reasonably sharp, it gets another test-fire and goes right back in the quiver.

Why? At350 fps, even a "dull" bladeis devastating. Kinda like a circular saw - the teeth aren'texactlyrazor sharp - but turnthe sawon and stick your fingers in there... See what happens.

I know I've told this story before - Ihave harvesteda doe with a Muzzy practice head a few years ago, when I caught some does crossing my path and inadvertently grabbed my practice arrow out of the quiver. Wound looked great, double-lung passthrough, good blood, deer down within 50 yards. I'd have never known that I used the wrong arrow if I didn't find it.

Obviously, given the choice between 2 alternatives - I would prefer a scalpel-sharp head. But, I'm not real anal about it. If I make a good shot, I'm confident that I could kill a whitetail with this:

There you have it, the reason for using sharp blades. Gospel.

Sharp is what a broadhead is designed to be. The sharper a head is the more damage is done with less trauma. When a body experiences trauma it immediately tries to fix the situation by sending coagulants to that area and will result in less blood loss.

As far as stone heads are conserned, there have been obsidian heads whose cutting surface was measured at 5 microns in width and to put that into perspective a surgeons scalpel on average is 25 microns in width. That puts the stone head 5 times sharper than a scalpel.

Also many native tribes believed that an arrow that missed held some sort of bad mojo and would never be reused.

Rogue

Once shot at a deer, that BH never gets used for hunting again! Just me.

just once in the ground will dull it enough that you should replace it . I only hunt with virgin broad heads , once they have hit anything they become practice heads

To be honest......it kinda (not that I'm really "cheap") became a $$ thing. I bought 3 packs of Rage 3 blades.....and yes....I reused a few heads AFTER sharpening the blades and testing the mechanics.

If I only shot 2-3 times a year....it would be a moot point (and...if replacement blades had been available).

Also....if the (I don't re-use) crowd would accept the premise tht the "I re-use" crowd would NEVER put a head on the end of their arrow that they weren't 100% confident in......we wouldn't need to have this conversation.

Let's put it this way.......

I'm MORE confident in the Rage 2-blade heads I DID re-use.....than I would be with most people's brand new, out of the box head.

So.....this is all relative.

I have reused the same arrow/broadhead combo on 2 of my last3 whitetail bucks and my latest caribou bull. Just make sure everything is straight (spin test carefully) andreplace the blades.

It would need to be resharpened or the blades replaced.

Nothing less!

Dan

I WOULD FIRST RE-SHARPEN THE BROADHEAD AND CHECK TO ENSURE IT IS NOT BENT. I RE USE MY BROAD HEADS AND HAVE A COUPLE THAT HAS HARVESTED DEER THE PAST 2 SEASONS. GOOD HUNTING.