I have a classic gun hunting book: "Shots at Whitetails." His coment on bullets is that he wants a bullet that uses its energy to damage the deer s.t. a perfect strike is one where the bullet falls out of the hide when the deer is skinned.

Applying this same theory to archery, I'd want enough blades with enough cutting radius such that all the energy of the arrow goes into cutting the deer and none embedding itself into the ground on the other side of the deer.

Unfortunately, since one hit changes so much compared to the next, I'd have to know ahead of time which hit I was going to get so I'd have the right broadhead for a particular hit.

Frank

I've had it both ways. First deer I shot was close to a front leg. When he ran, the motion of the leg moving the arrow back and forth did some damage. The arrow sticking out the side also hit a tree. You do have the potential to do more damage this way but it is a dumb way to go about it.

Look at it this way. How do you tune your equipment so the arrow penetrates just enough but doesn't pass through? I'd rather have enough power to break through stuff if I make a bad shot and hit heavy bone.

If we use real big expandibles, lighest shaft we can shoot & 40#s we should NOT get a pass through. We will have to be accurate so we don't get any "POOR" hits also..

I'm sticking with my Pass through is better.

Pass through by far, especially if you use mechs. My dad hit his bear square through both lungs this year, but the arrow lodged in the off shoulder due to the quartering away shot. It was a perfect hit, but the arrow didnt go through the shoulder. In fact the arrow popped out when the bear ran and left the blades of his Rage 2 blade in the bone... Anyway we had a heck of a time tracking the bear through cutover because the entry wound was high and it wasn't bleeding up there. We were lucky to find it cause we could track it through the messed up leaves. It went about 100 yrds through thick cutover, I know with a pass threw we would have had easier time finding it.

Arrows dont have the same mechanics that a bullet has, in theroy you want the bullet to impart the most energy(read -damage-) it can on the animal through expansion, thats why we shoot soft point bullets to get nice expansion & create more damage. Since the expansion factor of a broadhead is fixed regardles a pass threw is nice to give you the bleeding. The old school thought is just that, old school, If it was the case that old school is always right why dont we hunt w/ spears? In the case where you dont have a pass through, most of the time the arrow would break off or get pushed back out, leaving you one hole and not doing a bit of damage...

i wud agree...i dont see how there can be any way an entry hole could be better than both an entry and an exit