What Happened???
 

Up in a tree about 18'. Downhill shot on a doe at 25 yards. I shoot and the doe runs off.Jumped like it had been hit. I watch it walk off for about 100 yards then out of site.
I get down from the tree to inspect the arrow.

Easton Axis with 100g NAP Hellrazor


The arrow is laying on the ground in three pieces right where the deer was when i shot at it.

* The nock end piece is about 4 inches long
* The center piece was about 6 inches long
* The remainder of the arrow had the broadhead attached
* All three pieces were found within 3 feet of each other
* The broadhead was in perfect condition and clean
* it was lying on the ground not stuck in it
* There was no blood, fat, dirt, anything on any of the pieces.
* Other than split into 3 clean pieces the arrow looked new
* There was no blood or hair on the ground
* I saw the deer stand in a spot about 40 Yards from the shot for about 2 minutes. No blood there at all. No blood anywhere.

What could possibly have happened????

broken arrow from the start. could of been cracked. be glad it didn' tbreak instantly, and go right through your hand.or worse. no damage to broadhead....no rock hit..

my bet is the arrow was cracked

I'd say it was a deflection. But, I don't think you'd have found the BH end, unless it hit something and dropped right there.

It still could have deflected and hit something sideways. But again, finding the BH end is mostly undeard of, IMO.

I mean it was crazy.
The 3 pieces were lined up in order. Broadhead and half of shaft facing away from me. 6 inches separated from the middle piece. Then the fletching piece just after that.

On a deflection, i would think that the pieces would be scattered all over the place.

When i have missed a target while practicing and hit a big rock the broadhead was messed up and the nock was popped out.

In this case the broadhead looked brand new and was clean. The nock was still in the end

I'm dumbfounded

Here's a possibility, I shot at a doe once at about the same height but at a closer range and missed low. I found my arrow clean with the exception of hair in the nock. I figured the deer dropped after the shot to bolt away and jammed its chest into the arrow. This could be what happened.

I would guesse from what you described you shot low and the deer stomped on the arrow when it ran off,

I 2nd that hypothesis...

^^So...he shoot low....and the arrow doesn't stick in the ground?

Only explanation for that is....the arrow didn't strike whatever it hit - BH end-first. Which means....you hit something that deflected it.

Give me another scenario where the BH isn't sticking in the ground (or didn't strike something on/in the ground - and damage the BH).

So GMMAT,
Arrow deflects enroute. possibly hits deer almost sideways. Deer steps on arrow a time or two?

Maybe. It sounds possible to me.

It would explain why all three pieces were found next to each other and why the broadhead is in perfect condition

That sounds possible. or maybe the deer kicked it? I shot a deer once and found the arrow stuck in the dirt at an angle exact opposite of how I shot it. The point was closer to me than the nock... it was weird.

I'm guessing the arrow broke when it hit whatever it hit in flight. Pure coincidence the pieces were close to one another.

Like I said, if you think of what it would take for a BH tipped arrow to NOT stick into SOMETHING......a deflection (in flight) is the only thing that makes sense.

It dont take much to deflect an arrow in flight.Small branch or thick weeds will do it.It just needs enough force to level the arrow out for it not to stick in the ground.Dont know where the OP is at but the grounds froze right now here making it even easier for a arrow not to stick in it.

An arrow breaking in flights gonna explode, its not gonna fall to the ground perfectly lined up with all the pieces within inches of each other.

Petasux
The ground around here was not frozen. In fact it really wasn't even frosty.
It really is so odd but i guess we will never know what happened

I had the same thing happen to me last week, I shoot gold tip expedition hunters and I have shot deer with these arrows and they have not broken.But the other day I was shooting at about dark I had 6 arrows all with the nockturnal lighted nocks on them I shot 5 of them and I had a good group, so I shot the last one and it went over the target and spun unnaturally.I recovered the arrow and found out that it must have been weak and it broke into 3 peices and I found them the same way u did.

Me too - I believe you hit low, arrow may have slapped the deer and she jumped and came down on your arrow breaking it.

4 or 5 years ago I bought my first dozen Beman carbon arrows & hit the range. The second arrow I loosed sounded & felt odd; it also struck the 3-d and fell to the ground. I found that the shaft seemed to have unwound in the middle and about 1/3 of the way back and was laying as you've described. Brand new arrow, first shot. I was nervous for the life of that dozen.

Im pretty open minded and you just reminded me of a dozen gold tips I had 4 or 5 years ago.Mine didnt break in flight but after the weather got below freezing I had {i think} 4 of them break 2/3 of the way down the shaft towards the nock end simply trying to get them back in the quiver.Odder yet was the fact where they broke it was a clean break, like someone had run them through a saw almost.Only thing I could figure was the shafts were defective to begin with and got somewhat brittle when they were exposed to below 0 temps enabling them to snap. So I could see a defective arrow breaking upon hitting the ground like that.