Venison Chef

I started using NAP Spitfires last year. Took a nice doe, but was kind of unimpressed with the penetration. My son Steve put a good hit on another doe using the Spitfire, but did not appear to get good penetration, and was unable to recover the animal. He recovered the arrow and found only two of the blades had opened. On opening evening this year, I had a 20 yard quartering away shot at a doe. The shot was true, but when she blasted off I noted the arrow flopping around, with minimal penetration. I found the arrow about 20 yards from the point of impact, blood only a couple of inches up the shaft, and NONE OF THE BLADES OPEN! No blood trail, no recovery. Disgusted, I switched back to my old standard NAP Thunderheads and took a nice 6 point the following evening. Great penetration and blood trail, the buck only went 50 or 60 yards. I' m using 100 grain heads, shooting a 64 pound pull, and generating 230 fps. Has anyone else experienced this with Spitfires, or am I doing something wrong?

MA Jay

I haven' t had the same problems but 1 thing to be aware of is that the blades close whether the arrow backs out or blows right through. They always open in the deer. The act of pulling out closes the blades completely and due to the release of pressure when coming out the far side of the deer .. the blades spring closed as soon as the clear hide.

One thing I never did like was the fact that if you have an arrow penetrate a deer but not make it out the far side ... if that arrow slides backward a few inches the blades start to close and you no longer have any cutting surface moving around inside the deer as at is running away. Just like the fact that mechaicals are so much safer than fixed doesn' t get mentioned often .. I think this point gets looked over frequently .. as I would imagine a fixed head, razor sharp blade bouncing around the body cavity of a deer would do FAR more damage than any mechanical that has closed as the arrow started to back out.

Big John

A friend of mine glued his blades shut on a spitfire, to use as a practise head, and accidentally used that head to kill a buck. Double lung pass-thru, went 50yds and piled up. I don' t think your shot went where it was expected.

Venison Chef

Excellent point (no pun intended). However, when I recovered my arrow, I opened each of the blades. All had blood on the part of the blade that would show when closed, but each was clean where it was folded in, that is, on the cutting surface. I' m speculating that it hit a rib and somehow didn' t penetrate enough to open. At any rate, I' m staying with the fixed blades, which have never let me down. Anyone wanna buy some Spitfires cheap?

atlasman

Not knowing how heavy your arrows are I just calculated your Kinetic energy using a 350 grain and 400 grain arrow weight. The results were 41lbs at 350 and 47lbs at 400.

I don' t believe you are pushing enough kenetic energy to get full penetration with a mechanical head of any kind. They will fly straight and true but your lack of penetration and your sons are evidence enough that you should both be using a head designed for maximium penetration.

It' s sounds like your Thunderheads have been good to you........stick with them.

I am going to say this as politely as I can........A little bit of research on you or your sons part could have prevented 2 lost injured or dead deer. Live deer are not for testing out heads to see if they work.

Couldn' t reply without saying that........I hope you see I am just trying to help you........and the deer

tnichols

I was watching the H.S Strut Primetime7 DVD the other night. There were 2 hunts were the hunter was using spitfires. Both times penetration was minimal. The deer ran off with 1/2 the arrow sticking out.

Venison Chef

Atlasman, you could not be more correct. And I truly regret both my son' s and my experience. I don' t know how to calculate kinetic energy but would like to learn. Don' t know the grain weight of my arrow (seems like for a guy who' s bow hunted successfully for a few decades there' s quite a bit I don' t know), but it' s a 28 3/4" 2413 XX78. Any suggestions would be welcome.

CBM SC

Couldn' t have said that better myself !!
Your not pushing enough energy ! Spitfires are not a good choice for low KE set up' s , but for me at 70 # of KE they blow through deer like a hot knife through soft butter ! You need to know your set up' s capabilities !!

ricoace

Mr 4pt...Show em please

Rangeball

tnichols, I agree with you, on most videos I' ve watched in the Prime Time series, if penetration is minimal, the head is almost always a spitfire. However, on PT7, the first deer shot by Rick White is taken with a spitfire, complete pass through at about 25 yards broadside. They don' t get into the different bow set ups the guys are using, so one can only assume Rick' s is adequate, the others suspect for spitfire use.