Taking game with field points
Equipment
With all the debate on which broadhead is best and why I got to wondering.... How many of you have taken game with field points? I took a few woodchucks and a bird or two.
I shot a sucker in the creek one with once
Many rabbits and Prarie dogs have fallen to my field points, never a big game animal though.
Lots of bunnies, pheasants, chukar and squirrels. Also frogs, rats, a couple of raccoons. Scooby
I shot a squirrel one time. I hit him right where I was aiming. Only, instead of killing him instantly, it pinned him to the bank of a creek. He was screaming and flailing helplessly. I had to finish him by wringing his neck. It was by far the most guilt I've ever felt over killing an animal.
Rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, grouse, and assorted other small game animals. Also used steel and rubber blunts to kill these. Steel field points will kill all these animals, sometimes you end up pinning them to the ground or to a tree.
Have killed a lot of rabbits and other small game and even carp with field points. They don't work that great. My boy and I have fun with voles and field mice off the deck and most of the time they just pin them to the ground unless you hit them in the head or spine. Judo's and steel blunts work a lot better.
Many years ago as a youngster I shot ruffed grouse and snowshoe hares with them.
They are about as bad a choice as you can make. Unless you make a perfect shot, you merely punch a non-bleeding hole. If it hadn't been for snow, I would not have recovered many hares.
My son's first archery deer was shot with a field point by mistake! Thankfully it was a perfect double lung shot on a small doe. He had 2 field points for squirrel in his quiver and was about to shoot one when the deer entered the picture. The doe fell about 60 yards from the tree.
Where I hunt judos would be a joke, they would never get through the brush, blunts work very well however. Scooby
Turkeys, pheasants, chukars back in the early 90s
I've killed a lot of rabbits with them. But avoid it these days. I pinned one to a log a couple years ago and it screamed while running in place. Had to kill it with a rock because it was in thorn brush plus I didn't want to lose another arrow to the log.
They're super lethal if you can hit them in the brain consistently. I've had rabbits run a long way with a field point still stuck through them.
Only on gophers and then only because you can pin them in place rather than have them dive, wounded, down their hole. Step on them, pull the arrow and kick the carcass into the open for bait.
I've had the best luck with G5 Small Game Heads (SGH). But they become expensive if there are rocks in the area.
Squirrels, frogs, fish, bumble bees and butterflies. ;)
Back when I shot a compound for a year or two before going back to a recurve, I shot a squirrel with a field point. The arrow hit just about the short ribs and about half stuck out each side. It ran to a hole at the base of a tree but couldn't fit with the arrow. In my 20 something year old wisdom, I decided I would grab the squirrel with my right hand just in front of the hind legs, pull the arrow out with my left hand as I pulled him out of the hole and then thump his head up against the tree all in one smooth move. Worked great until he was free of the hole. Before I could thump him, he had doubled back on my arm and went to chewing vigorously. Fortunately I was wearing a pair of insulated coveralls and he had to chew through them to draw blood. I danced all over the hillside trying to shake that limb rat off my limb. I did manage to get free before he got all the way through the coveralls.
I quit shooting squirrels with field points after that. ;)
Nope. When it's killin time, I'm going to kill as quickly and humanely as possible. I use cut on contact broadheads for groundhogs and anything bigger, and the same broadheads or Magnus small game heads for squirrels, rabbits, and such.
For those of you who use them... why? Because they've cheap?
Had a client one year kill a bull with a field point. Complete accident, missed him the first time up close, and as the bull wheeled to run, I hammered him with calls. Guy was excited, reached back to his back quiver, grabbed an arrow, nocked it, drew back and released. Bull went less then 100 yards, but the blood trail was iffy.
Worst head possible for small game. A .38 Special (or .357 Mag) empty shell casing with 4 .177 lead pellets swaged into the head installed on a 23/64" wood shaft makes a great head. It works even better if you add a couple of finish nails driven through perpendicular to the casing you have a cheap 'judo type head. I clip off the protruding nails to about 3/8" beyond the casing. PRE-drill the nail holes with a tiny bit to make nail installations easier. We killed hundreds of cottontails with these, sometimes over one weekend with 8 to 15 bowhunters. . For jack rabbits you need broadheads.
For trad bows, I use steel glue on blunts. For compounds, I use screw in blunts.
I used field points for small game when i was young. Minus a head shot, they rarely killed quickly. A blunt does better if hit in a vital arrow. Plus you never loose the arrow due to pass through's. Also a blunt keeps you from losing arrows due to ricochet's too.
God Bless men
Back in the 70's and 80's the availability of archery equipment was really limited.
I remember making blunts by pushing a spent pistol case over a field/target point. Usually just crimp them on with pliers.
We actually made "bird points" with them by drilling two holes across the casing and then inserting nails across for a wider "pattern". Kind of looked like the "Turkey Guillotine" points that they sell now. One of my neighbors was a welder and got fancy - built some with wire loops. They worked really well on flying birds and would even kill a rabbit pretty well. I think I still have some of those that he made up somewhere.
They were heavy and I think that we would have had a lot more success if we had more options for arrows and could have used a stiffer spine to get them to fly better. Just used the same cedar arrows that we used for our recurves with 125 or 150 grain glue on points.
Probably didn't get a Judo point until I was in college and there were a couple of real archery shops to buy stuff from. Found out how much I didn't know about archery!
I use blunts, but a friend has slain many a blue grouse with FP's.
With an adder head behind it I've shot squirrels... But I dont think I've ever shot an animal with just a field point...
A few small game animals but went to 38 cartridge & Rubber blunts worked much better for small game.
Shot a rabbit once with a field point...then I shot it again...and again...and again...and then I had no more arrows and it was still alive and couldn't move because it looked like a pincushion. So I pulled one out and shot it again. I was a kid, but that was the last field point I ever sent at any animal. Now I save dull broadheads and expandables etc to shoot at small game, and even squirrels and chickens get a judo.
Back in the Day 40+ years ago the only blunt available was a spent casing I recall using a 30-30 casing on the end of my wood arrows with my Bear Kodiak Mag receive waking the bunny's on the back roads in the head lights of my older brothers car with Ted Nugget Blaring on the 8 track. Man in those day hunting was hard. Those were not the Good Old DAYS!
When my son starting bow hunting at 9 we hunted South Texas and started killing rabbits with our cheep broadheads spot and stalking them after the deer hunts. Now that was a lot of fun. Now those were the Good Old DAYS!
Couple ground squirrels. Both I had to kill with my boot. Judos are much more effective. It's counterintuitive because you'd think that a hole that size would be the equivalent of shooting an 80mm cannon into a man, but a squirrel can have a lot of life left in it after a field point while no one's walking away from the 80mm to the gut.
Rubber blunts and judos,I have never shot at any game with a field point.
A couple birds and ground squirrels. Much prefer judo heads..... I can usually find em later...
Killed a bunch of things with the poor man's judo, a flat washer screwed on under a FP. Hit's with some pretty good wallop and doesn't bury in the grass too bad. Much bigger than a rabbit I like broadheads.
I have used a flat washer also with a steel blunt,works well and cheap.
