Can you kill deer with a 38# draw wieght
Whitetail Deer
I have a friend who is smaller and can only pull 38 pounds. Could he get a ethical kill
Yup. Keep the shot close and sharp COC broadhead.
Killed my first 7 deer with a 30lb bow, get them in close and it will work.
Is 30 yards close enough?
Killed my first with a 39# Wing target bow. Complete passthrough. So yes...
IS it a compound bow? What is his draw length?
If the answer to the first question is yes it doesn't matter about the second as long as he is pulling 23-24 inches or so.
And, if he can get stronger before next year, tell him to see that he does.
Yup sharp broadhead in the right spot makes a deer just as dead as a 70lb bow.
I meant to ask is 30 yards too far. And he is pulling 23 inches
30 yards (in my opinion) is probably too far; your arrow is not going to be delivering as much kinetic energy at that distance. Keep it under 20 yards and you'll be fine; some study I saw said that most bucks in the pope and young books are killed at roughly 20 yards. Good luck.
Yup, and you can kill a deer with a .22 LR as well. I wouldn't recommend either.
My wife shoots her compound at 38# and it serves her well..!!
if you can get close enough and hit him in a soft spot with the right head you can. nothing can go wrong at that weight for you go make it happen
Get close and shoot a coc broadhead and you'll be fine.
20 yards or less COC like a Magnus Stinger, that is shaving sharp. In my view you need to sharpen them to get them sharp enough
With the right head you will get better penetration than these jackwagons shooting expandables
40 yrs ago I kilt a doe with my 40lb recurve
My wife shoots 34lbs at 23.5 inches. She doesn't hunt much but I watched her shoot through a pig. Small pig but comparable to a deer. The shot was around 10 yards and she was shooting a 100 grain slick trick standard.
Matt I’ve killed a few deer with a .22 caliber bullet. Out of the 4 neither took a step. ;) placement, placement, placement.
38# at 23 inches is enough. I’d try to keep shots at 25 and less with a 15-20-25 pin setup. Lots of drop on slower bows especially if your pushing a 400+ grain arrow.
1boonr,
I've taken 5 "Boonrs" with a bow, and most of those that this particular jackwagon has taken were taken with expandables...but I usually try not to lower myself to the level of the ignorant that make such blanket statements, so I digress.
In our state, 30 pounds is legal for deer and even elk. As others have said, placement, short shot distance and a fixed cut on contact broadhead would probably be best with such a setup.
Yes, my wife, dad,son and neighbor have all arrowed whitetails with bows in the 30 # + range.
I get a kick out of people asking is it a compound? Don't matter 38#s is plenty with mot any bow even a self bow with a decent draw length. Get close, shoot a silly sharp two or 3 blade head(ecsp. a 3 to 1 ratio type) and put it where it counts and the bow will do fine. I have killed a lot of deer as well as coyotes and other critters shooting 42# recurve with a 340 grain arrow and shot through most of them. Shawn
The 45 pound recurve bows we used back in the day did not put out the KE and momentum of today's 35 pound compounds. They were the standard of the day and no one blinked an eye.
Stickflicker- I wasn’t making the point that expandables won’t kill booners. My point was that with the right broadhead you will get better penetration. If you watch any tv you might come to the conclusion that most of the animals shot run off with the arrow hanging out. Most of the deershot with fixed blades get better penetration. Now let me digress, A guy can shoot booners and still be a jackwagon.
Yup, killed my first deer with with a compound between 35 and 40lb, can't remember for sure. Muzzy 3 blade at about 15yrds. Didn't get complete pass through but got both lungs and he was down within 100yds.
joehunter - That's a cool classic picture...
met a native american hunter (female) at a show years ago. She hunted with a native american bow that drew 25 pounds at 24 inches draw she had photos of a lot of deer she killed (big ones too) with a lighter bow increase arrow weight and a sharp coc broad head and watch your distance No issues with 38 pounds
That’s a neat story sir misalot but it would scare the hell out me shooting a deer with 25#. My daughter is a hair over 21” draw and her arrows won’t penetrate a bag target until she’s over 25# draw weight. I know a deer is not made of burlap but geez. My question would be how many had she lost?
I will say on my daughters bow there is a very noticeable difference between 30&35 pounds. Even though 30 is my states minimum I think it’s borderline unacceptable unless you have a 25”+ draw length. With a short power stroke 30# is not enough. 38# our of any modern compound should be plenty.
Some states have a minimum draw weight of 45 lbs in their regulations ( I think Ohio does where I live) not sure why, just making u aware of it.
In Colorado legal draw weight for deer is 35#. My daughter has killed her last 2 bucks with 38#. In fact, both were shot in the heart and traveled less than my son's or my deer which were 72# and 54#.
Shot placement is more of an issue. She limits her shots to about 18 yards as well.
Can you kill with a 38 pound draw bow? Depending on what animal you are talking about, yes you can as many have demonstrated. That, however, does not make it a good idea. I think it would be preferable for your friend to work on improving their upper body strength so that they can handle a bow with a more modest draw weight even if that means sitting out a season or two.
I have killed three whitetails with a recurve that draws 39# and 28". 20 yards and under with Magnus Stinger. DRT
"That’s a neat story sir misalot but it would scare the hell out me shooting a deer with 25#. My daughter is a hair over 21” draw and her arrows won’t penetrate a bag target until she’s over 25# draw weight. I know a deer is not made of burlap but geez. My question would be how many had she lost? I will say on my daughters bow there is a very noticeable difference between 30&35 pounds. Even though 30 is my states minimum I think it’s borderline unacceptable unless you have a 25”+ draw length. With a short power stroke 30# is not enough. 38# our of any modern compound should be plenty."
I should have added she said her average shot distance was 8-10 yards
Just how much “smaller” IS this dude???
I’m smaller than most every other adult male I’ve ever met - 5’4” and about #130 these days - and after 54 years on this rock, I’ve met a few.
I draw about #53@27” on my hunting bows, of which 2 are Recurves and 1 LB.
So topping out at #38@23” seems a bit unambitious, barring a medical issue...
Anyway, yeah.... a moderately heavy arrow and a good, sharp COC would be in order.
And JMO, anybody who thinks Magnus Stimgers need any touch-up work right out of the package is either full of something unrelated to Wisdom, or is someone I’d gladly pay money to in exchange for sharpening lessons. Those beasties are so sharp that I don’t think they’re safe enough to use in my favorite quivers.
But yeah - if he’ll stick to Tradbow ranges and shoot straight, he should be fine (where legal)...
Magnus Stingers are fairly sharp out of the package but not scary sharp. I would touch them up if I shot them. 38#s with a real short draw like 20"s or so may be borderline but I would say 23"s will do the trick! Shawn
If you're old enough you might recall a target shooting lady named 'Midge' Danridge. She was featured in an ad with a then-new compound she used to take an eland in Africa. Draw weight 42 pounds. The eland is about the size of an American elk. So, yeah, modern bow, 38 pounds, deer.
GF, you' spot on on most things, but my 2 blade heads get touched up on an Arkansas extra fine stone if they've even been in and out of the quiver a couple of times. I like em razor blade sharp
All I’m sayin’ is that if you’re talend enough to improve on a factory-fresh Stinger, my hat is off to you! I opened up the tip of my index finger (bow-hand, thankfully) on the first day of an Elk trip and that sucker bled for 3-4 days ‘til I superglued it shut.
I do not have the skills to improve on that. Full stop. I might be wrong about the heads, but I’m quite certain that I’m right about ME.
GF I drew I high demand New Mexico elk tag in 2012. I drove an hour and a half back in to the middle of nowhere, and 4 hours from a hospital. Set up camp and started shooting my bow. I had a piece of crap target that you nearly had to stand on to get arrows out. Pulling out my Magnus stingers the trailing edge, leading when pulling out of the target, got every one of my fingers on my left hand. I didn’t even have a first aid kit. I about passed out and it wasn’t the blood, the thought of a ruined hunt was making me sick. Thank goodness the old timer with me had a well stocked first aid kit. We got it to quit bleeding and taped it up well and got ready to hunt. I learned a lot of lessons in that incident.
38 is plenty, my daughter killed her first whitetail this past year with less than that... as mentioned earlier, pick a good COC head.
My kids killed several deer back in the day with youth bows shooting around 40 pounds with under 25 inch draw lengths. Today's short draw bows are much faster than the Parker buckshot and Alpine Micro they where shooting. None of the deer complained they will killed with wimpy bows.
