Michael Waddel is hunting the HooRay Ranch in KS. watches shooter after shooter. second morning High 150's strolling right to him. gives him a 20 yd quartering away shot and he hits him about 12" behind the shoulder *perfect* the deer runs off and is not even hurt - Not at all. his arrow literally bounced off the deer. supposedly got a trail cam picture of the buck with a cut right where he was hit.
not sure about his equipment - but this was a definate failure all together.
He's a pretty big buy so i guess he is pulling 70lbs. my guess it light arrow and a big mechanical cost him that buck....
I did not see the show, but from what you described, I agree with your assessment. I'll add that the deer was quartered away at more of an angle than what he thought, and what the camera angle showed.
I saw this episode. My opinion: shot placement was perfect for hard quartering away, but the broadhead struck a rib and rode the rib forward, dissipating energy without penetrating the chest cavity. Later trail camera photo showed a long gash in the buck's ribs with some loose hanging flesh, supporting the "rib-riding" theory.
Here ya go....simple Google search helped narrow it down. This link has info for 2017, but you can see exactly what his setup is/was. For quite some time, he has been using G5 broadheads, as midwest mentioned above. Says he and his buddy T-Bone like the Deadmeat mechanical. I hate to ruin it for the "Rage are the devil" folks, but it just goes to show that there are no slam dunks shots, when you're shooting an arrow at a live animal. Carry on, folks! :-)
Winch “aoaaaah that was bit to far back” happens to many times on those need a kill shows. was just driving production cost thru the roof, what with multiple blood tracking dogs and an small army looking for paunch shot deer. smak wak daddy Waddle has come up with a paunch sensitive arrow, it wouldn’t penetrate the spongy paunch area of a deer, saves embrassing poor shot and next morning explanations and tracking expense. And the ensuing beat down from the paying peanut gallery. Waddle Doddle for the win-win.
You couldn't pay me to shoot mechanical heads. Tune the bow and it will shoot fixed blade heads just fine, with no worries of a mechanical head failure.
I believe it was this same shooter that was shown on a TV show about 4 months ago taking a very long shot (maybe 80 yards?) at an elk, broadside, hitting it square in the back leg. The shooter explained it as "when you take long shots they sometime move before the arrow gets there". I was appalled they would show such a shot on TV.
1boonr, the very next comment after mine was an example of a fixed head riding ribs. So far on this thread there is 1 mech and 1 fixed. I shoot bothmech and fixed as both have their advantages and disadvantages. I've seen many photos of fixed heads riding ribs. Somewhere I can't remember where I saw almost a gallery of them. Fixed heads can also deflect with the best of em.
I've had it happen with a NAP Spitfire, one blade opened and zipped the deer hide open like you took a scissors to him, from mid chest all the way up his neck and nearly to his ear. Shot #2 was with a rage, as always he didn't go far after that :)
I had a Thunderhead ride down a rib on an 8 pointer. I was about 15 ft up in a tree with the buck about 7 yds away. Saw the arrow hit the deer perfect, low light level, assuming I had a dead deer. I got down, found my arrow with just some tallow on it. Saw the same buck a week later with a 12 inch vertical gash in his chest.
FWIW.... on a very short, quarter-away shot, I had a Nosler Ballistic Tip (7-08, 140 grn) open up and ricochet back out off of the rib of a perfectly ordinary CT doe whitetail. Zero penetration inside of the chest cavity.
So while it’s easier to envision it happening with an open-on-contact mechanical (and while I’m certainly never going to recommend one to anyone at any time for any reason)....
Seems like every time you think you’ve seen it all, something will come down the pike and amaze you.
Just a guess that whole the POINT of impact might have been great, the ANGLE of entry/impact was (evidently) just too shallow.
Mechanical broadheads and quartering shots, happens a lot. That's the second one I've seen on TV, I bet a bunch get edited out. Broadhead is pushed parallel by the blade opening.
had same thing happen to me on a really big whitetail in 2007 (shooting rage but it could happen with any mechanical) on quartering away shot. Switched to COC VPA heads, and never had an issue since. Of course I was told by many my bow wasn't tuned! LMAO.
I had a Thunderhead ride down a rib on an 8 pointer. I was about 15 ft up in a tree with the buck about 7 yds away. Saw the arrow hit the deer perfect, low light level, assuming I had a dead deer. I got down, found my arrow with just some tallow on it. Saw the same buck a week later with a 12 inch vertical gash in his chest.
"All Broadhead can do it. A coc head might be the biggest culprit." I fail to see how it would be biggest culprit? A razor sharp COC 3 blade is not skipping anything. I would think a fixed chisel point like a thunderhead would potentially do that before a COC head?
Had a Zwickey Delta (cut on contact) ride down the ribs of a nice CO whitetail buck once. Trailed him a measured 5 miles in the snow. Not hurt per pheasant hunters that saw him, and per the very sparse blood trail.
Had a 3-blade Rocky Mt Iron Head replaceable blade head slide along the ribs and into the armpit of a black bear. Got the bear but he was alive when I found him. They all can do it as APauls says.
Jack, let me fix this. I should have said a 2 blade COC head. I disagree about the chisel tip thing but, that doesn’t really matter. That’s not what this is about.
You might be right on the 3 blade not deflecting. But, any COC head will curl and smash at the tip if it hits something wrong. Guess what happens when they do?
I seriously doubt a rib hit will cause that on any animal, at any angle if the arrow is tuned. But, I don’t know that. What I do know is I’ve killed a bunch of deer with compounds and trad bows. Shooting all kinds of Broadheads. And this is my opinion.
"any COC head will curl and smash at the tip if it hits something wrong."
Mmmmmm, not necessarily, that is the reason to chisel COC heads to prevent tip curling... It's a simple process, but I know most here are compound shooters with mechanical of replaceable heads, chiseling COC tips is more of a traditionist thing... Take a look at the picture I posted, that is a COC Bear Ravorhead, notice it did not deflect...
I agree with APauls. I know for a fact it has happened to me, at least once. A dandy 5x5 at less than 20 yds., and a perfect quartering away shot. A chip shot really. My point of aim was just in front of the last rib on the deer's left side. Looking back, I should have aimed behind the last rib. The arrow hit the rib and rode the rib's, to it's point of exit in front of the chest. It never entered the chest cavity, and there was very little blood. My brother seen that very same buck a week later, tending a doe, and he was fine. The broadhead I was using at that time was a Thunderhead 125.
Think about arrow oscillation - if both ends of the arrow are pointed away from the animal when it hits, that changes the angle of impact appreciably...
I had a Shwacker do that on a buck at 15 yards. Shot him again a few weeks later with a .308 and peeled back the cape to find the Shwaker trocar point pokked through the hide and the blades never opened.
I wonder if two issues further compound the likelihood of deflection, regardless of broadhead type - arrow weight and angle combination? By angle combination, I mean the deer's quartering body angle, combined with the additional angle from an elevated height. I am not trying to start a separate debate regarding heavy vs. light arrows, - just wondering if these factors might exacerbate the issue.
SMH Zbone. A chiseled tip isn’t a COC head. It’s a head with a chiseled tip. No matter if it’s a big chisel or not. No matter if you filed it. If the company did it. It’s been done for a friggin reason. To keep the dang tip from bending over on contact with bone.
WV Mountaineer - Not talking about replaceable so-called "Chisel" tips, am talking about "chiseling" (filing) cut on contact, fixed broadheads... If you don't understand, search over on the LeatherWall, there is plenty of references over there...
Pretty sure it happened to me 2 seasons ago on a Wyoming elk. 10 yard slightly quartering toward shot. Put it right behind the shoulder. Arrow fell out a few seconds later when the bull hopped a tree. Saw him walking up the hill with a red spot on his side 10 min later. Placement was great, but we only found one patch if blood on the ground where he bedded for a while. Fixed blade G5 Stryker.
RutnStrut, I think it is well acknowledged and accepted that when an animal is hit and lost it is - A( if it was a fixed head the shooter screwed up. B( if it was a mechanical, the head screwed up.
"Fixed heads have rode ribs many times before. They aren't immune either." This happened to my hunting buddy a couple years ago on a UP black bear with a Prime compound and Steel Force fixed head. Quartering away and the arrow skimmed right off. Little bit of blood on the BH and nothing else to show for it. Some have a knee jerk against mechanical heads, but it is not a blanket statement.
Zbone, Are you dense. I understand what you are talking about. I’ve chiseled more then a few Snuffer and woodsman heads. It is no longer a coc tip when you do this. It a dang chisel tip. Doesn’t matter how big it is. It’s a chisel tip head.
Unfortunately Zbone, unless you know what angle that shot was taken at, we don't know if the arrow deflected or not. We just know how it is calcified in the ribcage. Could be that the shot was taken with a badly tuned bow at a much more broadside angle and when it hit just inside the furthermost left rib it deflected to run the inside of the ribs.
It is my opinion that a badly tuned bow will lend itself to more chance of deflections especially at close range. At close ranges, the vanes or feathers haven't quite corrected the archers paradox out of the arrow and if it comes from a badly tuned bow ie: the arrow is mule kicking or something and then impacts on one side of a rib or something you have a much better chance of deflection. If your bow is tuned perfectly and your arrow has fully "straightened out" over the course of lets say 30 yards I think you have a much lesser chance of deflection. I'm sure most of our arrows deflect a lot more than we think in the body cavities of animals, it's just with a well placed arrow we don't really care.
“It is my opinion that a badly tuned bow will lend itself to more chance of deflections especially at close range.”
Sorry to disagree with you, Ike, but that’s not just yer damn ‘pinion! That are a FAKT!
Elmer Keith was preaching the virtues of big, heavy, flat-nosed bullets on hard, “raking” angles when most of us were little kids - if we even WERE at all!
“I wonder if two issues further compound the likelihood of deflection, regardless of broadhead type - arrow weight and angle combination? By angle combination, I mean the deer's quartering body angle, combined with the additional angle from an elevated height. ”
In a word, YES. If you hit a rib at 90 degrees from the ground, it’s about 1/2” thick. If you hit a rib along its length from a steep, downward angle, you could end up trying to drive though 6” of bone. And if you hit below the widest part of the ribcage, the bone is arcing away from the arrow’s line of travel.
Can see I need to bow out of this thread, but agree it depends on the severity of the angle and have skipped COC 2-blades off the ground before while target practicing, but bet a clipped chisel tipped 3-blade like a Snuffer, Woodsman, VPA, etc., is less likely to deflect than any mechanical out there...
But honestly, I think WIDTH is an issue. Coming in at a shallow angle, the wider the head, the greater the potential for it to trip over a wingtip and go tumbling... Convex designs would be worse; straight-edged are probably next and a convex/journeyman type might have a bit of an advantage....
My son had a muzzy cut on contact fixed blade ride the ribs of a kudu in Africa the shot placement was absolutely perfect he was shooting a 500 grain arrow out of an 80 lb Hoyt defiant. He ended up getting the animal after shooting it again.
Water should be easier to penetrate than bone, right? What happens when you throw a cut-on-contact rock at a hard angle to water? It skips along several times.
Without a study, saying COCs or Mechs are better or worse at this is just a guess.
My guess is the angle of the shot and possibly the angle of the BH's blades have far, far more to do with it than whether it's a Mech or COC BH.
I shot a small WT buck about 5 years back with a Muzzy 3 blade on a very hard quartered away shot. The arrow submersed in the skin behind the last rib, deflected off the rib, and exited on the same side. There was scant blood/fat on the entire arrow. I saw the buck two days later and got a good look at him and he had two holes about 5 inches from each other.
He walked the exact same trail and I chose not to make the same mistake twice and I won't shoot more than a 45 degree angle on anything anymore unless I'm directly above them, below them, or shooting them in the chest - something to give my BH something with a good flat angle to hit.
Scoot, how would you set up a study that would include all the variables one would expect in real world hunting conditions involving the average of hunters and skills that are out there?
If you read this entire thread and factor our the personal snark......it seems pretty clear that shot angle has more to do with this than type of head. It really does boil down to geometry....angle of animal, angle of hunter from elevated stand or ground, blade angle of select BH and how BH is flying due to tune/paradox/poor release.....lots of factors in a very dynamic system. Shooting thin wood over gel, steel drums, cement blocks, etc, really does not simulate a live animal that can react to the shot and change all the angles in the time it takes for an arrow to fly 15-40 yards. Plain and simple.....it ISN'T plain nor simple.
“how would you set up a study that would include all the variables one would expect in real world hunting conditions involving the average of hunters and skills that are out there?”
Skill level has nothing to do with it; this would be a study of what can go wrong when it all hits the fan. And unfortunately, it’s really hard to set up a controlled experiment to study a SHTF kind of a wreck.
But think of it this way: if you take a head that has blades that run at a 45° angle to the axis of the shaft, and you strike a flat surface with the axis of the shaft at a 45° angle to the surface you’re hitting, then in essence, you’re trying to push the FLAT of the blade into your target.
And if you break the force vector (along the shaft of the arrow) into its 2 components, then one of them goes straight INTO the target and one goes ALONG the surface of it.
So instead of pushing the pointy tip of your arrow into the target Full-Force, you're now trying to push the entire blade through it sideways with 1/2 the KE behind it.
So it stands to reason that the longer the blade and the flatter the angle, the greater the probability of a Bad Outcome.
And when a super-wide BH trips over a wingtip, you now have the center of mass of that arrow tumbling AWAY from the side of the animal.
With a convex edge, though, all of the force is distributed to the target via a single point along that curve, rather than the entire, flat surface of the blade.
Which is why a 60-year-old 2-blade COC design can out-penetrate the latest & greatest mechanical head with 3X the KE behind it....
Best bet is to avoid shots that are getting too close to a 45-degreee angle... if you’re using a shallow-attack BH design.
But you have to think 3-dimensionally about the shapes of the ribs (cross-sectionally) and the shape of the ribcage overall. If the shot is real close, you need to aim through the backstraps...
Once with a standard Muzzy 3 blade I had a delfection after passing through the ribs. The arrow entered high....almost backstrap high and exited only a few inches lower on the opposite side of the ribcage. The head then turned 90 degrees and travelled between the hide and the ribs and exited in the arm pit. Craziest thing I've ever seen personally. It was a lucky shot that caught just enough lung.
GF, it wasn't really a question and I already know the answer. I was thinking about re-opening an old debate that would be useless and pointless. Thankfully, not long after posting, I was walking through the garage and spied a 1" X 10" X 16" slab of plywood and I gave myself about ten or so ( lost count near KO) good solid drives on the forehead. I'm over it now.
I wish I had taken pictures of my muzzle loader deer from some years ago. She had a crossbow bolt under her scapula. It didn't slow her down mush but there ash did have some broad head rash on a couple ribs. Odd things do happen.
This may have the odor of unburying the Ashby debate concerning arrow weight......but what about fish arrows skipping on water. I'm not a carper, but a few buddies have done a bunch of it over the years with rigged out boats and such.....and never reported a skip off water. Very stout fiberglass shaft and long nosed point with an "expandable" barb to hold the fish. Hmmmm.....how does that fit into your bonnet....fixed blade only proponents???
I have killed close to 100 animals of all types with my recurve/longbow and cut on contact broadheads. I have never had an arrow bounce off an animal. I also refuse to take severe quartering away shots. There should be a few take home messages from this thread!
Regarding quartering away shots ...the one thing I absolutely hate to do at all costs is gut shoot a deer or elk. Thus I screwed up on my last shot on an elk. He was quartered away at 30 yards and, as I settled the pin midway on his body which would have been behind the ribs on entry, I moved it a bit forward so as not to impact the abdominal cavity. So what happened?...when it impacted there was an audible rib "whack" with marginal penetration. Sparse blood trail with no recovery. Thus in the future, if the only shot is quartering away, I'll figure on going through a bit of intestines, through the liver and into one lung. It certainly wasn't a broadhead issue. I use a good COC broadhead which I've taken a number of elk with.
If you’re talking about trying to get through a great big bag full o’ grass... you might want to reconsider.
And for that matter, I don’t know why you would ever opt for a single-lung hit +liver when you have the option of a single-lung + heart.
The Mission is to cross the midline of the animal in the center of the 10 ring. If you can’t see that or visualize it, then you have a No Shot.
And if you can only visualize it by holding aft of the rib cage, then you have most likely exceeded the 45° angle that you should be looking at as your maximum.
