Broadhead destruction (Hammerhead)

[DuckHunt]

I'm a big fan of the large 2" cut 3-blade expandable broadheads. The Rocket Hammerhead is a relatively inexpensive head that I've had great luck with over the years with multiple Excalibur crossbows. By experience, I have resorted to double-banding them with fresh 1/4 dental bands each season. Barring contact with heavy bone, even my Micro 335 has no issue pushing them through a deer.

The area that I hunt in Northern Virginia is mountainous and has a lot of rocks. Most of the time if an arrow passes through the broadhead will contact rock and get trashed. At the very least, it will get bent slightly which still makes it trash. The Hammerhead that I shot Saturday has me scratching my head a little.

Its obvious that it came into contact with a rock which sheared off the tip and bent the end of the ferrule. That doesn't concern me because its par for my course. What surprises me is that all three blades are broken at roughly the same spot. The end result is a broadhead with a little more than a 1" cutting path. For those unfamiliar with a 2" 3-blade cut, here it is next to a fresh one.

As you can see, about half way down each blade the depth gets thinner. It seems that all three blades sheared off right at the point where the depth gets thinner. It sort of makes me wonder if the crossbow might be pushing the head a little harder than it was designed to handle. This particular head came into contact with nothing harder than rib bone while passing through the deer. Here is the entrance wound as seen from the inside:

One of the large blades was certainly intact at this point because it entirely severed a rib. Its hard to tell about the other two blades but they left nice cuts as well. Now the exit wasn't quite as impressive. Here is the inside of the ribs at the exit point near the bottom:

It's hard to tell that a 3-bladed broadhead exited here. It's still a decent cut and the buck didn't make it 70 yards and was down very quickly.

The fact that all three blades broke so uniformly seems odd to me. They all certainly could have been broken when the arrow struck rocky soil, but the pictures above make me question if they were all intact upon exit.

I'm not going to argue with success, because the recovery rate for deer we've shot with Hammerheads is near 100% and blood trails are generally short. But I will pay closer attention to performance of the blades on this model of broadhead as I send more downrange. It could be a fluke.

[Normous]

Could be a fluke , but it is hard to speculate. The proof is in the pudding and your deer is headed to the freezer.

Back in the day the limited edition Rocket Hammerhead 4 blade 2" x 2" cut was by far my favorite broadhead and left some of the largest entry and exit X holes in deer that I have ever seen. Recovery was short and blood trails easy to follow.

I might add that I have talked to Rocket twice over a 3 year period at the ATA Show to bring back the 4 blade Hammerhead without success.

My most recent buck was shot with the SWAT X MAG 2 x 1.75 " cut and left the most amazing blood trail that I have ever seen.

[longbow joe]

Basically 90% of these things are made in china. Who knows what the tempering quality control is.
Now that the spitfires are "China cheap " I'm gonna use the xact cut from now on , they are kind of pricey but the quality far surpasses most any other expandable by far and no bands are ever needed from our bows.
Just be glad it worked and did its job.
I used the rockets at one time they had a big cut but l found them to be a little weak also they indeed kill very good but l had a few broken blades also .I know that one band doesn't work even in a whimpy vixen they opened on me lol.

[Hester0305]

It does appear the blades have sheared off at the same spot which will make a person shake their head a little trying to figure out what happened. Looks like the broadhead did it's job until it struck something hard. The NAP FOC 170 gr. that I shoot will destroy ribs and even shoulders with the 3 inch cutting diameter worse than any head that I've ever used with awesome blood trails. The Hammerheads look like they do a good job from your pictures for what they're designed to do. Congrats again on your buck

[gerald strine]

The aluminum feral s do not seam tough enough for x bow work for my liking but it killed the deer,
I reuse my slick trick heads all the time just put in new blades and good to go, I could most likely reuse the blades in a lot of cases but I like razer sharp new blades.

[LongCarbine]

I was using them last year and had two of them snap off . I got both arrows back in good shape just no B.H or deer .Both were angled shots. I place some blame on me but I never had a head snap off at the threads before.