First off, for deer, 600 gr is ridiculous. It is a waste of energy. It serves no purpose an all. Arrow speeds should dictate arrow weight. As a bow's ability to cast an arrow does down, the arrow weight should go up. As the bow's speed goes up, the arrow weight can be raised to achieve certain things. So a bow's higher speeds can be used to carry a higher arrow weight for bigger animals like big animals in African or bison. A fast bow can be used with moderately light arrows for hunting situations that require long shots like Antelope or coyotes. But there's no reason to increase arrow weight incrementally just for the sake of a heavy arrow.
Dr Ashby was right on the money for the day but he is less relevant today with todays faster crossbows. That's the story I'm sticking too.
Not ridiculous. The title of this thread is "What's the Downside of a 600gr arrow for deer". Your only point seems to be that you disagree. Or maybe that it's not required. BUT that whole premise is based on the idea that every hit will be a perfect broadside double lung shot where MAYBE you have to pass through a deer rib....which isn't all that tough. The heavy arrow is for when you don't make the perfect hit either because the deer moved or whatever and you hit something hard. It will allow you to still pass through....this causing the max damage the arrow can....which results in a MUCH higher percentage of kills and not just hits.
Kinda like a seat belt. They don't make much sense or do anything but annoy you if you never crash.
Google some studies on archery wounding percentage over time. Back when guys used heavy arrows and trad bows the wounding percentage was pretty low...like 10% or 15%. Since the advent of compounds and the shift to lighter arrows, many studies from different states show that it is somewhere around 50% right now. Some of these studies are recent enough to include crossbows.
Keith, would you use a 600 be arrow in an original Relayer? XB has a valid point in matching the arrow to the game but you will be limited by what the bow can efficiently cast. I kinda understand you wanting to prepare for a bad shot but 600 is not required for shoulders other than near or at the joint. There are plenty of guy shooting at the shoulder passing through both sides using 450 gr arrows. At 600 grains you're approaching elephant arrow weights. The downside of a super heavy arrow is flatness of trajectory and the wider margin of error. A 150 lb deer with a 600 grains? What weight do you propose for an elephant? What was your arrow weight when you took the bison? The buck I shot last year was with a 425 grains arrow going 380 ft/sec. It leaned away loading its legs to dodge my shot. The arrow entered very high in the rib cage and proceeded to demo it's spine. If my arrow was 600 grains, I doubt it would have made contact with the deer. I'd much rather prepare for that scenario which is more common than hitting the toughest part of a deer's body. We all.make choices in respect to what if but I think the high shoulder hit is a fairly low percentage one.
I actually calculated the speed, KE and Momentum for my Micro yesterday starting at 335fps and 350gr, then went up every 10grains. I wanted to see where the max KE was (as that is only useful to see available energy and then where max Momentum was. KE topped out at about 94ft lbs at 610grains and max Momentum was somewhere around 820gr or something. Max KE is kind of a measure of bow efficiency. SO I hear you, but the data says a much heavier arrow is "optimal" from an available energy standpoint.
I shot the last bison with a 525 gr arrow from my Micro at 30 yards. Hit 1 rib but that's it. Barely passd through. Was lying right where the bison stood.
Keith
Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths; where the good way is,
and walk in it and find rest for your souls. - Jer 6:16
"Google some studies on archery wounding percentage over time. Back when guys used heavy arrows and trad bows the wounding percentage was pretty low...like 10% or 15%. Since the advent of compounds and the shift to lighter arrows, many studies from different states show that it is somewhere around 50% right now. Some of these studies are recent enough to include crossbows."
When I googled wounding percentage for deer with archery equipment, I found that most of the studies put the wounded and lost rate at under 20%. The only one I saw with a wounding rate near 50% was by an animal rights group. It doesn't make sense to me that modern archery equipment with adjustable sights, scopes and better broadheads would lead to more than doubling the wounded rate.
By the way, thanks for starting this thread. We need discussions like this in the off season and and we all gain knowledge from the lively discussions.
Here's one article that discusses several studies. It's pretty confusing. In an OH survey of bowhunters, they say the recovery rate for crossbow hunters was 60% and for compound shooters it was 56%, but the overall wounding rate was 18.5%. What??? I guess they mean that most of the unrecovered deer died? Odd they way it's worded.
https://www.bowhuntingmag.com/editorial/do-crossbows-wound-more-or-less-deer/387116
This references the studies from 1958 and 1963 where the rates were 10% and 7%
https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/content/articles/fate-of-deer-truth-bowhunting-wounding-rates
So I guess it depends on what they mean by wounding rate. To me if I don't recover the deer it "wounded" or lost or whatever...coyote food
Keith
Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths; where the good way is,
and walk in it and find rest for your souls. - Jer 6:16
"Google some studies on archery wounding percentage over time. Back when guys used heavy arrows and trad bows the wounding percentage was pretty low...like 10% or 15%. Since the advent of compounds and the shift to lighter arrows, many studies from different states show that it is somewhere around 50% right now. Some of these studies are recent enough to include crossbows."
When I googled wounding percentage for deer with archery equipment, I found that most of the studies put the wounded and lost rate at under 20%. The only one I saw with a wounding rate near 50% was by an animal rights group. It doesn't make sense to me that modern archery equipment with adjustable sights, scopes and better broadheads would lead to more than doubling the wounded rate.
By the way, thanks for starting this thread. We need discussions like this in the off season and and we all gain knowledge from the lively discussions.
Here's one article that discusses several studies. It's pretty confusing. In an OH survey of bowhunters, they say the recovery rate for crossbow hunters was 60% and for compound shooters it was 56%, but the overall wounding rate was 18.5%. What??? I guess they mean that most of the unrecovered deer died? Odd they way it's worded.
https://www.bowhuntingmag.com/editorial/do-crossbows-wound-more-or-less-deer/387116
This references the studies from 1958 and 1963 where the rates were 10% and 7%
https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/content/articles/fate-of-deer-truth-bowhunting-wounding-rates
So I guess it depends on what they mean by wounding rate. To me if I don't recover the deer it "wounded" or lost or whatever...coyote food
Personally, I doubt that any of these studies are especially accurate. It would be very hard to conduct a survey that resulted in an accurate picture of how many wounded der are lost. Like with everything else on the internet, we can keep looking until we find one we like.
Personally, I doubt that any of these studies are especially accurate. It would be very hard to conduct a survey that resulted in an accurate picture of how many wounded der are lost. Like with everything else on the internet, we can keep looking until we find one we like.
Yes I agree. In a survey the data will be especially suspect. But the one study at the Military Reserve seems pretty good. They used thermal cameras from above to find all the animals etc. SO they tried really hard I think. But it's a hard thing to quantify. One paper said something like on the wounded deer the hunter picked bad shot placement.....I guess some do but they gave no thought to the idea that a deer can react quite violently to the shot and move quite a distance.
Glad you are participating and enjoying the discussion as well. I think its good stuff Hope it helps.
Keith
Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths; where the good way is,
and walk in it and find rest for your souls. - Jer 6:16
And no...not as in a "mechanical deploying point"!! Making a broadhead work as it should!
Perhaps Fred Bear was right all along!
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow, What a Ride!
Anybody mention Fred Bear
His Biography book written by his son in law just showed up at my door this week just in time to ease through the winter blues.
EXCALFFLICTION 1991 ->>----------> 2024
Matrix 355
Huskemaw and Leupold crossbow optics.
Boo Strings
SWAT BH's and TOTA heads.
Teach Your Family How To Hunt So You Don't Have To Hunt For Your Family
Anybody mention Fred Bear
His Biography book written by his son in law just showed up at my door this week just in time to ease through the winter blues.
Hey Norm,
Tell me if it's any good!!
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow, What a Ride!
Anybody mention Fred Bear
His Biography book written by his son in law just showed up at my door this week just in time to ease through the winter blues.
Hey Norm,
Tell me if it's any good!!
X2
It’s not the way you rock, it’s the way that you roll!
It doesn't make sense to me that modern archery equipment with adjustable sights, scopes and better broadheads would lead to more than doubling the wounded rate.
I could see it for a could reasons. With 100 yard aim points in some of the bows these days, I could certainly see people using modern equipment tossing arrows way farther than practical. If people start flinging arrows 50+ yards at deer, the number of wounded deer would certainly rise assuming they're even lucky enough to hit it.
There's also the idea that due to modern gear, like crossbows, there could be a doubling of hunters participating in the sport. So the data would need to reflect the ratio of wounded deer in relation to the number of hunters. I'm guessing 50% more hunters would wound 50% more deer, all else being equal.
Now within typical archery hunting distances (<40y), I agree that modern gear should cause the wounding rate to decrease.
Micro Wolverine/Matrix 350 SE
Recovering Excalaholic
It doesn't make sense to me that modern archery equipment with adjustable sights, scopes and better broadheads would lead to more than doubling the wounded rate.
I could see it for a could reasons. With 100 yard aim points in some of the bows these days, I could certainly see people using modern equipment tossing arrows way farther than practical.
Now within typical archery hunting distances (<40y), I agree that modern gear should cause the wounding rate to decrease.
Texas Parks and Wildlife did a big study shortly after allowing the use of crossbows... seems a lot of unknowing folks thought they could shoot a crossbow like a rifle. It's still slinging a pointy thing on a stick!!
Being unfamiliar with one's equipment is probably the major cause for the "wounding incidents". Some of the public hunting areas in Texas now require a Hunter's Safety Bow Hunting class. Probably wouldn't hurt everyone and anyone to take one if provided. What ya got to lose?
I got my Texas Hunter's Safety card in 1973. That was a day or two ago.
I got ask for mine one time. The Game warden started laughing when I handed it to him, he looked up at me and said, "I wasn't even born then!" Dang youngsters!!!
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow, What a Ride!
And no...not as in a "mechanical deploying point"!! Making a broadhead work as it should!
Perhaps Fred Bear was right all along!
Yes sir. I think I have read all of Ashbys stuff. Very interesting stuff to be sure. It’s why I switched to super tough broadheads. I loved tbe Ramcats and they always performed well…. Until they didn’t. But they always took damage. Now I’m on yo super string 1 piece heads made of tool steel. Not only tough but able to be really really sharpened. Scary sharp.
Keith
Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths; where the good way is,
and walk in it and find rest for your souls. - Jer 6:16
Anybody mention Fred Bear
His Biography book written by his son in law just showed up at my door this week just in time to ease through the winter blues.
And no...not as in a "mechanical deploying point"!! Making a broadhead work as it should!
Perhaps Fred Bear was right all along!
Yes the bear Razor head had an M.A of about 2.25 I think. Might have been 2.5...but it wasn't quite the 3/1 that Ashby recommends. Bear also had the bleeder blades in there. As originally designed, they were made of a very brittle steel (if you recall they were like a bluish color). The reason was for those blades to cut the hide on the way in but for them to shatter and "get out of the way" essentially if anything significant (like a bone) was struck. As that design evolved over the years those bleeders were made from "softer" steel so they were not as brittle and as such the BH performance got much worse as they would bend and drag and hang up on stuff. Lots of good podcasts out there where you can listen to Ashby explain the 12 factors himself. The Hunting Public guys have one...#167 I think. And The Dallas Safari Club looks to have a series....I think that is where the article you mentioned came from.
Keith
Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths; where the good way is,
and walk in it and find rest for your souls. - Jer 6:16
And no...not as in a "mechanical deploying point"!! Making a broadhead work as it should!
Perhaps Fred Bear was right all along!
Yes the bear Razor head had an M.A of about 2.25 I think. Might have been 2.5...but it wasn't quite the 3/1 that Ashby recommends. Bear also had the bleeder blades in there. As originally designed, they were made of a very brittle steel (if you recall they were like a bluish color). The reason was for those blades to cut the hide on the way in but for them to shatter and "get out of the way" essentially if anything significant (like a bone) was struck. As that design evolved over the years those bleeders were made from "softer" steel so they were not as brittle and as such the BH performance got much worse as they would bend and drag and hang up on stuff. Lots of good podcasts out there where you can listen to Ashby explain the 12 factors himself. The Hunting Public guys have one...#167 I think. And The Dallas Safari Club looks to have a series....I think that is where the article you mentioned came from.
The Hunting Public guys are the only turkey hunting shows I watch, outside of Meateater.
Not afraid to show when they miss in or get skunked.
It's still slinging a pointy thing on a stick!! 
