Valkyrie pass thru with pic - dead, but almost no blood trail

[fwafwow]

No damage to the heart. Just double lung.

 

[nphunter]

Small broadheads leave small blood trails, I switched to large cut expandables and have been very happy. I shot lots of top-end COC fixed heads prior to Oregon allowing mechanical heads. I am color blind and have always struggled tracking, after shooting my last half dozen animals with expandables I will never switch back to fixed blade heads. For smaller game like deer and antelope, a big 2 blade like a trypan is the ticket, they actually work well for elk also but I have switched to G5 dead meats for elk due to their ability to be dragged through the brush for days and not pop blades loose.

A goat and elk with a Trypan





My 16yr olds buck with a Dead Meat

 

[Marbles]

Well, I am just going back to throw doubt on what I said earlier.

What I said about sharpening to 800 grit may be bad advice. When I looked for arguments against it, the predominant one I found regarded the coagulation cascade (and in my educated opinion is a load of hog wash). However, the argument against it that has me thinking I will be polishing my broadhead edges is that the coarse edge collects material and reduces penetration.

Again, I have no good testing, and Ashby's shooting layers of buffalo hide is not really good testing as animals only have to layers of hide and muscle/organ tissue is less fibrous and bone is probably about breaking, rather than cutting. However, polished edges certainly work better for me in the kitchen, allowing deeper cuts with less pulling of the edge. It is also true in woodwork that an unpolished edge tends to rip fibers out rather than cut them.

Anyway, not really on topic as this was a complete pass through, but I don't want to mislead anyone.

 

[fwafwow]

Thanks to all who have replied. My sample size still remains at 1, but I plan to hunt again soon with the same setup and I will aim a bit lower and report back anything of interest. I previously shot with mechanicals and had some bad results (a blade failed to expand), so I'm leaning towards keeping a fixed blade BH, and IF I make any change, it would be to a wider cutting fixed blade.

 

[Bump79]

Shot looks perfect to me, it's just blood trails vary.

Hole looks a little small, don't know the cutting diameter on that head, I think they are 3 blades.

I do feel the bigger the hole, the more they leave. Grass is always difficult to blood trail in too. Always surprised me, you get into leaves and you will see splatters everywhere, but grass in a field can be difficult.

Completely agree. All things equal, a larger cut will leave more blood. I'm yet to test it but I also feel that a 4 blade hole will open up more than a 3 blade and (definitely a 2 blade). Due to 4 more acute flaps of hide.

I can wrap my head around how one could argue that it's all about shot placement and it varies. However, I can't wrap my head around how someone would say that a 1.125" 2 blade will bleed the same as a 1.125" 4 blade. It's quite literally the equivalency of shooting that 2 blade through the exact same hole twice but rotated 90 degrees.

My thought process goes as follows: Shoot as large of a cut that your setup allows for a pass through your target species, most of the time. That broadhead will be different for a recurve, a kid, or a guy with a 31" draw shooting 80# who can push a 2" hybrid mechanical through a bull moose.