The Muzzy Co. will not even consider making an expandable head. Just too many issues with them. Stick to your Wasps. Personally I like Razorcaps but NAP has come out with the Hellrazor which looks like a nice head.

 

The general concensus amongst most recurve/longbow hunters is that our bows don't provide enough KE to allow an expandable to work 100% of the time. But I have no source of information that would confirm that belief to be true. I've never seen the need to use mechanical broadheads when bowhunting, regardless if compound or recurve. Guess I'm the type that would rather use a broadhead that I know will always work, without having any doubts that something mechanical might fail. I would like to hear WHY the member at your club believes you should be using mechanical broadheads.

 

In my uneducated opinion, expandable heads are designed to enable a compound shooter to go hunt despite having one's bow dramatically out of tune. "They fly just like field points."

If designed to open fast enough, they're also good for stopping larger gamebirds on their tracks. But one would need a pretty heavy recurve to reach the fps to get them working properly. I can see no other reasons for using them.

-bm.

 

The good ones, and there are many ,work very well on compounds,but we just do not have the power/speeds to use them .
The manufacturers will even steer you to their fixed blades for traditional bows and light draw compounds.

Pete

 

Wasp is a nice BH..So are Innerloc and Thunderheads. Bill C mentioned a couple. There are many that do just fine with our gear. With arrow speeds now in the 350ft/s range(PSE Xforce) it's easy to see why the expandables are being used by the wheel bow guys. Since our gear may be as much as 200ft/s slower, as in a self bow, or say 125ft/s slower as in a DAS...it's still a much safer bet to stick with a good cut on contact BH, such as you are using now.

Tom

 

I would like to hear WHY the member at your club believes you should be using mechanical broadheads.

Well pinelander like barking mad sad this guys whole thing with the mechanical broadheads are that they fly like field points. The guy is a compound shooter and the whole debate was brought up at our trad rendezvous meeting that we had last week that just happened to fall on thier indoor league shoot.

 

Any straight broadhead will fly just like a field point if you tune .
Without tuning even field points can go places we don't want.
We need to remember we are shooting arrows, not launching the shuttle.Tuning is not rocket science , and your friends with the wheels have it pretty easy when it comes to tuning. All those little screws in their rests are there for a reason. :shooting:

 

One more consideration for mechanical broadheads (i.e. the type that pop open) is that they are designed for use with a compound bow. By that I mean they don't 'pop' open during flight partly because of the way a compound bow launches the arrow. Not only does the let-off allow holding at full draw easily, but it puts low loads on the arrow at release.

The acceleration on the arrow is smoother with a compound. That translates to less chance for the mechanical head to 'pop' open. I learned this from stories of being unable to shoot mechanical broadheads in high poundage recurve crossbows. The release acceleration on the arrow from a recurve crossbow 'pops' the mechanical broadhead.

They might shoot ok in some recurves. But, as stated above, they were designed for compound bows. Yet another gadget.


Stan

 

petew, you are so right on that I am printing it out. I do have another kinda stupid question for all of you. Whats a warf?????? I have no clue!!:help:

 

I am confident that you could kill a deer with a standard hunting weight recurve and the best of expandable heads but it wouldn't be what I would consider an ideal setup at all. Compound bows shoot at a much higher velocity and, as a result, have much, much, much more severe problems with wind planing. Additionally, there are compound shooters that set up for 60 yard shots (ethical or not isn't the point). There are still issues about how well the heads are designed. The heads I've seen are simply not as sturdy as fixed blade heads and I don't know of any way to ever make them as tough or durable because of the limitations inherent in expandable design.

The advantage of very low wind resistance is largely lost on those using recurves, longbows or slow-velocity compounds. At the lower velocities fixed blades don't tend to plane unless a bow is severely out of tune.

My advice would be to ignore the guy that told you to used expandables. And I mean ignore everything he says about archery. After telling you that (which is about 180 degrees from good advice), it's impossible to assume he would be right about anything archery related.

 

Well, that might being going a bit too far... I suspect the guy just doesn't know anything about recurves/longbows. But then again, I've met a number of compound shooters that know nothing about their bow or arrows, only that they have the 2007 model and their arrows fly fast, and sometimes hit their intended target.

 

I like ribteks.

 

I have had good success with Magnus and Zwickey 2-blades out of my longbows, but with a recurve, my personal favorite of late has been the 4-blade Magnus Stinger. They fly excellent and penetrate very well.

That said, any well constructed cut on contact broadhead through the boiler room will do the job.

 

Well, that might being going a bit too far... I suspect the guy just doesn't know anything about recurves/longbows. But then again, I've met a number of compound shooters that know nothing about their bow or arrows, only that they have the 2007 model and their arrows fly fast, and sometimes hit their intended target.

Maybe he doesn't know anything about recurves/longbows but the way I look at it, anyone who offers "authoratative" advice (and telling someone what type of broadheads they "should" be using qualifies) when they don't know what they're talking about is a very questionable source of good information. Statements like that completely trash someone's credibility for me.

 

I once went to a local archery shop that specialized in compound bows, but he (the owner) was also a dealer of carbon arrows that I was looking to buy. However, I wasn't sure exactly which spine to buy. He had told me that spine doesn't matter in recurves and longbows, the only issue was weight. Maybe, he had said this because he was trying to sell me way overspined arrows. Anyway, I said I wanted to paper tune and/or bare shaft an arrow to see how they fly before I shelled out $100. He also said that traditional guys don't need to do that since they aren't that accurate. He and his buddies thought it was all a big joke. So, we set out to bareshaft and shoot my recurve. They were quite surprised.

Needless to say, I left feeling smugly satisfied. I have never returned and I had saved myself from wasting money. The moral is I don't talk to compound guys about tuning issues unless they are enlightened with the fundamental operation and mechanics of the bow.

 

Brett, the guy had no idea what he was talking about period ...Van

 

"I do have another kinda stupid question for all of you. Whats a warf?????? I have no clue!!"

**Warf: Any of a number of bows that are made from old compound risers to accept and use ILF limbs.

Quarf: Any of a number of bows that are made from old compound risers to accept and use Quinn limbs.

Hybrid: Any of a number of bows that are made from old compound risers to accept and use recurve limbs.

Questions? Ask Bob Gordon, He started this whole addiction!! LOL

 

I would think if you had the urge to shoot an expandable from a trad bow . A montec tekan & tekan 2 would work good. allthough why you would want to. is another ???

 

On occasion I still hunt with compounds, go ahead and lay it on me I can take it. Anyway I decided to give the R..e 3 blade a try. Oneida bow, csx 200 arrows with Blazer vanes. Took a doe with this set up and was not at all happy with penetration. No bone hit and the bow was paper tuned to perfection. Back to recurves and cut on contact 2 blade heads for me.

 

On occasion I still hunt with compounds, go ahead and lay it on me I can take it. Anyway I decided to give the R..e 3 blade a try. Oneida bow, csx 200 arrows with Blazer vanes. Took a doe with this set up and was not at all happy with penetration. No bone hit and the bow was paper tuned to perfection. Back to recurves and cut on contact 2 blade heads for me.

I don't know too many around this site that will judge you on whatever kind of bow you want to shoot. A bow is just a tool that launches arrows after all.
Life is just too short...

 

I have friends who shoot a lot of deer with compounds, many more than most hunters, they used two blade scorpions (expandables) for years and had very good results they also punched huge holes in deer. I think many compound hunters who have had similar success would assume an arrow tipped with and expandable head is a very deadly and effective combo. While the guy is obviously assuming that expandable broadheads would perform similarly out of a recurve most of you are assuming they would not. So lets give the guy a break, if I recommended you use a muddler minnow the next time you went fishing you may think I was crazy when you find that your 5.5' med action baitcaster won't chuck the thing eight feet.

just a thought

John

 

Susquehanna, I think it goes too far to assume they would not work. I think some actually would work better than many suggest. I still think the guy does not deserve a break because he is clearly inexperienced enough to know nothing about recurves or longbows and still wants to tell someone what they should be using with their recurve or longbow. It would have been one thing if the guy had said "hey, these work great for me... might work with your setup too" and it's another thing to say "you should be using these".

One of the big, huge, enormous, giant-sized, overwhelming problems with this sport is that people who don't know a damned thing about archery pretend to be experts and want to tell "the new guy" what he should be doing. As a result; the "new guy" ends up armed with a whole bunch of crap for advice and may, in turn pass that same crap on to the next guy as "authoritative" advice.

If you saw the guy standing on the bank with a baitcaster in his hand and told him "you should use this muddler minnow", then yeah... I'd think you were crazy (or just dumb as a box of rocks). And I know full well you're not. And I know that's why you wouldn't recommend a muddler minnow to a guy fishing with a baitcaster.

 

Ask your friend why those expandibles never penetrate more than half way in whitetails on those Outdoor Channel shows 8^).

 

Expandables just cost too much and you do not need them in your trad-bow. Your recurve is very fast if it shoots 220. No tuning problems for wind plaining to overcome. Common sense is the answer here. Just use a fixed blade head and eliminate all the worry. Compounds are not Bows, they are mechanical devices used to shoot arrows. I do not care if people shoot or hunt with them, and I keep one around in case I get injured, but I just prefer to use my recurves because I want to. Now there is nothing illegal about hunting or shooting compounds, so if I wanted to, I would. I would not support any legislation to outlaw them. I would like to see the let-off thing limited to 65 percent across the board with no string locks. I would like to see crossbows limited to disabled folks only(special permit). Not trying to start an argument, This is only my opinion.

 

PB,
I think it is ironic that an average bowhunter made an assumption based on his own favorable results and he is flamed but many others make bad assumptions based on an unfounded and cynical type of prejudice in response to the first guy. Some might say, Not all compounders are as dumb as a box of traditionalists.

George, I think those guys put stoppers on their shafts for theatrics, if the arrah goes right through it makes for a less interesting video...