Got some 150 gr. field tips and will be getting the broadheads this week. I'm going to start with some fixed blade heads and see how it performs. It's early enough yet that if they don't fly the way I want, I can still experiment with mechanicals. I'm gonna go with the Slick Tricks, after some recommendations from other shooters.
The truth according to Dave:
I doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you shoot for an arrow and broadhead as long as it's accurate out of your crossbow.. You have more than enough power to drive the minimum weight arrow and head through the chest of any deer that walks the ground in Minnesota.
I shoot an Excalibur Matrix 330 because it is simple, idiot proof, can be maintained without a bow shop pro required to do the work. I shoot Full Metal Jacket arrows because they are a little heavier and a lot tougher, I have killed deer with Rage 2 inch mechanicals using black collars, red collars and O rings I picked up at Menards. All worked flawlessly. I have killed a few deer with Plain jane 3 blade muzzys. They worked flawlessly. I have killed deer with 3 blade NAP thunderheads. They worked flawlessly. I have killed deer with 4 blade NAP Doublecross Spitfires. They all worked flawlessly.
The deer have gone 6 feet for the shortest run and over a mile for the longest. I very particularly shot one deer just above the heart with a 2 inch Rage and it started to bleed well after about 30 yards and made it just over 200 yards pumping out huge spurts of blood after it started. There was now blood for the first 30 because it took that long to pressurize the chest. The mile plus deer jumped the string a little and was hit because of that a little farther back than I like. It was still a double lung hit. That one bled well the entire way. I could follow the blood with a flashlight as fast as I could walk and if I could still run I could have followed that fast.. I hit one dead center of the off side ball joint between the scapula and humerus splitting it into 3 equal parts and it still protruded 8 inches out the off side with a NAP Thunderhead. I have put half a dozen right through the heart. I have put a like number through both lungs.
I cannot begin to predict which is better. I cannot begin to predict how far they will go after the hit. The best I can tell you is that you have plenty of power to drive a large 2/4 blade mechanical through any deer, so make sure you cut as big a hole as you can. Closer is better, As fast as 300 FPS is, even a deer that looks relaxed and is feeding can still jump the string some. Probably not enough to cause a complete miss, but it can cause a bad hit.
Use a lighted nock, in dim light it will show you where you hit. It won't fix a bad shot but knowing where the arrow went can be helpful, and if the arrow does not pass through it may well show you exactly where the deer went. Do not believe the BS about letting Bambi lie down to die after the shot! Every deer (with one exception) I have shot with a bow going all the way back to the '50s laid down once because it couldn't go further and died within seconds. The single exception was the deer that made it over a mile. She lay down the first time just past a mile later, I never was within 300 yards of her while on her trail. When I caught up with her she jumped and went another hundred yards within sightand went down again. I jumped her again and she went down 50 yards later and did not get up again. That one was so far outside the norm, making it that far while double lunged and bleeding that heavily it hardly represents anything to consider happening again.
When you run an arrow through Bambi's chest basically you have four actions working together to kill Bambi. First, is loss of blood, simple bleeding them out. Second, they should be filling the lungs with blood. Third, pressurizing the chest to blood pressure levels collapses the lungs and suffocates them. Lastly, the pneumo-thorax decreases the lung capacity with every breath and can eventually kill even without much blood.loss.
