Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Resharpening blades

Regarding the 85lb draw weight, Been there and have seen others with some really problematic bursitis issues more then likely due to this. I know the minimums in RSA for DG require some very heavy weights, but that would be a limited event.

I shot a sick heavy bow made for me by High country Archery about 15 years ago. I was so happy with the performance but eventually developed some not so good side effects. Fortunately I quit using it and sold it to another guy who is one of the guys that now has such bad Bursitis in his right shoulder that he cannot even shoot a rifle because of Recoil pain. He sold that bow and I'm sure it's punishing somebody else now to.

Funny thing about that bow and the stress, You never see it coming. It seems to creep up on you and then one day you wake up and holy smokes your shoulder joint is killing you!

Anyhow, wish I could have managed to shoot that bow as easy as a 65lb bow, but not for me!

As far as Broadheads and sharpness, At least with African game the sharper the more visible pumping out of blood the less sharp and the less visible blood. This has been a consistent pattern for my whole career there.

I fully agree, but is there a relatively easy way to take the next step and get them "hair splitting razor sharp"?

I mean without investing in a lot of additional equipment.......ya' know?

Also, this technique would have to work on mechanical broadhead blades also, since these are notoriously dull even when they come from the factory.

I tried clamping them in a pair of forceps and running them through my Edgecraft knife sharpener, but that didn't work a damn....

Seems like some sort of stropping device like those old razor blade sharpeners would work, but I don't know if anyone makes them anymore.

Any advice on how to hone an already sharp blade to "hair splitting" sharpness would certainly be appreciated.

If the blades are available to hold, as noted already, investment of around 50 bucks, whats that? NOTHING in the cost of the game, a wheel loaded with polishing rouge.

And you don't have to sharpen the mechanicals... sorry, but anyone that uses them is a fool. So no need for me to sharpen as I'm not going to use them ever again.

Actually, a non mechanical, up to 3 blades is easy to touch up on the rouge wheel.

If you can't afford a 20 buck grinder and 50 buck set of wheels, I don't know what to say. But ain't you the one that dislikes women bowhunters unless they are sluts?

If you can get the blades out and get a clamp on them, then the Lanski sharpeners are awesome. Just remember to make the last passes into the blade. Keeping the angle perfect is key.

Nemesis,

I've done touch ups with a piece of ceramic, I have a flat piece from an old light.

Quote by rost495:


Oh boy, here we go again.........

Ya'll have a good one,

loder

If the shoe fits..... and that quote is not about ceramics, its about mechanical heads.

I certainly have not seen every brand of mechanical so I'm not gonna claim all are intermittent in operation. However all that I have seen very often have a bit of a consistency issue on bigger game. I'm sure they work often on big stuff, but most if not all the mechanical heads I've seen in Africa have not been impressive enough for me to switch to them.

Well my take after seeing a few fail, have 3 fail on me, and seeing others work, and then not....

A "fixed" or "expanded already" head will work. Why would you want to add something into the mix thats iffy?

And I am not an old fogey, I often try the newest and bestest as they say, just not all of that works for me... not all the time.

Expandables are one of those fluff things that IF it works, all is grand but ain't taking the IF chance ever again. Try finding a buck after its shot in the lungs basically with a field point... that took all I had and one full day by myself of grid searching to find him. A normal head would have maybe had a 20 minute search.

[quote=rost495]
And you don't have to sharpen the mechanicals... sorry, but anyone that uses them is a fool.

Really? are you kidding me with this statement?

If it wasn't you that said basically you had no use for women bowhunters unless it was Tiffany, then my apologies.

As to mechanicals, after all the failures I've seen over the years, no way for me. Just isn't worth the risk and why continue to try other brands to see if they might not fail? Won't risk that on the game when there is no need. Why do you need a bigger hole anyway? Put a sharp head where it belongs and all will be just toast anyway.

Your choice though. And I'm sure you can outspend me, my point was a wheel isn't expensive and does such a super job in a hurry, if you choose to ignore fine, I've spent more on expandables over the years trying different ones than many folks spend on heads in one year. I will defer though I quit keeping track of big game kills with my bows at 100... I probably need more experience.

Nope, and I stand by it totally. Too risky, too many failures. No need for them. Funny bowhunters can be such a touchy bunch, I used to really look down on rifle hunters because that was too easy etc.... now I'm much more mellow, but the one thing I can't go is expandables. I hunted with a group of about 9 bowhunters for many years, we often took 4-5 deer and upwards of 10 plus hogs apiece each year with bows if not more. Almost everyone of us tried the mechanicals and different brands, and this was a period of about 3 years. When they work, they work just fine. Not any better than a regular one but just fine. When they fail, they fail miserably. Not a ONE of our group would ever use them again, and no one does now.

Pretty heavy blanket statement, but lets just say you bought not a brand, but a vehicle, say an SUV, and every brand of SUV you bought over the course of a number of years was a lemon, would you continue to buy SUVs?

I will admit they may have worked out more of the kinks, but IMHO it was irresponsible to market them if they had flaws to start with. When what we had worked just fine.

Bottom line is sales dollars and always has been, but to risk a quick humane kill just to sell a gimmick, well its not right in my books, and last I checked it was ok to have my opinion.

And trust me when I say a fool, I've been a fool more than once in my life. And I've tried way more cutting edge stuff than one would assume, some has bitten me(fool) and some has worked out. I didn't come to the conclusion of the mechanical quickly, but as a fact the very last deer that I took with one was a failure, and that was teh straw as they say.

rost495, I too was let down by some earlier expandable models, but remained open and tried some newer designs to find that they have come a long way. Matter of fact, some of the mechs I use now penetrate as well as a fixed head.

My favorites are the NAP Shockwave and Scorpion XP, they have the easiest deployment and only a 1.25" CD. They give full penetrations on medium game just as any fixed I've used. The best test was on a doe a few years ago. She was at a steep angle and moved her head just as I released causing the arrow to go through her face, through the dead center of her spine, and through the lungs! I'll admit, that was a horrible shot, but it happens to the best of us if you're out there enough. That head still passed a spin test and the blades were still shaving sharp! I used the very same head a few days later to shoot another doe. Hit her right behind the shoulder, she walked 10yds, wobbled a bit, and fell over. I look for a mech head that opens easily(yet stays closed in flight), has very sharp blades, a descent cutting diam, good tip, and blades with a rounded front edge so they don't bite into the hide absorbing arrow energy.

There are many new designs out today that perform very similar to a fixed head, yet fly much better. Some utilize a slip cam system causing the blades to deploy on impact leaving a good entrance wound. I don't care for the heads with huge CDs as they take away penetration energy, but some like them.

My main preference for Mechanicals is their superior flight. Some argue tuning, I know very well how to tune, some fixed heads just plain don't fly as well as expandables.

Have a Good One,

loder

Rost495...I'm not being "touchy" at all. I just think you're making a pretty broad statement if you ask me. Unless you've tried them all, then I don't think it's a fair statement to call somebody a fool for using mechanicals. There are some pretty crappy fixed blades on the market too, does that make anyone who uses fixed a fool? I don't think so. I too have some experience to base my opinions on. Anyway, the tread is not about whether mechanicals work or don't work, it's about resharpening blades.

Like many here, I've experimented with various mechanicals and I finally settled on the Rocky Mountain Snyper because of it's cam action design and AWESOME wound channel and subsequent blood producing ability.

http://www.rockymtbroadheads.com/broadhead_snyper.html

Our hunting areas consist of a lot of thick brush and usually border on heavy swamp land, so it's essential that we not only put deer down quickly, but also get good blood trials to facilitate locating the animal once he disappears from sight.

Here's an example of the ENTRANCE hole caused by a 100 gr. Rocky Mountain Snyper.

(and this is pretty typical)



As you can see, mechanical broadheads shot from a properly tuned bow with sufficient KE (55 lbs. or more) can produce devasting results.

JMHO