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Broadhead Bounced of Deer; Spine Shot

UTGrad

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I spined my first deer this evening and it was a pretty awful experience. My broadhead penetrated maybe 4 inches and the arrow broke in half. I am shooting a 388 grain arrow 289 fps for a KE of about 73 lbs. I'm shooting Grim Reaper broadheads and have blown through every deer yet. Is it tough to bust through a deer's spine with any broadhead??

IMG00392-20101223-1835.jpg
 
reaper heads are good but a fixed will usually penatrate a spine better, that being said though i have spined a few with thunderheads that have done the same as yours did, right under the stand they usually go all the way through spine and out the bottom, but you put a little distance into the equation and they usually dont penatrate.glad you got another one keep up the dedication
 
It is very hard to penetrate the spine. I accidentally spined a button buck last year. I thought on a deer that small that it would blow right through him. It penetrated about half the shaft. He dropped like a brick but he required a follow up shot.
I don't know why your arrow snapped though. My broadhead and arrow shaft were fine after we got it out of him.
 
Buck Assassin said:
It is very hard to penetrate the spine. I accidentally spined a button buck last year. I thought on a deer that small that it would blow right through him. It penetrated about half the shaft. He dropped like a brick but he required a follow up shot.
I don't know why your arrow snapped though. My broadhead and arrow shaft were fine after we got it out of him.

Arrow was lodged in her spine and she rolled all over the ground. I believe that is why it snapped. Gold Tip Pro Hunters should be pretty tough.
 
Never had a problem with Muzzy or Wasp heads on a spine shot. Muzzy's bent and blades were separated from head but the Wasp's drove right through. In both cases the deer was down and done.
 
UTGrad said:
Buck Assassin said:
It is very hard to penetrate the spine. I accidentally spined a button buck last year. I thought on a deer that small that it would blow right through him. It penetrated about half the shaft. He dropped like a brick but he required a follow up shot.
I don't know why your arrow snapped though. My broadhead and arrow shaft were fine after we got it out of him.

Arrow was lodged in her spine and she rolled all over the ground. I believe that is why it snapped. Gold Tip Pro Hunters should be pretty tough.

Ok I gotcha. Gold tips are pretty tuff!
 
I wouldn't expect ANY broadhead to reliably penetrate the spine 100% of the time.

Spine shots are great and they totally suck at the same time.

No tracking which is nice but they rarely die immediately so you have to finish them off which sucks. I hate thinking there is a deer suffering even for a couple minutes while waiting to finish one off/expire.

Don't beat yourself up anymore over the spine shot. It happens. Choose your shot angles to minimize that chance and maximize the sweetspot (heart/lung). Be ready to take a follow up shot ASAP.

Use a broadhead you have 100% confidence in. For me, that means a fixed blade head. NO moving parts to fail, or potentially fail.

I hate uncertainty while bow hunting. Shooting and loosing a deer tears me up. With a fixed blade head, I KNOW it wasn't a BH malfunction so it must be something the deer or I did wrong.
We can fix our mistakes if we know what we did wrong.
 
I'm pretty certain getting shot with an arrow anywhere would suck!
I took a doe last year with a spine shot, almost directly under my stand using a Meat seeker 3 blade and there was less than 8" of penetration and the broadhead was toast.

That cracking sound haunted me for a couple of days, but I was able to finsih her off within a couple of minutes so that put my mind at ease (a little)
 

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