How Much Does Broadhead Choice Really Matter For Whitetail Hunters?

While the talk about broadhead failures has died down from the days when mechanicals really started to take off, you still hear about them just not doing their job. My role as an Equipment Editor for a bowhunting magazine was timed perfectly with the rise of broadheads with moving parts, so I got to try a lot of them out.

A few failed, for real. In fact, I watched my arrow bounce right off of the ribs of a doe one evening while hunting from the ground in Minnesota. When I picked my arrow up, the broadhead grooves were stuffed full of hair. It was wild.

I tried a lot of different broadheads in that time period of my life, and most performed as advertised. That’s when it started to dawn on me that we sometimes overstate the importance of broadhead choice when it comes to whitetail hunting.

The Tradeoff Debate

There are two factions of bowhunters when it comes to broadheads. The first wants the biggest holes they can get in their deer, which necessitates expandable with serious cutting diameters. This is nice for obvious reasons, but it comes in real handy if you pull your shot and hit a deer in the guts. Or if something happens where you accidentally hit too high, too low, or really anywhere marginal.

The other faction is terrified of a buck’s shoulder and highly suspect of any moving parts on the business end of their arrows. They want a bombproof fixed blade that will make it through bone and into the good stuff. They reason, correctly I might add, that they’ll kill a deer just fine with a gut shot as well, it just might take a bit longer. They also know they might not get horror-movie-gore level blood trails, but they don’t care. Reliable is good, and dead is, well, dead.

If there is a third category of broadhead loyalists, I’m in it. I want my broadheads to be constructed out of high-end materials, and I want them to fly really well. I honestly don’t care a whole lot whether they are mechanicals or fixed-blade heads. I want them to be durable, super sharp, and to hit where I aim.

How To Choose The Right Broadhead For You

If you want durable (you do), then the easiest way to filter through broadheads is to spend up. I hate to use price in any advice, because immediately, people will push back on the idea that a $50 broadhead is any different than a $15 broadhead. While the argument could be made you’re paying up for a brand name associated with quality, the truth is that durability comes with better materials. Better materials allow for more durability, and they also allow for tighter tolerances.

Just like with match-grade rifle ammo, all of the arrows in your quiver need to fly the same way. The tighter the tolerances on your broadheads, the more likely this is to happen. I look at this like I look at the shotgun shells I buy for pheasants. Cheap target loads need not apply. For maybe $50 bucks a season, I have a bit of insurance on tough, late-season birds that do their best to burrow in the cattails if they don’t die quickly enough.

Broadheads are similar. There are a lot of ways to save money on bowhunting gear, but broadheads are not a category where you want to be a cheapskate. Skip the bottles of doe pee, forget the scent-eliminating sprays, do what you need to. Don’t go cheap on broadheads if you don’t have to.

The benefits are many and won’t amount to much of an extra spend on any given season. Plus, if you’ve ever had a cheapie fall apart or just not work the way it’s supposed to, you know how much you would have paid for a better option at that moment.

How To Test Broadheads Yourself

Fixed broadheads with replaceable blades, or those that can be hand-sharpened at home, are awesome because you can shoot them into targets and see how they fly. Some mechanicals allow you to lock down blades and practice with them as well. Seeing how well every arrow flies with a broadhead screwed in is an eye-opener, and an absolutely necessary pre-season step, in my opinion.

But that’s just part of the equation. You also want to take a long look at how they perform when you shoot deer. Are you getting two holes, no problem? Or are your arrows getting hung up in the chest cavity of normal-sized whitetails? How are your blood trails? The real performance of your setup is how they fly and how they go through deer. It’s that simple.

Pay attention to your broadhead’s performance. It’s easy to look at things in a rosie way if the deer died, but do a necropsy. Check out the broadhead’s blades after the shot. Pay attention to all aspects of performance. This will inform your choice in the future on whether to stick with what you have or branch out to something that might perform better for you.

For more bowhunting info, check out these articles: How to Develop a Reliable Pattern on Summertime Bucks, 6 States to Target Velvet Bucks, and Practice Like A Deer Hunter, Not A Target Shooter.