[blizzy]

Edgetac and sew this stuff is unbelievable awesome thread seeing these badass monster heads flying so well with tiny little arrovane 3 !!!!! edge tac can you please send sew a 775 edgetac to try I know it will be slow but we got to know if these mombo jumbo 775 can show the same mystical arrow 60 yard flight I think sew shooting 60 like he does is not to close but not to far thanks guys cool stuff

 

[blizzy]

I remember tunanut on here years ago twisting and breaking a bunch of different expandables and fixed blade Broadheads just shooting them into targets with arrovane 3 and his scorpyd they twisted so much and so fast in the hard foam he destroyed lots of them

 

[SEW]

A few more testing observations.

With the BD400 (conventional railed crossbow) , I didn’t get very good accuracy until I started using arrows with the extreme control of the AV3 vanes.
But, with the X1, the accuracy was even a little better with just the standard 1 degree offset of the very small Heat vanes. The enclosed rail’s advantages are hard to over emphasize.

A significant finding is that foc has such an effect on BC, which, in turn, has a major effect on trajectory. Traditionally, arrow drop charts show the drops from a horizontal launch (no upward vertical component at all). However, that is not how we sight in. We do have an upward component. The slower the launch, the greater this upward component is. The greater the upward component, the flatter the trajectory will seem.

Comparatively very high foc has a lot of advantages: greater accuracy, crosswind resistance, terminal performance, others(?). A huge, flat single blade broad head is historically very difficult to steer. However, when launched straight out of the SWAT’s barrel, the 375g large, flat bladed BH flew very accurately with virtually no vane control. FOC has to be the major factor.
In contrast, with the conventionally railed BD400, the broad head needed extreme guidance (AV3s ) to be accurate. Even AV 2s resulted quite inaccurate flight as did helical Blazers (both out of the BD).

Summary.
These broad heads can very accurately be used out of either a conventionally railed or fully enclosed rail crossbow. Accuracy can be excellent, at least through 60 yards. The actual experienced trajectory is much flatter than many of us would imagine (at least me). You’re not going to bend this broad head!
Don’t pre-judge the usability of this BH like I did. I will have one X1 set up to hunt with the Edgetac 375 for this next year. This year’s bear likely won’t go far!

 

[Edgetac]

A few more testing observations.

With the BD400 (conventional railed crossbow) , I didn’t get very good accuracy until I started using arrows with the extreme control of the AV3 vanes.
But, with the X1, the accuracy was even a little better with just the standard 1 degree offset of the very small Heat vanes. The enclosed rail’s advantages are hard to over emphasize.

A significant finding is that foc has such an effect on BC, which, in turn, has a major effect on trajectory. Traditionally, arrow drop charts show the drops from a horizontal launch (no upward vertical component at all). However, that is not how we sight in. We do have an upward component. The slower the launch, the greater this upward component is. The greater the upward component, the flatter the trajectory will seem.

Comparatively very high foc has a lot of advantages: greater accuracy, crosswind resistance, terminal performance, others(?). A huge, flat single blade broad head is historically very difficult to steer. However, when launched straight out of the SWAT’s barrel, the 375g large, flat bladed BH flew very accurately with virtually no vane control. FOC has to be the major factor.
In contrast, with the conventionally railed BD400, the broad head needed extreme guidance (AV3s ) to be accurate. Even AV 2s resulted quite inaccurate flight as did helical Blazers (both out of the BD).

Summary.
These broad heads can very accurately be used out of either a conventionally railed or fully enclosed rail crossbow. Accuracy can be excellent, at least through 60 yards. The actual experienced trajectory is much flatter than many of us would imagine (at least me). You’re not going to bend this broad head!
Don’t pre-judge the usability of this BH like I did. I will have one X1 set up to hunt with the Edgetac 375 for this next year. This year’s bear likely won’t go far!

Huge thank you to SEW for his insightful analysis.

Just want to add a bit more info. Here are the 3 factors we have found to be critical to accurate flight with our large single-bevel broadheads:

1. stiff arrow shafts
The stiffer the better. You have a heavy weight on the front of your arrow (our broadhead), and a string pushing from the opposite end at great force. If the shaft is not stiff enough, it's easy to imagine this will cause the arrow to flex excessively upon launch, resulting in poor accuracy downrange. And that's exactly what happens. You can verify excessive flex (archer's paradox) on slow motion cameras when shooting arrows that aren't stiff enough. (It seems that the X1 is able to mitigate this flexing to a degree with the barrel design of the rail). We're having our best results with double shafted (double sleeved) arrows. Vertical bow shooters are seeing good results with 150 spine arrows. (Note that SEW had excellent results with Black Eagle Zombie Slayer arrows when combined with AV3 vanes)

2. maximum control vanes
We haven't had an opportunity to test AV3's. In own tests, we've had the greatest accuracy with 5.5-inch Magnum Banana feathers (That's right. Real actual bird feathers, not plastic vanes).

3. arrow length
We've seen better results with 22 inch arrows vs 18 and 20 inch.

Bottom line, you need a custom-built arrow to fly these accurately. Total arrow weight (double sleeved with feathers) + 375 grain broadhead is 940 grains.

So these are the tradeoffs: You get the 1.7X increase in momentum, roughly 1.8X the wound channel damage (in gelatin testing), plus the added bone-penetrating/breaking potential of the single-bevel design (this is all vs a 100 grain broadhead), but to achieve these advantages without sacrificing accuracy, you need stiff, heavy, custom arrows with big bird feathers (or as SEW showed, Zombie Slayers with AV3 vanes). Is this overkill? Many would argue it is. That's a question only you can answer for yourself. Obviously it also depends on what you're hunting.

 

[SEW]

Just a couple of thoughts.

The arrows used with the BD were 20” zombies, 110g inserts, flat plastic nocks. The only unique part of this arrow was the usage of AV3 vanes. The nature of a recurve/non-compound xbow is to produce maximum launch stress and thus, maximum archer’s paradox. Yet, groups are 1” or less and BH/FP impacts normally within 1”, sometimes 2” @ 60 yards.

The arrows used with the X1 were 22” and have the exact same spine of Executioners (only 75% as stiff as Zombies). They had heavier than normal inserts (130g) . These are not stiff arrows, but were extremely accurate out of the X1 with a combined weight of 505g at the front of this arrow. And only very minimal steering was provided by the small vanes (1 degree offset).

The conventionally railed xbow took a tremendous amount of steering (see Edgetac’s comment) which the AV3 has also. The X1 just used a comparatively weak shaft and very little steering and yet, was more accurate .

This is a Really big deal, that is, the enclosed barrel AND the ability of that massive BH to be so accurate!

 

[JH HUNTER]

Exactly the same results I get at 34% foc with the 300 and 250gr. VPA broadheads with stock Excalibur micro arrows. Same as field point and 1 to half-inch groups at 60yards. All I can say is with an increase in FOC my arrows shoot any broadhead accurately.

Sent from my SM-A505F using Tapatalk

 

[rt2bowhunter]

Here’s some arrows I made all 13 years ago. Grizzly 180 gr broadheads pretty sure these were the old Easton shafts with 110gr inserts. That’s real rattlesnake skin wraps . And wild gobbler feathers off a bird I killed. I shot these out of a Excalibur Ibex. They shot really good but I lost that lazy S entrance wound. To fast I guess but these are only 1” cut too.

I’m a huge fan of giving a arrow guidance from fletching. And imo they look 😎

 

[SEW]

We’re having a major division of thoughts here.

One is stating that very stiff and heavy arrows plus extreme steering (and resultant drag) is required for accurate arrow flight with these comparatively large surfaced, heavy broad heads, while conclusive evidence is being posted that comparative simple arrows are shooting these BHs well out of a high performance, traditional, recurve crossbow and that comparatively weak arrows with minimal fletching is adequate out of a fully enclosed railed crossbow.

The traditionally railed xbow arrow has a moderately stiff (Zombie) shart and is comparatively short (20”) but has extreme vane control (AV3s).

With the vertical alignment of the flat blade being shot out of a crossbow may greatly minimize the detrimental effects of archer’s paradox in comparison to what is observed with vertical bows.

 

[Edgetac]

We’re having a major division of thoughts here.

Sorry SEW, I apologize.

So essentially, I think what SEW is saying is you don't need double-sleeved ultra stiff arrows with big feathers to guide these accurately because you may alternatively get by with AV3 vanes on Zombie Slayer arrows, or you can shoot a more generic Black Eagle Executioner type of arrow IF you are one of the lucky people out there with a Killer Instinct SWAT X1 crossbow which has the enclosed barrel which works to lessen arrow flex, and that's great.

I'm not contradicting his results, just posting our own testing results and I edited ours above to make note of that fact. SEW please let me know if any of this is in error.

 

[Edgetac]

In case people out there aren't familiar with some of these terms like
"BD" = Excaliber Bulldog 400 and
X1 = Killer Instinct SWAT X1 crossbow...

SEW, is the following an accurate summary of your data?

SEW's Edgetac 375 grain broadhead test results:

Bow: Excaliber Bulldog 400
Arrow: 20” Black Eagle Zombie Slayer bolts, 110g (Double Tapp?) inserts, flat plastic nocks, AV3 vanes 20” Zombies, Weight total - 691g. 287 FPS, 27.3% FOC
Result: 1" or less group size @ 60 yards

Bow: Killer Instinct SWAT X1 crossbow
Arrow: 22” Killer Instinct shafts (same spine as Black Eagle Executioners - 25% less stiff than Black Eagle Zombie Slayers), non-indexed , 130g inserts, ARC nocks, and 1 degree offset Heat vanes. Weight total 750g. 289 FPS, 26.3% FOC << IMPORTANT NOTE: These arrows will not be stiff enough if shot from a regular crossbow, but they work from a SWAT X1 because of the enclosed barrel design of the bow.
Result: 1/2" groups @ 60 yards

 

[Iron Duke]

Here's what ... I need. I need a graph of a 400gr/450fps arrow sighted in at 30 yards vs a graph of a 775gr/287fps arrow. I'm having a hard time understanding how 287fps is better than 400+fps. I'm also having a hard time figuring out why in 50 years of compound bow/crossbow archery after bows reached about 300fps, nobody wanted heavy, slow arrows to kill deer. I realize we have some uber-talented people around here, but hundreds of thousands of past archers didn't discover this? Ballistic coefficient is wonderful but a great BC of a .50 caliber BMG has little meaning or use to a guy shooting woodchucks.

 

[SEW]

Edgetac,
We’re in agreement.

I’m trying to go strictly KI products for ALL future testing and videos. I’ve already gone to using a rough prototype of their upcoming “heavy” arrow offering - this is their non-indexed proprietary shaft (the same one that’s in their other arrows). That’s why I used their shafts in the X1 for this testing.

Yes, the accuracy is that good.

“Lucky enough to own an X1”. KI or any of it’s dealers would be happy to help people become “lucky”.😊

Yes, Duke, when the heat index lowers a little, I’ll do that. It’s been on my radar, just for you.

 

[SEW]

Here's what ... I need. I need a graph of a 400gr/450fps arrow sighted in at 30 yards vs a graph of a 775gr/287fps arrow. I'm having a hard time understanding how 287fps is better than 400+fps. I'm also having a hard time figuring out why in 50 years of compound bow/crossbow archery after bows reached about 300fps, nobody wanted heavy, slow arrows to kill deer. I realize we have some uber-talented people around here, but hundreds of thousands of past archers didn't discover this? Ballistic coefficient is wonderful but a great BC of a .50 caliber BMG has little meaning or use to a guy shooting woodchucks.

Duke,
Indulge me for a bit. These BHs offer another alternative for the hunter. This entire thread is about how this BH performed during testing. Some of us are getting surprising and very unexpected results: extreme accuracy even at ranges well beyond the majority of crossbow hunters personal range for hunting, flatter trajectories than expected, & as expected - quietness, etc..

For everyone? No. But where I bear hunt, an over #500 bear is a distinct possibility as are huge hogs.
I started using rangefinders in 1983 and still do. And that was with a 210’/sec, 125# Foxfire shooting a 2219/145 Bear Super Razorhead. As time has gone on, range has become less of a concern and accuracy has become paramount. This extreme accuracy is a major factor in my apparent obsession with the SWAT line of bows as well as their other features.
Which rifle did Carlos Hathcock use for the 800+ meter heart shot of the NVA 4-star: a Rem 700 308 or his Win M70 300 Win Mag? Which was more accurate? Which had the flatter trajectory?
You know, of course - he used the 308.

Your hunting situation and requirements are significantly different that the average crossbow user’s .

For at least two of us testing this BH, our eyes were opened as to the potential of this broad head; and I will keep one X1 set up just for this BH. It will be my preferred set up for my most important hunt, to me, my annual bear hunt. And likely, for every bear hunt after that. And also likely, for a # of my deer stands.

But being the notorious longer range hunter that I am, my other crossbows will have lighter, flatter set-ups.

Summary: No one is saying that this is the best hunting BH nor advocating its wide spread usage. This is a test report of a unique BH that performed surprisingly well and beyond almost everybody’s or everybody’s expectations.

Steve

 

[bunnyrabbit]

What I will mention in regards to bear hunting, regardless the size of the bear,
one wants a wide blade or multiple blade broadhead. The reason being, bear
fat and fur tends to clot or plug the wound, thus reducing the outward blood flow.

Wishing you all the best.
Take care.

 

[Iron Duke]

Duke,
Indulge me for a bit. These BHs offer another alternative for the hunter. This entire thread is about how this BH performed during testing. Some of us are getting surprising and very unexpected results: extreme accuracy even at ranges well beyond the majority of crossbow hunters personal range for hunting, flatter trajectories than expected, & as expected - quietness, etc..

For everyone? No. But where I bear hunt, an over #500 bear is a distinct possibility as are huge hogs.
I started using rangefinders in 1983 and still do. And that was with a 210’/sec, 125# Foxfire shooting a 2219/145 Bear Super Razorhead. As time has gone on, range has become less of a concern and accuracy has become paramount. This extreme accuracy is a major factor in my apparent obsession with the SWAT line of bows as well as their other features.
Which rifle did Carlos Hathcock use for the 800+ meter heart shot of the NVA 4-star: a Rem 700 308 or his Win M70 300 Win Mag? Which was more accurate? Which had the flatter trajectory?
You know, of course - he used the 308.

Your hunting situation and requirements are significantly different that the average crossbow user’s .

For at least two of us testing this BH, our eyes were opened as to the potential of this broad head; and I will keep one X1 set up just for this BH. It will be my preferred set up for my most important hunt, to me, my annual bear hunt. And likely, for every bear hunt after that. And also likely, for a # of my deer stands.

But being the notorious longer range hunter that I am, my other crossbows will have lighter, flatter set-ups.

Summary: No one is saying that this is the best hunting BH nor advocating its wide spread usage. This is a test report of a unique BH that performed surprisingly well and beyond almost everybody’s or everybody’s expectations.

Steve

Well... I'm open minded ... sometimes ...lol I ordered a pack of "Tooth of the Arrow" broadheads last week with some input from that Bromley character. I see a course where they might bring an advantage and improvement to my way of killing deer. For one thing a one piece solid broadhead is perfect for spine shots. I'll see how they perform in less sensitive hunting areas. I expect ludicrous penetration which is not unlike what I'd expect from this Shartac bonecrusher you're shaking out. I've tried blondes, brunettes, redheads, raven haired and silver foxes, so I'm not agin ex-spear-o-men-tin. I do lean toward a light setup though in arrows and in ....

 

[blizzy]

I think the tooth of the arrow fly better than my field points I would never have believed it’s but I’ve shot it a hundred times and they are unbelievable this is with a 143 grain ethic spinning insert 175 toa zombies tapps dragons aero bolts high foc majic out of the nemesis

 

[Iron Duke]

Long read ... but the NATE VANCE article should be enlightening for some of you who may find the general information interesting. (click on "More" to see it all) It tells us a lot about what SEW is saying concerning "Ballistic Coefficient" and why he's seeing success with the 375gr Shartac broadheads. It also tells us something about long range shooters. Which sniper rifle has the longest effective range? - Quora

 

[SEW]

Duke,
That Quora article referencing the 40 Cheytac. I use the 40Cheytac selection on my Quick Load program for loading data (for starting) on my 3 40 Cal Smokeless Powder Muzzleloaders and have shot a “few” 20 mm cartridges mentioned a few posts down.
Thank you for your open mindedness!
We learn by testing. No dry lab but all wet labs. Surprises happen. I was impressed but not overly surprised with my 1st SWAT over 4 years ago. I was impressed AND surprised at the results of my testing of the 375g BHs. I had actually told Dave that I was not his man to be testing these. He had a different idea.
Steve

 

[Iron Duke]

Duke,
That Quora article referencing the 40 Cheytac. I use the 40Cheytac selection on my Quick Load program for loading data (for starting) on my 3 40 Cal Smokeless Powder Muzzleloaders and have shot a “few” 20 mm cartridges mentioned a few posts down.
Thank you for your open mindedness!
We learn by testing. No dry lab but all wet labs. Surprises happen. I was impressed but not overly surprised with my 1st SWAT over 4 years ago. I was impressed AND surprised at the results of my testing of the 375g BHs. I had actually told Dave that I was not his man to be testing these. He had a different idea.
Steve

Well it's not ... like I've been against "if a little bit is good, a LOT is better."

😂

 

[SEW]

Look at the effect of the recoil on that ship! Nota good time to be standing, doing your business in the head.