Ask a dozen bowhunters about the broadheads they use and why, and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers about which ones are most accurate. Every brand and model has its own advantages and drawbacks, and some broadheads simply fly better with certain setups.
Everything matters: draw length and weight, arrow length and weight, kinetic energy, shot distance, and more.
But accuracy on a target range is only part of the equation. What really counts is how broadheads perform on game. Accuracy means little if penetration is poor, blood trails are scarce, and the animal isn’t recovered.
And at the center of this debate – ever since the first commercially successful mechanical broadheads hit the market in the late 1980s – has been the question: Which style of broadhead, mechanical or fixed-blade, results in more recovered game?
To answer this question, we’ve consulted two dog trackers from different parts of the country who specialize in helping hunters recover game after the shot.
These trackers do not know each other, work in completely different types of terrain, and have fielded thousands of calls over the past few years. And yet, despite these differences, their insights into broadhead effectiveness are remarkably similar.
Although not a new practice (using dogs to recover wounded game dates back to the 11th century), in the past decade, more states have legalized the use of tracking dogs – Pennsylvania, Maine, Maryland, Iowa, Louisiana, and West Virginia, to name a few.
To date, 44 states allow blood tracking dogs, according to the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. Hunters today tend to call dog trackers more often to help them locate wounded game.
Every year, more hunters are calling trackers before even taking up the track of deer they know they hit very well. As a result, trackers find themselves in a variety of situations, contacted by hunters of all skill levels using all types of bows, arrows, and broadheads.
Their in-the-field experience can play a key role in understanding which broadheads produce the best blood trail, the shortest tracks, and/or highest percentage of successfully recovered game.
Who Calls the Most?
“I’d say probably 80% of the tracks I take have two things in common,” said Rob Cummings of Pennsylvania Wounded Animal Recovery. Cummings has been helping hunters locate wounded game for 7 years and averages approximately 75 tracks per hunting season. “Most calls are from crossbow hunters using two-blade mechanical broadheads.”
Cummings believes, however, that most of his calls involve Rage broadheads simply because they are the most popular. FeraDyne Outdoors, Rage’s parent company, even claims on their website that Rage is “the number-one-selling expandable broadhead of all time.”
The fact that 80% of the calls Cummings receives involve two-blade Rage broadheads could be proportional to the percentage of the hunting population that uses them.
In fact, most avid crossbow shooters will confirm that the lower profile, slimmer design of a mechanical broadhead generally increases accuracy as well as speed. However, the lighter arrow, or bolt, used by crossbows produces less kinetic energy downrange, which can result in less penetration on big game.
“I do get some compound shooters that also use the same Rage broadhead because they’re easy to shoot,” said Cummings, “and it comes into play because most people don’t tune their bows like they used to. The bow sits, they pick it up and shoot it, but they’re not tuning the rest, the cam timing, and everything else to really dial it in.”
Gary Blessing of Midwest Deer Tracking and Recovery Alliance echoed this sentiment. Blessing takes approximately 150 tracks every season for a variety of big game species including elk, mule deer, antelope, and whitetails.
“Four out of five of our calls involve mechanical broadheads,” said Blessing. “There’s a myth in the hunting community, and it’s this: Hunters believe that a massive mechanical broadhead guarantees a kill. People tell us daily, ‘Well, I shot it with a Rage, so I know it’s dead.’ But our dogs often tell us differently.”
“Mechanicals are popular,” said Blessing. “But for lethality, I’d much rather hear a hunter say they shot a deer with a fixed head. Failures are rare, but we occasionally see mechanicals that never open or break blades on contact with bone. Fixed blades rarely break.”
Blessing collects as much data as possible from every tracking call he receives. Information such as weapon used, broadhead type, distances traveled, recoveries versus non-recoveries, and other statistics are recorded into a spreadsheet. He even records data of any deer that were found dead months later by hunters.
“Many factors can dictate recovery distance,” said Blessing. “For example, if a hunter pushed the animal previously, time of year, etc. But for lethality alone, last year my recovery rate with fixed heads was 12% higher than with mechanicals. In 2022, it was 9% higher. On a yearly basis, the trend is similar.”
What Causes Ineffectiveness?
The equipment you use has a direct influence on effectiveness, and a poor setup can lead to trouble in the field. “When tracking elk in Wyoming,” said Blessing, “Some hunters use whitetail setups. A 350-grain shaft, 2.5-inch mechanical broadhead, and they’re trying to kill a 900-pound animal at 65 yards. And then they wonder why it bounces off.”
“Penetration is key. A larger mechanical cut can kill in some scenarios, but overall, a fixed head gives deeper penetration and more tissue damage. For example, a 2.5-inch Rage may only penetrate 10 inches on a 300-pound whitetail, hitting only one lung and resulting in a track that could span miles. A fixed head could reach the second lung, and that animal would be dead within 80 yards.”
A fixed blade broadhead isn’t always the answer, though. A shoulder hit is still a shoulder hit, regardless of the broadhead being used.
“Fixed blade shooters often think that if they get 6–8 inches of penetration into the shoulder, they’ll hit vitals,” said Cummings. “They usually don’t. Even if they get one lung, most mature bucks survive. I’ve tracked deer with a shaft and broadhead still stuck in a lung that had healed over – one lung collapsed like a raisin, stuck to the rib cage – and the deer was alive until the next season.”
Cummings continued: “I’ve had guys say, ‘I’ve always shot deer in the shoulder. My crossbow costs $3,000, it’ll blow through a shoulder.’ Well, it doesn’t. Entry/exit doesn’t matter as much as hitting the front shoulder does. Last year, around the second week of November, I had 12 tracks in a row that were all front shoulder hits, and none were recovered. Eleven of those 12, we jumped the buck alive. The last one, the state trooper who shot it later sent me trail cam pictures of the same deer still alive.”
How the broadhead impacts the animal can also make a difference in its effectiveness. According to Cummings, mechanicals function best when they impact the animal with blades positioned vertically and pass through the rib cage. He rarely sees successfully-harvested animals with a horizonal pass through because he believes hitting the ribs causes mechanical broadheads to malfunction and/or arrows to deflect.
The potential for deflections is a big reason why experts preach waiting for an animal to turn broadside before taking the shot – not to mention quartering-to shots often produce shoulder hits. Of course, in the moment, it can be difficult to determine if an animal is truly broadside. Many hunters take angled shots without even realizing it.
“Ninety-five percent of the time,” said Blessing, “the hunters are wrong about their shot placement. I’ve done it, too. When I was 16, I used a NAP Spitfire, the first broadhead I ever picked up, to shoot at what I thought was a perfectly broadside doe. Pinwheeled her. When I recovered her, the entrance was exactly where I expected, but the exit was back near the opposite hind quarter. So either the doe was quartered toward me at more than a 45-degree angle or I had a deflection.”
Blessing said deflections happen a lot, and they can be confusing. Sometimes the exit holes in relation to the entrance holes can only be explained by deflection. “But they’re almost impossible to prove unless you have a video,” he said.
Another thing both trackers mentioned was how time of year can influence the effectiveness of a broadhead. As hunting season progresses, a buck’s physiology changes. They get bigger and stronger, which makes arrow penetration even more important.
“A buck in November is a totally different animal than he was in September or October,” said Blessing. “We call them ‘zombie deer.’ They’re driven to breed, full of testosterone and adrenaline, and don’t sleep for weeks. Their bodies are adapted for survival, including higher levels of vitamin K in their blood, which helps wounds clot faster. Even a gut-shot buck will run farther during the rut than that same deer would’ve run earlier in the season.”
Rob Cummings agreed. “For some bucks,” he said, “a lethal shot in early October is survivable in mid-November.”
Key Takeaways for Broadhead Choice
First and foremost, shot placement will always be more important than broadhead choice. Most broadheads on the market today perform well and are capable of killing the animal they’re designed to kill.
Something both Cummings and Blessing stressed multiple times was the importance of staying behind the front shoulder. Don’t think that just because you’re using a fixed blade broadhead that you’ll be able to bust through that bone, especially on very large animals with more muscle mass and stronger bones.
Shoulder hits, regardless of broadhead type, have a low probability of recovery. Both men also stated that, when it comes to tracking with their dogs, animals hit in the rib cage and back have produced a nearly 100% recovery rate.
Second, set up your archery gear for success. Use the right arrows for the job, properly tune your bow, and practice. Mishaps such as deflections are more likely to occur if arrow flight is erratic, porpoising, or corkscrewing.
Work on developing shot discipline, too. “According to my data,” said Blessing, “older hunters in their 50s and 60s rarely need tracking dogs. Younger hunters, ages 20-40, tend to rely more on their equipment and take riskier shots.
“For better or worse, social media has changed hunting culture. When I started hunting, nobody cared about the size of the buck I shot. Today, there’s pressure to shoot bigger deer, and hunters often rely on equipment to make up for poor shot placement. People think a high-end bow or laser-tuned mechanical broadhead guarantees success, but it doesn’t.”
Third, if you insist on using mechanical broadheads, consider those with more than two blades. “Fixed blades and three-blade mechanicals create an excellent wound channel,” said Cummings. “The more ‘flaps’ you can have, the less likely it is for that wound to clot. That said, blood trails can be misleading. I’ve had hunters with completely clean crossbow bolts – no blood, hair, or gut material – who thought they missed. We put the dog on it, and sure enough, it was a hit.”
Both Cummings and Blessing agreed that, if you want to increase your recovery rate on wounded game, fixed blades are the overall best option. Across the board, with everything else being equal, fixed blades provide more consistent kills.
“People ask me all the time what the most effective broadhead is,” said Blessing. “After all, during a single season I track more deer than most people ever will in their lifetime. When I recommend a flat-shooting arrow and fixed blade broadhead, occasionally hunters will take my advice, but most stick to mechanicals, thinking bigger is better. Ask any tracker and they’ll tell you the same thing, that your success rates will increase with fixed blade broadheads. The problem is getting hunters to believe it.”
