Ep. 43: Broadheads and Arrows with Bill Vanderheyden
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Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today's guest has been able to combine his two passions of bow hunting and mechanical engineering into designing and producing some of the best broadheads available today. Bill Vander Hayden has been bow hunting for 40 years. He grew up hunting whitetails in Wisconsin before moving to Colorado 24 years ago. He still hunts whitetails, but his focus is now primarily on Western big game with backcountry elk hunting being his absolute favorite.

He's been a mechanical engineer for 30 years with an emphasis on mechanical design and material science. He's developed products for other companies for many years, including high-tech, aerospace, and medical devices before starting Iron Will Outfitters and focusing completely on broadheads and aero components just recently. He's also an adjunct instructor of mechanical engineering at University of Colorado where he's currently sponsoring and directing projects related to the science of bowhunting. So welcome to the show, Bill. Thanks, Jason. Thanks for having me on.

I know you just returned from a bear hunt up in Canada. It looked like a great time with some great results. Go ahead and give us a little snapshot into that hunt. Yeah, I've been going up to Saskatchewan in the spring for, oh, I think it's my fourth trip up there in the last five or six years and just seeing some giant bears. And I got a good one last year, but this year it was just a tank of a bear, 473 pound bear.

And man, my heart was beating hard when I saw him coming through the woods. But yeah, a great bear is huge. Yeah. The pictures were impressive. And a lot of times on bears, it seems like pictures don't do them justice. So I can only imagine how big that, that guy was, but yeah, for upper fours, you know, if we're getting into that almost 500 range, that is a giant. So congrats on that. Um,

No, I appreciate having you on. We're going to talk a lot about what I consider the killing end of the stick for a lot of us archery hunters. And so I'm really excited. But like every episode, we're going to jump in to listener questions or some questions that I was able to scrounge up that people had knowing that I was going to have you on a guest today. So like every episode.

If you have questions for me or my guests, please submit them to us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or send us a message on social and we'll do our best to get them included. So I've got five or six questions here. Once again, I went to the Is It September Yet Facebook page group, a bunch of diehard archery elk hunters. And so I've got a list of questions I'm going to throw at you here, Bill.

Sounds good. So I don't know if there's a science to it, but we're going to call this first question. Can you explain kind of the science of a good blood trail? This question comes to us from Derek Klein from Is It September Yet? Yeah, I'd say there's kind of probably three factors there. There's, you know, shot placement.

um did you slight are your blades able to slice all the way through and then you know what what's the shape and size of the holes really and yep so shot placement is going to be number one if you get the heart lung area and you got a low exit hole um you know probably going to be a great blood trail um if you're hitting

a high back lung shot um you know just below the spine high and back those can those can be not so good you know yeah um you've got you know the blood's got to flow down the sides of the animal also you know you cut the top lung but that kind of shrinks down not a lot of not a lot of bleeding coming from that um you shoot a gut shot maybe um that you know often the

Yeltsin can kind of plug the hole and the stuff coming out might not be bright red. It might be kind of more brownish or something. So that can be tough, too. So shot place is probably number one. But if you just get into the broadheads, then, you know, the bigger and the more open the hole is going to generally give a better blood trail. So just a two blade slice can sometimes close up.

and give you a really poor blood trail even if the slicing was kind of good through the middle. It can be good but that's kind of a potential issue with just a straight two blade. A three blade can give you more of a hole then because you know you don't it's not a single slice that can close up you've got more of a triangular shape inside and I would put a two blade with bleeders in that same category you get a cross cut there

Inside corners can't really stay tensioned, so they pull back and there's a bit of a hole there. In a single bubble with the rotation, and I prefer a single bubble with bleeders, with that rotation, that can give more of almost a square hole because of that rotation, the way it cuts through the hide. So that hole opens up holes everywhere.

nicely. But the other factor, and I would also say, you know, kind of bigger, the better, you know, our wide broadhead series gives a wider cut than our standard. And in general, it's going to give more, you know, more blood getting out of the animal, more, more tissue is sliced as you go through. But one other factor that a lot of people don't think about is that sharpness and edge retention is really important as well. I believe I've done some testing where

you just push the broad different broadheads through say like a liver or a lung you know

of an animal after you get it. And you can see that with iron wool broadheads, they're very sharp with good edge retention. You get that complete cut of the sides of the head as it goes through it, slicing everything. It's not really pushing tissue aside. Whereas a lot of heads, with cheaper blades, those edges are dull by the time they get through the hide and for sure rib. And so they push a lot of tissue aside after that. Don't slice it. So there's a lot less bleeding involved.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, you know, and, and, you know, I just relate to sharpness to, you know, when you cut yourself with a brand new razor, you know, it seems like it takes forever to stop bleeding. And so I've always felt sharpness, but then, like you said, keeping that thing sharp, you know, we've all ran our knife through high, we've all ran our knives, you know, along a bone and it doesn't take very long. So that, that, that,

the initial sharpness, but then the ability to hold that through as it gets through the animal or out the other side, um, in my opinion is one of those like very important, um, aspects to have that exit hole bleeding. And have you found, or, I mean, it's very tough to do, but a lot of times, um, we get more blood out of that exit side. Um, do you, this is something I've always talked about your exit hole on a broadhead always seems to be bigger and it's big.

I'm going to let you, you clear up anything I say that may be a mistake here, but when you on your, on your entry side, let's say you have a rib cage that's backing the hide. It almost guarantees that since there's no stretch to that hide, you're going to get a hole. That's the exact size of your broadhead, unless you come in at an angle, you know, but you're basically going to get a mirror of your broadhead that goes in, but on the opposite side, you're

That hide will stretch a little bit depending on the sharpness and the angle and whatnot. And as you imagine that hide stretching over the broadhead before it finally starts to slice, you typically will get that bigger exit side. And growing up or everything, the exit hole is always bigger. They bleed more out of it. Have you found that to be true or are they very similar? No.

I think that's probably true in general, that the exit holes seem to be a little bigger than the entrance. With single bevels, I'd say that it seems to not be the case so much because that rotation on entrance and the way it's twisting and cutting, I see kind of more similar. It's a pretty open hole on both sides with the single bevel with bleeders.

Yeah. And we'll get into it here in a little bit. One of the reasons I like actually a narrower head is to ensure that I get those two holes if I do everything right on my side, which isn't necessarily it doesn't relate back to the lethality of the broadhead. You know, the animal is probably still going to die. It's my ability to get more evidence on the ground, you know, so I can I can track the thing to its final location and not necessarily lose it.

you know, around here, we've got a bunch of needles or old growth they may run into. And the more blood we can get on the ground, um, the better. And then one other thing I was going to touch, you'd mentioned like a high lung shot, um, you know, and, and the result of bloods we've, we've hit a lot of animals, high lung. And I will say once again, they die maybe faster than other ones because it does fill up their lungs with blood very quickly and stuff, you know, does the, does the killing through that mechanism, but yeah, very, very little blood. Now it is a great shot. If,

you know, to, to, to very quick and ethical, but doesn't yield very good blood. And so it's that balance of, uh, you know, it,

hitting them there versus getting a blood trail. So I'll diverge on that topic. We're going to get into penetration and some of the other things I personally look for on big Western big game. But no, thanks for answering Derek Klein's question there on blood trail sharpness, two, three or four blades. I think we covered it all there. Now, there was one thing I'm going to add to this. Do you find any difference in blood

blood trails single to double bevel does it does that affect aside from what you've already mentioned that entry hole or would you say that you know regardless of the angle of the blade and all that they yield pretty similar blood trails everything else being equal

I would say with a two-blade head, if you have a two-blade without bleeder and you compare a double bevel to a single bevel, I would give single bevel a little advantage there because there's kind of an S-cut as it rotates in. So it's not really a straight slit like you get with a straight two-blade without bleeders. And then...

Once you add the bleeders on a single bubble and get that rotation, it does-- I mean, if you look at the holes through the hide on both sides, they are more open with that rotation.

I would say that I've seen good blood trails with both really are double bevel with the bleeder and then our single level with the bleeder. There's a lot of cutting going on in the holes are opening up both sides. Um, I think they both do really well. I might give a little advantage though, to the single bevel with bleeder just because of the way it opens up those holes, especially the entrance hole. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. So thanks for that. We're going to jump into the next question here. Um,

Can you explain the warranty of Iron Will Broadheads and kind of what that covers and what led you to that warranty? Yeah. So, you know, the reason for that initially was that, you know, I spent many years trying to

designed to develop a broadhead that would would cut through bone and stay sharp not get damaged you know get you through that shoulder bone on an elk really that's a failure that I had um and what really got me started in this and after many years of different steels and heat treat processes um developed a steel and then a ferro material as well that was high strength where I could pound through the the heaviest of bones and have no damage to the broadhead so you know

because of that and the cost of our heads. A lifetime guarantee, you bend or break it, we replace it. We had enough abuse initially with people shooting them into, you know,

concrete blocks or into heavy wood over and over and you know bending them getting them out that we kind of change the warranty a bit to say um any shot you know at or through an animal we um it's warrantied we'll replace it if it gets damaged shooting at or through an animal even if it hits rock on the other side of the animal but you know in a hunting situation but um we don't want people shooting them i mean some people would shoot groups into targets

All summer long until all the blades were damaged and then, you know, want to replace with three packs. So we just kind of limited it. It doesn't cover target shooting or, you know, intentionally shooting it.

you know rocks or concrete or steel but anything in a hunting situation we do cover that warranty so it's basically uh not to reword but it's some common sense applied to hunting scenarios and making sure you're not smashing broadheads together and shooting stuff that they weren't intended to shoot through um but no it sounds like a great warranty there and um you know at least protect protect the product for what it was intended to do

Right. We want you to be able to... So they're not single-use heads, and that's a new concept for a lot of people. You know, we've had people shoot, and I probably have as well, shoot the same broadhead through several animals, maybe 10 animals, and keep using that broadhead.

you know, you typically, you know, might need to touch up the edges to, um, for sharpness after, after a couple, but, um, you can keep using them. And that's the intention there is that when people know that once you buy them, you can use these for many years, just take some care with the, you know, target shooting and things to, to not shoot them into something like a steel plate or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, uh,

You know, you talk about after, you know, being able to reuse those same thing here. And one thing I really loved about them, you know, when I used to use replaceable bladed, you know, more mass produced replaceable bladed broadheads, that was one thing like shooting into the target. I could feel, you know, throughout a summer, like these things are getting dull when you switched over where it's, you know, the iron will, I can just keep shooting. And the thing never, it's, you know, whatever you do to the edge, whatever you've got done with the sharpness there, it's like a foam target really doesn't mess with that. And so I love that.

like being able to get an arrow dialed in with a specific broadhead, knowing that however it's set up is a great combo and it's flying well. I don't have to mess with it. I don't have to worry about sharpening it, you know, because I've shot it a hundred times into foam.

Yeah, we generally say if you're going to shoot five times, you know, I think I've measured up to 10, but we kind of say if you want to shoot every broadhead arrow, you know, in your quiver and make sure that it's flying well, you know, just shoot once or twice with each arrow at 50 yards or whatever makes you comfortable that that arrow is going to fly well. But five times or less and like a foam target like Reinhardt Matrix, you know,

I can't measure any difference to that edge sharpness. That's because our hardness is 60 Rockwell C. So that's a very hard, strong edge. And then we do a multi-stage grinding and honing, get it very sharp. And it retains that edge really well. And that's why you can generally shoot through an animal. And one pass through of hide ribs exiting into just say dirt,

you can typically clean it up, see if it's still kind of shaving hair and put it back in your quiver, keep using it. And if it does get dull to the point where it's not shaving hair, you pretty quickly, you know, touch it up and keep using it too. Yep. Yep. All right. So the next question comes from Chase. Hopefully I don't mess up the last name. Eagly. Do your vented heads whistle or make noise? Yeah. In general, vented heads have a little bit of like a,

like a shush to them, I guess. In flight, our solid heads, we just, I did sound testing years ago and we just actually repeated it this past year with a study we're doing at the University of Colorado on arrow vein designs or improved flight with fixed blade broadheads. And sound recording was part of that. We looked at the sound from the shot to passing through, which would basically be when the animals hit

and I looked at the frequency content as well. And what I would say is that our saw blade heads are very quiet. We saw similar to field point type sound amplitude on those. So they're excellent. And our vented blades are a bit louder. Our original V series with the small vents

are probably our loudest head and then our wide series with the larger vents um that vent is a bit quieter it's kind of like blowing through a whistle versus a tube a bit there but we saw in both cases though and that's this is why i don't think it's as big of a deal as some people do is that you know you get the sound of the bow going off and then the arrows and really that bow noise is still there's still vibration noise coming from that bow when the arrow is

five to 10 yards down range already. Um, and then it gets really quiet until the arrow gets pretty close to that animal or the target, and then it flares up. So, um, and if we looked at the segment that was say 15 to 10 yards from the animal, it was very hard to pick up a difference between different veins, different broadheads, um, anything there. So I think, I think it's a bit, um, um,

I don't think it's as big of a concern as some people have. I think that sound from veins or broadhead blades or vents doesn't really flare up until it's so close to the animal that it's probably not as big a factor as people think. Yeah. And you may know better than me. I'd have to go research it or Google it. I can't remember the speed of sound versus the speed of a typical arrow. Do you know which one's traveling faster at that point? No.

Um, speed of sound, I think is like 1200 feet per second in your arrows, you know? Yeah. 300. So, I mean, that animal is your, your arrow is never going to outrun the bow. I didn't know the numbers, but I knew this idea that that there's no, regardless of that arrow whistling, that animal is going to hear your bow before

for an arrow ever matters you know and so it's like in my mind just comparing the speeds it's like all right that the sound of my bow going off and with any reasonable archery distance that animal's been made aware of my bow before he's ever going to recognize the arrow making a whistle

Yeah, I mean, my current thinking on this, and I try not to make, you know, gut decisions. I try to make, analyze, do data-driven decisions on things. But I kind of feel like, you know, because a lot of people say, you know, from a video, you can see that the animal didn't move at the shot of the bow. He moved from the, you know, sound of the arrow later. But really, that arrow is, you know, a quarter of the way there, maybe when he hears it, when he hears the bow go off.

And that bow noise continues, you know, for another five or 10 yards of that arrow travel. And now he's looking that way. And, you know, deer and animals in general have excellent vision for movement. So he looks over that way. Maybe he sees movement of the hunter or whatever, or maybe even sees the arrow in flight.

Um, you know, and then I think with that movement, with that sound, they're deciding, am I going to bolt or, or, or not? And they start moving and, you know, and there's a little bit of time just to register from the sound to when an animal can react. So my feeling is, um, yeah, maybe he moved when the arrow was maybe start moving when the arrow was halfway there, but it's still that initial sound of the bow and looking over, maybe, maybe something he saw with his vision. It's making him react that way. Um,

That's kind of my feeling, not so much the sound of the vein or the broadhead, but that's not the general thinking in industry. I'm just trying to apply science and what I've kind of learned so far. Yeah, for sure. That's all we can do, right? That's where I love being able to balance the science versus what we see out there is real world results and kind of blending those two. Yeah.

Uh, next question comes from Chris Pasto. Um, what's your best practice for sharpening, uh, iron wool broadheads or any broadheads for that matter? Yeah. Um, I would say first off, when you get, when you get our broadheads, don't, don't sharpen them. They're very sharp already. You, it'd be difficult to achieve, you know, the edge sharpness we have, we can zoom into 200 X and it's still, you know, dead sharp to, uh, one 10,000th of an inch. Um,

And so our sharpness starts way sharper than many. But in general, I would say that when you get broadheads, it's good to check sharpness. You'd be surprised at how many aren't sharp out of the box, especially like a one-piece solid construction, you know, two or three blade. A lot of times those just have a milled edge, milled bevels to them. So just to note, first off, when you get heads, check to see if they're sharp. Make sure they're sharp or sharpen them. When you get them, RG shouldn't need to do that.

And then it kind of depends on how much that edge is worn away. Generally with ours, it's kind of like a high-end knife. The hardness, the sharpness is very good to start with. And you can typically go through, you know, hide, meat, even a rib and have that edge be pretty good. So I would first just clean it up, check and see if it's still sharp, shaving hair, or you can see if it kind of cuts paper, whatever.

If it's good, just leave it. If the edges still look good, you don't see any flats or rolled edge or anything like that, but it's not quite shaving hair, cutting paper. Then I just, and there's videos on our YouTube channel that show this, but I just start with like an extra fine stone and by hand kind of hold the bevel to kind of match the bevel, just tip it slightly so that I'm contacting the edge.

And just, you know, a few strokes back and forth over and over and then lightening pressure. And really it's about a minute, minute and a half of doing that on edge. And I'm typically able to shave hair again. If it's, if it's, if it's been dulled, I guess more than that, then that's when I typically, I guess the foolproof kind of way to do it, I think is to remove the blade, clamp it up, clamp it into a,

knife sharpener or a broadhead jig, but you'll mark, put a marker on the beveled edge. And then I like the knife sharpeners where you can set the angle and have flat stones. So you can adjust the angle until just one light, light kind of scrape against that stone is removing, removing that marker that you put on all the way to the edge. So, you know, you're kind of matching the bevel cleaning up to the edge and then you can,

You maybe just start with a fine and then extra fine, or if it's a bit more beat up, you might go medium fine, extra fine. But you're taking strokes on one side and then the other back and forth and kind of regrinding that edge all the way to the tip. As you can go to finer stones, you can get a finer, sharper edge.

And, you know, we can get into more details on this, but as you're doing it initially, you want to clean up that edge to where you can feel a burr all along that edge coming out to the other side. Then you know you clean up that full edge. And you're doing it back then on the other side to bring it back. And as you go to the finer stones, you're kind of working a smaller, smaller burr. And then at the end, it's, you know, you've just taken it completely off and it's dead sharp.

Yeah, I like to use... I've had a few broadheads get to that point. A lot of times I can just pick it up, flip my thumb across it. It's still really sharp, good enough to

to shoot another animal with. But yeah, when I get to that point, I don't remember the kind, but it's a work sharp that basically, you know, rotate your blade 180. You can set the exact angle you want. So I just kind of look at the side, make sure that, you know, yeah, I'm contacting the tip, but I'm almost so kind of maintaining that, that angle. So I'm getting a real smooth and then just, you know, run it down the blade. It holds it at the perfect, you know, 22, 22 and a half, whatever it may be for a double bevel or, or, you know, whatever that angle may be. And then, um, yeah, you can

touch them up really good. I do notice that like, you know, the, the, the, since you do get it to a hardness of 60, it sometimes can be a little bit more difficult than I would say, like a cheaper steel to get that you have to work out a little bit more. But I, I found that that, that workshop lets me get those things dialed right back in without removing too much material and kind of maintaining that angle really well.

Yeah, it's A2 tool steel. So it's a steel used in metal stamping dies to cut other metals. And it kind of has a unique ability to have great impact toughness and retain an edge and sharpness even when cutting through something like metal. I'd say it's a pretty workable steel since it's a tool steel. It doesn't have... It's not like some super steels that have such hard carbide particles in it that...

that it's really difficult or you need special you know stones or equipment to sharpen i'd say it's

It's definitely doable with standard sharpening stones, but yeah, it would take a little bit more work than say a soft, you know, 420. Yeah. Yes. I know it's not near as difficult as like the S30Vs, S90Vs and stuff we used to try to sharpen. I'm like, man, I don't, I don't, I can't remember how to run a knife sharpener anymore because you'd sit and struggle with those and then, you know, eventually figured out how to get those sharp again. But yeah, it's definitely easier than that, but maybe a little more work than softer steel. So yes.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at huntthegreatest.com. The next question comes from AJ Doobie. How much helical for a single bevel would you recommend?

Yeah, kind of like two to three degrees. And this is part of the university study, too. We were looking at with a high speed camera as the arrow comes out of the bow and how quickly does it spin up? And then, you know, what's the maximum spin? It gets downrange. And so, I mean, I don't like zero to one degree. I mean, zero, definitely you're not getting any rotation and rotation.

And the reason you want rotation in an arrow is it kind of averages out any asymmetries. You know, if your insert or broadhead is pointing a little bit off to one side, and then you shoot the arrow without rotation, it's just going to drive the arrow off to that direction. Whereas if you have rotation, it might open up your groups a little bit, but it's going to keep it much closer to, you know, on the bullseye. So you want rotation.

And I think two to three degrees is a pretty good amount, I think, on a vane to relatively quickly spin that arrow up so you get the accuracy advantages. But I don't really see a need to get a very high rotation. I don't I think at impact.

you know, super high rotation. It seems like it'd probably be a negative thing, but what I've tested from, you know, I've tested like two and a half to three degree helical with our current single bubbles. And that seems to do a really good job. We've got high speed video on our YouTube channel, actually passing through a deer. And you can see that

The arrow is rotating at impact and it just keeps rotating right through that animal. Doesn't really, doesn't miss a beat there. It's a single bobble head. So yeah, I like the two to three degree range.

for shooting really any fixed plate broadhead, but definitely seems to work well with single bevels too. - Gotcha, and I'm gonna piggyback on AJ's question. Some of this stuff I don't claim to be an expert on. I've shot helical, right-handed twist, double bevel broadhead, so I haven't had to deal with a lot of this, but single bevels are sold left or right twist.

right? And then you've got the ability to helical left or right, but then you've also got the idea that a bow naturally wants to spin an arrow a certain direction. So we take those three things that could all work together, could work apart from each other, or you could have two working in one direction, one in the other. What's your opinion on that? Should we go to, because it's something I've never thought of. It's nothing I've ever went through. You know, when, when I was growing up bow hunting, it was always about, you don't want

to spin the arrow so that it wants to loosen your broadhead, you know, or the ferrule from the insert. And so you always, you know, everything spun to the right, you know, you wanted your arrow spin to the right, kind of kept your broadhead locked in. What's your take, your opinion? Is there any research that supports those things should all match? How do we figure it out? I know it's a, it's a lot all in one question, but if you can kind of elaborate on that whole idea.

Yeah, I think the important thing or the most important thing if you're going to shoot single Bible is that you're

your veins and your bevel match. You know, you want that arrow rotation as it hits the animal to continue in that direction. So, and I think you can do, I'd say do two to three degree offset or helical. And if you're doing right offset or helical, then do a right single bevel. If you're doing left offset or helical, just do a left single bevel because you want that

You want that rotational momentum that's providing some of the torque to go through the animal, which is kind of needed with single bevel. You know, single bevel, all that pressure on that bevel causes the rotation as you go through the animal, but you don't want it to like stop that rotation and have to change direction and go back that way. You lose energy and penetration there. So that's the most important part of this whole thing.

The other question is really kind of the clocking they call it on the bow. Or if you shoot a bear shaft out of your bow, which way is that arrow going to rotate? And this isn't really done by design. I mean, ideally, the arrow would just come straight out of a bow. You know, the bow manufacturers aren't doing something in particular to make it rotate left to right. They're just kind of an imbalanced force on it.

that might go left or right. And generally that's due to the string twist and the serving and how that knock just kind of releases from it. I first heard about this maybe 12 years ago or so. And when I first tested on my bow at that time, I was getting like a quarter inch rotation left over 12 feet. Well, I knew from high speed video that my arrow was getting like a full rotation right in like

10 inches or something from the veins when they're at two and a half to three degrees. So, and, you know, from engineering, some of the torques equals I alpha it's, you know, that rotational rotational, you know, angular acceleration, I guess. So to me, like that little bit of torque left and all this torque right from the vein, don't worry about it. That was kind of my initial thoughts on it. And I've still kind of,

tell people in general it's not that it's not a big factor i mean if you want to really dig into the details and the weeds um i mean i do see with high speed video that if the bow tends to want to make it rotate a little bit left there's a little bit more of a hesitation there before the right rotation starts so i'm not going to say that it doesn't matter at all um but

I'm not so sure that it – I don't think it probably matters a whole lot in accuracy, at least not for the average guy. And I'm not even sure for the pros. You know, I've talked to pros that started doing it, but they said they aren't really seeing a difference in accuracy. So I'm a bit on the fence on that whole thing, but it's one of those details that there's a lot of other things to worry about. Yeah. Bigger factors than that. Yeah. Yep.

Alright, yeah, thanks for diving into that one for me. So the next question comes from Ryan Randall. Are there any plans for a traditional three or four blade head in Iron Will's future? Yeah, good question. You know, our two blade with bleeders is basically a four blade with bleeders.

With an advantage, I think sitting that putting that bleeder back away from the tip is an improvement for splitting splitting bone. For instance, if you're and it's really why I like a two blade with bleeders over a three blade as well. If you think about hitting a scapula.

with a two blade head it just has to make one split through it and that takes quite a bit less force than like a three blade where you're splitting in three different directions at once it's a lot more force and we've got some force testing data on our website that shows this but just pushing down through um hide muscle and scapula with our two blade with bleeders

versus a three blade, I think our force was, I think the force was like five times as much with that three blade, trying to make that split out three ways. And I hear about this all the time, people shooting a three blade head into scapula on an elk and not penetrating through where ours penetrates very easily through. So,

Will I ever make a three blade? You know, I might. I've considered it. You know, there's a lot of people that are just stuck on shooting three blade heads and want me to make a better one. And so I might, but I actually think a two blade with bleeders is a better option for still getting a nice entrance exit hole, cutting a similar number of similar amount of tissue. If you look at the total cut, but yet penetrates bone and hide and everything else much better. Yeah. No.

no i i'm in agreement there you know the the only advantage i ever saw to a three blade was the idea that that hole may not um you know it may stay more open but i think we still accomplish that like you said the tension from the center of that hole on a four blade does the same thing it kind of keeps that hole open but then you know people have talked about well you know just basically two two blades crossing they can still close but i agree you kind of get that that middle open so um

Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for taking that one on. And now the last question, um, and you know, the, the question we had got from a few guys is why are they so expensive? And I'd like to rearrange this question and ask you, why are iron wools worth what, what, what you charge for them? And, you know, if you can go through the manufacturing process, QA, QC materials, finishing, um, hardening, all of that, and kind of give us a look into why these broadheads, you know, cost what they cost.

Yeah, good question. You know, when I first had a broadhead fail on an elk shoulder blade in 2004, and it was pretty devastating for me at the time.

I was a mechanical engineer, had developed products for other companies for many years at a high level. Then I took a look at this broadhead really critically and decided quickly that this thing's junk. It's prone to failure. I really just decided, well, I first researched and tested a lot of other heads out there, but then at the end decided to really just start from scratch.

And not think about low cost manufacturing, but think about how can I get the highest possible performance out of this broadhead to for sure get to an elk shoulder bone, get through the vitals, make that a successful hunt instead of, you know, a heartbreak. And, you know, I also had a background when I when I first graduated from engineering school, went to work for 3M company at the time with development engineers, they'd have you

spend like 20% of your time on a technology development project. And coming out of school, I kind of had an emphasis in kind of mechanical design, machine design, but then also advanced materials engineering and steels in particular. So the technology development program they gave me was tooling technology development for the corporation. So I was

digging heavily into steels, tool steels, heat treats, coatings, you know, other things to try and improve tools that we're doing, you know, cutting materials, cutting metals, you know, really kind of all the different tooling things that are used in a big manufacturing corporation. So, you know, I dug deep into the steels, worked with different steel suppliers and things like that. So I had that background as well. So, you know, I just knew there was

Most of the blades out there were using like a 420 stainless steel, which is not really even a good blade steel. It's kind of a nice compromise of being very cheap and doing okay. But anyway, I went through five different steels before I settled on A2 tool steel. I used S7 as well, which is a great impact steel and really good.

They're both used in metal stamping dies and punches. S7 is generally used to punch or form metal. A2 is often used if you're going to cut metal. And so even though I liked S7 and used it for a couple of years in development, I'd say A2 was kind of a better because I could get it harder, sharper, retain the edge better. Anyway, and I process it like you would a high-end knife blade. We start with...

steel plate, blank that out. We do CNC machining, multistage grinding, honing. We do a heat treat process that includes a cryogenic treatment and triple tempering to just get the best possible. We can geek out a while and do that, but you do this cryogenic treatment, you make sure all the, it's basically making sure the microstructure is perfectly changed

goes from austenite to martensite and it's a very hard dense structure and it makes sure it's all uniform. And then the tempering adds the toughness. Anyway, we spent a year just working on the heat treat once we chose the steel. And so all these steps in that process, you know, add cost versus typical blades are,

They're done on a reel-to-reel. There's a reel of metal coming in one side, and you can do that when blades are 20, 30, maybe even 35, 40 thou thick. You can just have a roll of steel coming into a stamping machine to where it's feeding through on a strip. It's stamped.

And a lot of these machines, they sharpen right there too. They stand up, run through a one-side grinder. It comes off the other side of the machine. And these blades cost dimes to make versus dollars to make. So anyway, that's kind of why ours is more expensive. And that's kind of explaining the blades or ferrules. We use a grade five titanium for our lighter heads. And that's really the best

strength to weight ratio of any metal so um i think that's the best metal to use on a ferrule on say 100 grain head we use on our 100 125 grain heads when you really want the best strength to weight ratio and then as we go to our heavier weights we use a hardened steel which is you know you can all steels aren't created equal most steel you know all steel say ferrules or heads out there are generally 302 stainless um

which is not hardened. You can use martensitic steel, harden it and get strength that's maybe two to three times the strength of those austenitic 300 series steel. And we actually harden them and machine them in the hardened state. So it requires that we

machine them slower, it takes longer to machine, the material costs more. So that's why those cost more as well. But we can get very precise. There's no distortion or discoloration from a later heat treat. And it's really kind of the best way to make the parts that you can. And I'm all about performance. I'm a development engineer.

And I want to use the best process to make the best product and, you know, kind of let the cost fall where they do. And that's really why, why our broad has cost quite a bit. Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm the same way, you know, sometimes with our calls, you know, it's like, let's just design the best call we can and roll up the cost of goods and figure out where that thing needs to be to be profitable, you know, and that's, we've let that lead a lot of our projects. But yeah, for me, you know,

And not to over-dramatize it, but we spend...

Not trying to justify you just, you basically gave us the reason on the price. But for me, as a user of your product, uh, you know, you spend all year for the most part planning, thinking, you know, setting up for these hunts, you know, your, your one or two archery elk hunts. Cause you can only, you know, maybe three max to squeeze these in, you know, you drive potentially all over the country, you drive across your state or you drive, you know, you're driving into your unit and you've bought new this or that. Like when it comes down to it, like, do I want

to risk the chance that you know when i'm at full draw knowing you know the last thing i want to think about is if you know is this broadhead going to perform or if i make a slightly less than perfect shot like is it you know am i still covered like is the broadhead going to be you know and for me it's it's easy just to like a peace of mind knowing that i've got the best the best broadhead that i've been able to find you know on the tip of my arrow

Yeah, that's a good point. You know, all the, all the effort, all the work, you know, to be a bow hunter, there's, there's a lot of preparation and work that goes into, into it. And when you, when that shot happens on that animal that walks out and maybe it's,

the biggest animal you've seen or whatever. But when that animal walks out, what piece of gears matter the most? Well, at that point it's having good arrow flight and then having your broadhead perform on impact. So our heads are probably 20 bucks more per head than the things you're going to pick up at a department store. But yeah, to me it's worth it at that moment of truth there to get that animal and have the best chance for success.

Yeah. Well, uh, that, that kind of wraps up the listener questions here. I appreciate everybody over is September yet, um, sending us questions. And so once again, you have questions of your own, email them to us at CTD at Phelps game calls.com or send us a social message and we'll do our best to include them, uh, for me or my guests. So now we're going to jump in to kind of my discussion I wanted to have with you, Bill. Um,

you know, on cutting the distance, we're all about tips and tactics. And I think it's important to kind of, you know, and to become successful, but I believe it's easy to kind of roll broad heads into, um, you know, finding success and, uh, you know, being able to, to, you know, technical data surrounds them, you know, the lethality of the broad heads. And so, um, yeah, it

glad, glad to have you on here. I got a few of my own and I love when things are based on science and data. You know, we're coming off of a few interviews with biologists. Like I just love being able to look at the data and, and, you know, figure out, does this correlate with what I've seen? Are there anomalies? Are there reasons why what I've seen are different than the data? And just like, let the chips, chips fall where they do. And, um, you know, go with that. But,

you are, you know, similar to me. We've got the engineering side, but then we go out and test all of our products. And I want to see those real world results that support or back up what's found in, you know, in what I believe, what I've been able to find. And I think you and what you're doing with Iron Will broadheads kind of, you know, encapsulates that whole idea. You know, design the best broadheads on paper, do a bunch of testing and then go out and confirm them on animals. So, yeah, I,

you know, going to jump into our conversation with you here. So can we dive a little deeper into your work that you're doing with the University of Colorado? You know, I think there's a lot of just generalities or ideas that have, you know,

come from many, many years of bow shop owners or in industry stuff. Um, but you're actually going back and kind of proving that or, you know, coming up with data that supports that. So give us a little bit of what you're doing at university of Colorado. Um, you know, you've got new veins that you're looking at new arrow setups, um, kind of give us the full rundown of, of, you know, lab testing and new products.

Yeah, so to give you a little background there, you know, I developed products for other companies for many years and I was always seeking out the best, you know, engineering products.

tools, really, whether it was computer modeling, instrumentation, you know, high speed camera, accelerometers, just whatever kind of instrumentation, you know, analysis tools, really kind of the best engineering tools and applying them to improve products. You know, engineering is really applying science to, you know, solve problems or develop better products. But at the companies I worked for, I always, you know, really drove

highest level engineering improvements. And through years of doing that, I was leading engineering teams and, you know, really kind of mentoring and driving other people to, you know, do the

Apply science, do the analysis, but then also do some lab testing to prove that a computer model is accurate and what the analysis shows will be an improvement actually does make an improvement. Then in the final assembly testing, prove out that you did make it better.

you know, I was involved, you know, in different companies doing that. And then companies I worked for started sponsoring university projects. And then I was placed as kind of the company, you know, industry client or those projects. And then about eight years ago, the university asked me to be one of the faculty directors. So I became an adjunct instructor of mechanical engineering and was one of the faculty directors for the senior design project for mechanical engineering. And that's a year long project where seniors

Mechanical engineering, they're required to do it, but they take an industry project and spend a year doing analysis, design analysis, prototyping, testing, iterating, bring it to manufacturing typically. So I've been teaching students kind of best practices for years.

mechanical engineering and trying to kind of bridge that gap between, okay, you have all the school knowledge and all the tests you've taken, all the information is there. Now, how do you solve the problem when you have all the information? That's generally what happens in university tests.

to where you get in the real world and develop a project and all the information isn't given to you. You have to figure out what is the science here? What is the physics? How can I apply it? How can I analyze it, test it? So, you know, I've been teaching students to do that. And then this past year, finally, I got approval from the university to both direct and sponsor projects. So Iron Wall Fitters is sponsoring a

sponsored project on improved arrow vein design for bow hunting with fixed plate broadheads on the front. So it's been a great project. It was five seniors in mechanical engineering that had no background in archery or bow hunting, which I kind of like. They come and do it with no preconceived ideas of what works or doesn't work. They're just using

designing, analyzing, collecting data, and really making data-driven decisions or showing the results based on that. This past year, we tested six of what I consider the top hunting vanes in the industry. We did a CAD model of those at a three-degree helical on the arrow with ironwood broadheads on the front. We did a fluid dynamic model

So it's really very sophisticated one has, you know, airflow going over the arrow, even as it's rotating through the air. We're able to model that we're looking at.

We're looking at really accuracy, stability, wind drift, drag, and sound from that. So we can model all that here. Oh, and I don't know if I said spin up as well. So we can kind of model that, how these different veins will do a better job of that than the other. We can tip the angle at, say, five degrees to the wind, like as if it's coming out of your bow and your bow's a little untuned. And we can see what is the restoring torque that quickly brings that arrow back

back on track to get it straight at the target. And so we studied six of the veins in the industry and then studied some different prototype veins. But we took it from the analytical computer modeling to then also

to do the empirical testing, the actual testing with a shooting machine using a high-speed camera to kind of verify the spin up and then the stabilizing and then the max rotation. We used lab radar to look at

the velocity from the bow to the target to verify the drag and the drop that we calculated through the model. We had a very sophisticated sound recording system placed out there that was recording the sound with these omnidirectional microphones. And then we analyzed that through MATLAB so we could look at the frequency content. And we looked at

you know, the frequency kind of peak range for humans, which I think was two to four kilohertz. And then also animals, which I believe was four to eight kilohertz. So we said, okay, is this arrow sound, you know, arrow broadhead vein combination sound loud to a person? And also does it sound loud to an animal? Is it more likely to make an animal react or not? So we took all that data. We just kind of finished up the project. We're planning to put out some kind of white papers to summarize that, but that's, yeah,

That's kind of just the overview of the project. And really the reason I wanted to sponsor that is I feel like with the Broadhead development, I have a Broadhead now that is penetrating really well through hide bone. It's getting in that pass through and

Some people, a lot of people, I wouldn't say a lot, but some people, their problem with shooting fixed plate heads is that they struggle to get good arrow flight with fixed plate heads. So I wanted to dig more into the science there and kind of be able to show people, hey, you can definitely get great long range flight with fixed plate heads. You just need to do a few things here. Get some rotation in your arrow, tune bow, the right veins on the back, and you're good.

Gotcha. Yeah, I like it. And I'm excited to see what comes out on that white paper and if it changes anything that we think is right as of right now. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day, I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

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This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

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What's your opinion on FOC? Did the pendulum swing too far? Does it matter? We've went to this all your weight in the first two inches. Just give me your take on that and what you've found or what your opinion is on if there's a compromise where we don't have to chase these huge FOC numbers. Yeah, I don't think there's any science that would show that extreme FOC

would be a significant increase in penetration. If you, I mean, the science and the math, the physics and the math there is that mass is that momentum is going to equal force times time. Change of momentum will equal force times time. Momentum is a vector quantity. So as a direction and momentum is mass times velocity. So really the way to

to maximize your penetration is to maximize that mass times velocity in a straight line. So having good arrow flight so that your arrow is going straight as it impacts the animal and then, you know, have that increased mass and or velocity can give you that total increased mass times, total increased momentum at impact. It's going to translate into how much force can that

really, arrow system apply as it cuts through and for how long. So it's that product of force times time. So there's no FOC in the math or the physics there. There's no center of mass in that calculation. I think it only comes into effect if it's somehow changing how well your arrow is flying or what it's doing at impact. So I think

The advantages with FOC, they improve stability. As you move your center of mass a bit forward, you're going to improve your stability. But I personally don't go to any extremes. I think, say, 12% to 15%, 16% is great. I've seen excellent penetration. My arrow setups are usually in that 12% to 15% range. And I can tell you through all my testing, with the right broadhead on the front, you have excellent penetration.

So I don't see a need for this extreme FOC. The physics doesn't really justify that. You know, I think that Dr. Ed Ashby's testing, I've talked to him about this. He saw not going from a 19 to 22% FOC, saw 30% improvement in penetration.

I really think that's because he's shooting a longbow at close range and there's a lot of flexing in that arrow and it probably improved his arrow flight or how straight that arrow was on impact. And that was probably majority of the factor for penetration. And I think it's unfortunate. I think a lot of people have tried to apply that to modern compound bows and the negative that they do is to try and get extreme FOC. They're often underspying, putting that on.

a lot of mass out front, you don't have the aero stiffness to support it, you get massive flexing back and forth. And I see this on YouTube videos of people that are extreme FOC advocates. You can see in their aero flight, that thing's flexing back and forth like crazy. And in my aero setups,

I may be getting like a half inch of vertical flex of the arrow and then it's almost going perfectly straight, you know, 10 feet later. I don't want to have that massive flexing back and forth all the way to the target. That's going to reduce penetration because your momentum is not in a straight line anymore.

Yeah. No, I'm, I'm in that same camp and, you know, and then you're like, all right, well, mass is included. So do I just go to a heavy arrow? But then you're once again, if you're chasing heavy arrow and FOC, you end up with an underspined arrow or you end up with, you know, you, yeah, you end up with a heavy weight, but now you're, you've just given up velocity, which all calculates back in the, you know, it's really just a trade off. And that's where you look at it. And then you also, you know,

factor in what you saw from you know maybe some of the female bow hunters you've hunted with that got perfect pass-throughs at 52 you know pounds and a 420 grain error or whatever it is and you're like well and what am i doing is a guy shooting a you know a 72 pound bow and full length arrows 560 grain it's like does it does it all matter or do we just need to be able to shoot our bows better um you know and hit the animal right where we want and i build my arrows

somewhat backwards. And I fall into that same 12 to 15% FOC like you do just kind of naturally. I've got a fairly long draw. I shoot full length, 32 inch arrows. And then I just kind of keep stuff and weight in the front until I get my bow to what it says on paper is going to shoot about 280 to 285 feet per second.

And just confirm that I'm spined right. And then I move on, you know, I'm not chasing a weight. I'm chasing more of a speed. What does that weight and that tip weight got to do? And then make sure my spine still, you know, is correct. And I'm not going to be, you know, under over spined and just kind of leave it there. Like I build backwards to a speed that I like to shoot.

and don't chase foc or a crazy weighted arrow you know just just by my size i end up with a 550 to 560 grain arrow but you know it's it's just because of the 32 inch draw length and heavy arrows yeah there's definitely a trade-off there as you increase the master trajectory drops off um and so people ask me you know what what weight should i go with to maximize penetration well i

I think you do continue to see improvements with penetration with, with mass, um, especially, and you know, the technical reason for this, I think is because, uh, is an animal tissue and everything probably asks the like viscoelastic material where it's like, as you increase that shear rate, it takes more force. So a light, fast, um, arrow is going to take more force to, uh,

go through at that higher speed and it's going to slow down easier because it's light versus a heavier arrow. And so

But it's not a huge of a factor. So I think I kind of calculated in my setup, I thought 100 grains, say going from 450 to 550 might be maybe a 10% improvement in penetration, maybe not quite that much really. But then there's a drop off in trajectory as well. And that's why I'm typically end up around 500 grains, but it's why I'm not going 600 plus.

Um, because I just get way too much drop off in the trajectory and having good arrow flight and hitting where you're aiming are really number one. Yeah. Um, for sure. And as far as where to put the weight, yeah. Upfront's better than putting it. You don't want to really want to put it at the back. Um,

and up front is better than having just a heavy arrow with a light head up front. I wouldn't go with a heavy arrow and then only have 100 grains or 116 up front like some people do with just an aluminum insert and a 100-grain head. Then your FOC is down at 10% or below. I think...

I think, say, the recommendations out there in the industry are maybe 10% to 12% for target setups and 12% to 14% for hunting arrow setups. I think that's what Easton has said before. I don't like going all the way down to 10% or below. You add the possibility for instability to fix it.

head. So that's really the reason for having some mass up front and having a decent, um, FOC, but there's no need to go extreme. In my opinion, it's more likely to hurt arrow flight and trajectory. Yeah. Um, this kind of segue or kind of plays off of what we were just talking about. Um, do you have much research on, you know, the cutting diameter in relation to penetration? And one thing I've always did, which surprises some people is I just shoot a hundred grain solid head. I want, uh,

the smallest cutting diameter as possible. Now I want that broadhead to be sharp and do all the other things, but I've always in my head just added weight to my insert or whatnot because I wanted the ultimate penetration. As I mentioned earlier, I've always been in that camp that I want a hole on both sides. I also, if I do encounter bone, I've always thought that a one inch cutting diameter is easier to push through that bone than an inch and an eighth or an inch and a quarter. Do you have any data on cutting diameter in relation to penetration? And if

my thought process is right or if it's incorrect. Well, I totally agree with you that getting that exit holes is important and, you know, cutting all the way through in exit hole. And, um,

I like to shoot our standard width heads on elk. They have like an inch and 16th main blade, three quarter inch bleeder. It's 1.8 inches total cut, but it's relatively compact and flies well at long range. And that's generally my elk head. And, you know, I'm zipping right through that. It takes such low force to cut through with our heads that often they're

going 20 yards and looking around or sometimes not even moving, you know, it's zipping through and you're dying quickly if with the right shot placement. So I don't really see a need to go with bigger heads. And for years I kind of fought it. And then we had enough people that really just wanted a wider head for white tails, bears, things where the shots are closer. Um, and long range flight isn't so important. And just to get a bigger hole. Uh, when I first

started making those and doing all the lab testing, I expected to see a higher, quite a bit higher force to penetrate with the wider blades. And I was a bit surprised that I don't measure much difference. And it's really kind of helped reinforce what I'd learned prior is that sharpness and edge retention are huge factors in the force it takes to penetrate, especially in height and, you know, muscle and tissue. But it seems to be in scapula as well.

Now, I might say if you have a bigger, heavier bone, you're probably going to have less force to cut through with a head that's not quite so wide. But if I just measure the force to go through, say, hide, muscle, and like thin part of scapula, man, I have a hard time measuring a difference between our standard head and our wide, which is an inch and three-eighths wide.

main blade, three quarter inch blader for two and an eighth inch total cut. Um, so I've, I've kind of changed my thinking a little bit and I don't see any problem with using that head on, um, you know, deer and elk. I use it a lot, but I also started using it on elk when I have a setup where it might be over water or I know the shot's going to be relatively close. It penetrates, you know, I put one through a bull last year, exited the opposite side shoulder bone and

and then buried into a log eight inches on the other side of the elk so even though it's wide it went through you know it wasn't the thin part it wasn't the knuckle it was kind of in between part of the shoulder bone but it didn't really slow down i think once the tip starts cutting away um and maybe on bone split it's kind of split that far ready and maybe on the hide once you start cutting it doesn't take that much to keep cutting it a little wider um

But I do think in general, in the industry, if you look at broadheads beyond ours, you know, the more cutting, the wider cutting you do takes more force and it's probably going to give you less penetration in general. Gotcha. Yeah. That's okay. Perfect. That's kind of what I thought, but it's, it's that, it's that idea that it's going to, in my head, it's going to work if I hit it in the right spot and don't go through heavy bone. The one inch is still, or the one in 16th still going to do its job, but

for the, you know, and I've went through, you know, right through the middle of the scapula before and broke through, but it's that instance, like, all right, I maybe have to go through there or I, I missed just a little bit and go through there. I feel like it just gives me a little more margin of error, but, you know, as you're saying, maybe, maybe not as much as we thought due to the, you know, the construction of the tip and, and how everything's working on those iron wheels.

Yeah. One thing I'd point out too, is that our newest head now is a, is a wide single bevel head that we've had a lot of people asking us for. I've been testing that over the last year. And just a few weeks ago, I was in Texas hunting hogs with it. And one hog, you know, kind of a,

uh, older boar that I shot a little further forward than I intended to. It was a 40 yard shot or some leaves covering his head. And I ended up shooting too far forward. I went right through the knuckle on that hog. And that was probably two and a half inches of solid bone. And it was a loud crack. And I thought, Oh no, I had something really hard. This would be a real test for that wider, um, wide single bubble. That's trying to rotate, you know, through the bone too. But

um, it, it made it through the bone and got, you know, all the way through the animal. Um, the arrow didn't completely pass through, but the broadhead made an exit on their side. And, and that bone just cut clean into where you could just kind of pull it apart, like a puzzle, put it back together. It was a slice all the way through. And so that was with our wide, um, head. So again, I feel like it's going to, you know, you need the right steel, the right hardness, strength, and everything to be able to cut through that bone. But, um,

it was good to see that even with the wide, we went through probably the thickest bone you're going to see on a, on an animal, um, in North America. Gotcha. Yeah. I had a question here coming up to, that would have been a great segue, you know, single bevel versus double bevel. Um, you know, we kind of exhausted that on the, on the listener questions, but, um, is, are you seeing the ability, this is my last question on single, um, once again, bone, um,

Are you seeing a difference? Does that single bevel just have the ability to kind of torque its way through and rotate its way through bone better than double bevel? Or is that tonneau point on the double bevel able to break through bone similar? Or is there an advantage of one to the other? Yeah, good. Great question. And, you know, over many years of testing, I've kind of struggled to find a difference for bone splitting ability. I know that that was it's set out there a lot that the single bevels.

and pop bone apart. I've talked to Dr. Ashby directly about that and how my results were a bit different. And, you know, he was using a very long, like three to one ratio head. He had a very slow longbow setup and he was seeing where double bevel could kind of just kind of wedge the

wedge into that bone and take more force to penetrate versus that single bubble. As it started rotating, it was kind of popping bone and reducing the force for him to penetrate. It was an improvement.

And I think we've, I've talked to this and with him a number of times now, and I feel like with, with my setup being a modern compound bow, I had so much more energy that when the tip of, in our tanto tip shape, when that enters the bone starts piercing that bone, it's, it's popping it apart. It's cutting it apart very quickly. Um,

you know, and doing a great job penetrating. And that single valve, as it's cutting in and popping it apart, you know, it's hard for me to see a difference in that, at least with my setup and my levels of energy. It might be more of a factor with a low, you know, lower energy setup, thicker, longer, you know, thicker bones, but I'm generally not seeing it. I'm popping through, you know, I do a lot of testing on

you know, cattle femurs, things like that. And I'm seeing them both are popping through with no problem.

Gotcha. Um, so we're going to, this will be my last question for you. Kind of rolled it up a little bit, uh, you know, for elk when you're, when you're, uh, you know, in close proximity, but you know, we've got a lot of white tail hunters out there, uh, you know, so for, for setting up for elk, what would you recommend the best broadhead for white tail hunters? Um, you know, to be, you know, out of a tree stand, if that changes angles and all of that, do you have a recommendation for that? Or is it just typically your wider, wider angles?

Yeah. You know, I've shot, I've shot all of our broadheads on quite a few whitetails at this point. And I could say that, you know, they, they all do a good job. They all, you know, zip through quickly, cut through bounds, open up shot angles and opportunities there. That's really kind of what I tell people that, you know, might shoot mechanical or want to know how is our head better than a mechanical at a whitetail. It's generally tell them it's,

It's opening up shot angles. And, you know, if you shoot a mechanical, hit them where they're soft and you're probably fine. But with ours, if, you know, that animal ducks and turns into it and you go through the shoulder blade, even the thickest part of the shoulder bone, it's going to penetrate and it's going to get you through the vitals. Or if it's a downward shot through the spine. And really, I say that about everything.

any of our heads that we make. They're all going to be able to make those shots. I'm generally personally using our wides now more on whitetails. It's just that the shots are typically 20 to 30 yards. Rarely are they over 40 in a whitetail woods.

And so I know our wide is going to penetrate great. Why not get a little bigger hole? If there's a more marginal shot, let's say you end up hitting one lung liver guts. I've done that a number of times. And with our wide bevel with that 208 inch total cut between the main blade and the bleeder, often they're going maybe 60, 70 yards and dying, even with a single lung liver cut.

um shot it's just doing enough trauma that they're going down quickly so that's kind of the advantage of why shoot maybe a wide over smaller one is just more um you know more bleeding quicker potentially quicker kills so that's what i generally recommend on white tails are wide series and that's what i generally recommend on on bears as well which are similar closer shots and um and yeah and bears especially with all that hair it's important to get an exit hole there that's

Talking to the outfitter again in Canada a few weeks back, a lot of guys are coming up there shooting mechanicals. And if they're a little bit quartered away and hitting the opposite side shoulder, they're not getting pass-throughs. And then they got a high entrance hole, no exit hole. And on a bear, that means no blood trail because it just soaks up that blood so much. So yeah, white-tailed bears, I generally recommend our wide heads for those shots. Awesome.

Gotcha. Yeah. Thanks for that. Bill, tell everybody how they can follow, follow along, you know, you follow the company on, on social media, check out more. And if there's anything else you'd like to throw in that we didn't cover here, feel free to do that as well. Yeah. Our website is Ironwell Outfitters. We're on, you know, Instagram, Facebook is Ironwell Outfitters. Also we're,

We have a YouTube channel. It's also Iron Wall Fitters. And yeah, I'm committed to improving bow hunting, applying science to make better products. We make broadheads. You're currently working on making better arrows. We've started through the university study. We came up with, we found the best thing from the study was this hybrid hunter vein, which is the

max hunter profile and a new hybrid material that we had a make for us and um worked with easton to machine flex these at three degree helical so that all the people asked that asked me you know what arrow setup should i use to with your broadheads uh i can just say hey the one we saw right now uh kind of did the best overall in the study um and you know we know this is gonna work well to make our our heads fly well and really if you

you know, have a bow tuned. So your arrow is coming relatively straight off of it. You're properly spined. Then you have enough vein on the back to stabilize that fixed plate head on the front. You should have good arrow flight. And we have great tech support. If people are having any problems with our rod heads in flight, we're happy to help you get that set up. But I want to throw it out there too, that we're, we're, I want to help the bow hunters be more successful and we're happy to help you do that.

Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Bill. Thanks for jumping on. Uh, good luck this fall. If I don't talk to you before then, and, uh, always appreciate your knowledge and, uh, perspective, you know, and your opinions, whatever you may throw at this. Um, cause I know you've tested it and confirmed it. So I really appreciate having you on, um, and, and take care. Yeah. Thanks Jason. It's good talking to, uh, another engineer and, uh,

I know I might have got a little bit too into the details, but hopefully people have some takeaways from it. But yeah, thanks a lot for having me on. Yeah, thank you. Take care.

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