Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today, I'm joined by my good friend Bill Vanderhyden. He's back on the show. He is the founder and owner of Ironwill Broadheads. I like him. He's an engineer, and because of that, I love that he spends a lot of time and his energy. You're researching what works, why it works, can it be improved on? You know all that stuff that us engineers kind of end up nerding out on.
I find cool and I feel that if I can make that connection from the engineering side back to the hunting side and then kind of figure out how that works with real world results. Right, Like one thing, and I'm sure Bill can attest to this, Like you get taught in school or in college, you know, everything out of this book is cookie cutter. But then they had some professors always say like, don't let your studies or
your book trump what happens out in the real world. Right, So there's this thing as an engineer where it's like, yeah, all this this book tells us all these cookie cutter solutions, but yet take what's happening out in the real world over all that. So in hopes today we're going to talk about broadheads, arrows, flight, all that, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna ask Bill a lot of questions on like, this is what the science says or this is what
the engineering or the physics say. Have you found that's what works out in the field, and then you know, how has that translated to real world results? So I'm excited about this one. We've had Bill on the podcast I believe once, if not twice before and always enjoy our conversation. So welcome to the show. Bill.
Hey, thanks Jason, thanks for having me on. Yeah, looking forward to the discussion today.
Yeah. You know, so last time we touched on it, I think you were a year through the study at the University of Colorado. You've been kind of heading that up. Can you kind of give us an update on that. I know you were looking at you know, arrows, weights, veins, you know, you know, drag, wind drift kind of it's a it's a big question, but if you can maybe just kind of get us a breakdown on what's come out of that study in the second year or any new updates and and and really how it affects us
as a hunter choosing broadheads, arrow vane set ups. You know anything that really matters.
Yeah, yeah, And the reason for this study is, you know, for ball hunting, there's really two things that are very important, maybe equally important. That's good erowflight getting to the animal, and then penetration through the animal once you get there. And I feel like there's there hasn't been good scientific studies there has been on the target archery side, there's good, there's good papers and research there, but not so much when you put a broadhead on the front. That aeroflight's
much different. And then also you know, trying to maximize that momentum in a straight line through the animal and have low force to penetrate all that is also very important on the on the hunting side. You know, So I spent a lot of years developing a broadhead to get max penetrations through an animal. But I felt like it was that the aerow flight side was kind of missing at least, you know, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there. You know, I tried this and this happened,
but there's not good engineering experiments. Like you know, as an engineer, you know that when you do it, you set up an experiment. As an engineer, you do you know, lots of repeats, lots you know, you set it up in such a way so that you can look at the variability and then really make statistically significant decisions there on one design point maybe better than another. So I knew there was a lot of opportunity there for improvement.
And I've been a adjunct instructor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado for several years as one of the faculty directors for the Senior Design Project class. So the last two years I sponsored, my company sponsored the projects and I directed them, really focusing on improving aeroflight for bohuney, you know, improving aeroflight with fixed Blaye broadheads
on the front. And this involved a lot of computer modeling, you know, fluidynamic modeling of full arrows with broadheads on the front, veins on the back, and you know, how do they act in flight when they're going, you know, going straight. Maybe they're tipped a little bit, as if your bow is a bit out of tune. And we looked at accuracy, stability, drag, spin up, wind drift, and sound.
So you know, we learned some things about all those and just maybe wanted to touch on a number of those things that could help people improve their arrowflight for bow hunting.
Yeah, Bill, So let me ask a question. And this is me not being a mechanical engineer. You're gonna you're like, oh, this guy's definitely a civil engineer when I start to ask these. But you look at things that are built to fly. You know, if it's a regular dart, you know you got a very sharp point. You look at a plane, it's a very sleek point. Wings are on the back, you know, all the stabilizings on the back. And you look at our our you know, our target
point arrows once again very sleek on the front. You have all your steering on the back. How much or maybe you don't have this number, but is my understanding is when you start to put you know, a fixed blaze or blades out front, you've now got the ability for the wind to basically if that thing isn't flying perfectly perpendicular or you know, perpendicular to the plane that that is traveling, you start to get some side force.
And that's really what causes these major issues between shooting my field point where it's not near as important versus now I've got a broadhead that now has the ability to steer from the front, the part that should be cutting the area or the air is now being pushed at on a side, and then it's it's up to those veins that to over control. Is that a is that a accurate or is there more to it than that or is that really what's kind of going on?
Yeah, that's and that's really the kind of the biggest factor is the air stability. So with the field point, like you mentioned, with the field point, you know, it's very very you know, small streamlined. If you have veins on the back of any size nearly any size, the
arrow becomes very stable. And the problem that often happened is when you put a broad head on the front and this could be a you know, mechanical broadhead it's just you know, has a longer farrell and some exposed blades, or maybe a standard broadhead might be a little bit more unstable, and then you get to like a very large wide blade broadhead, which should be you know, more unstable yet and it's that aero stability that then translates
to accuracy when things aren't perfect. So that was that was probably the top factor in the study, is understanding how to get better accuracy stability when you have fixed blade heads on the front because like you said, if the arrow, say aero comes out of your bow and it's tipped, you know, tiptail left, you have that airflow hitting kind of left side of the arrow and up front, you know it's hitting the blades on the left side, it's going to want to push it off to the right.
Your center of mass is kind of the pivot point there. The airflow across the left side of the veins on the back is going to have some force and you know it's technically it's called lift force, but in this case it's not up it's just perpendicular to the flow. So just for definitions there, force in line with the flow is drag drag force, and force perpendicular is a lift force. So you've got this lift force at the back pushing you know, pushing it back on course or
restoring it. And that distance from the center of mass back to the veins, that distance times of force kind of gives you a torque. It's going to rotate it back on target. And then at the front that force on the blades pushing it off times that lever arm to center mask is a toward pushing it off. So yeah, a lot of the study. We have a couple of papers we've published on our website, but it'll talk about restoring torque with different vein designs, and you want that
restoring torque to be high. So if it comes out, say tail left, it very quickly straightens it back out, points it towards the target, and it greatly improves accuracy. And I think that's what's been missing and a lot of the reasons I wanted to do the study is to show the physics and then the modeling, and then also the empirical testing. You know, we've got over twenty four hundred shots now out of a shooting machine where
we've recorded velocity with a lab radar. We've looked at with a high speed camera the arrow coming out, spinning up and stabilizing, and those are two different things, by the way, spin up in stability, and we'll talk about that more. But and then also shot over microphones recorded sound. But we've got twenty four hundred shots of empirical you know, testing to kind of verify the modeling. But yeah, that stability is a huge factor for having good accuracy with broadheads.
A quick question for you, I know, and you'll probably correct me. How I assume like an iron will technically is a four blade broadhead, but it really has one.
It's I'm gonna you're probably gonna be like Jason, I wish you wouldn't talk about this, but it's basically a large two blade broadhead with bleeder blades to make it a So with that said, did you guys test other manufacturers three blade or four blade heads to see if that side force is less because basically you're not pushing on one large blade versus like a symmetrical three or
four blade versus your guys's four blade. If that makes any sense, that you do any testing to see if if that force is less or or just.
Some kind of ye, just some kind of screening testing early on and and three three blade versus two blade side collars. A two blade with bleeders, all right, some people might call it a four blade, but yeah, it's uh, it doesn't vary. It's a similar issue whether you have uh, you know, a two blade, two blade with bleeders, three blade or four blade. All of those create some lift when there's some angle of attack, you know, when the
arrow is tipped to the to the airflow. They all create some lift and it can it can vary, but it's more of it'll you know, the size of it lay as a factor. But then also just the the geometry, like you know, so I designed iron will broadheads using fluidynamic modeling to kind of minimize the drag. You know, I want that flow to go out around the blades and then come back together, you know. And there's so there's bevels in the back edges of the blade and
it's it's kind of streamlined to minimize drag. And so that's there's some three blades that have that have flat backs to the blades and also have coming kind of some steps down in the feral that have very high drag that where this condition is actually worse. They're more unstable from that. So it's hard to say a two blade versus a three blade and to make like general statements like that. It more depends on the geometry and the drag of the broadhead itself, and that's very geometry depended.
Yeah, And then recovery torque does it is it better? Do you recover quicker on like a longer arrow, getting like the mass out front and your your veins, you know, further back, or is a shorter arrow recover faster, Not that it really matters, you're kind of stuck with your own arrow. I was just curious if you've found that like a longer arrow recovers quicker or slower.
Yeah, so, you know, increasing FOC can help, but restore quicker because you got a longer level arm to the back to the veins and a shorter level arm to the front. I'm not an extreme foc guy, but it's the reason why I don't recommend like a low foc like heavy arrows, you know, heavy arrows with one hundred grain points, fifteen grain inserts, sixteen grain inserts, they often have f focs that are down in that ten percent or even less. I don't recommend that. It's it's more likely to be unstable.
I like them.
I like to be over twelve percent on a hunting arrow, you know, I think twelve to sixteen percent is typically the range that I can hit, having a fairly long draw and a longer arrow. But I don't see any of to go extreme on that, you know, up to you know, twenty percent range either. But yeah, that can help, and.
My head's already spinning to ask you a bunch of questions and extreme like you know, the veins, you're probably gonna touch on it. Maybe I'll just save that question. I always like to think of the extremes, like if we didn't have all the constraints on getting like large veins by our rests and all these things that, you know, if you were to just shoot as large a vein as possible, like can you stabilize that real quick? And
could you overcome that? Versus like you're within the constraints of what we consider a hunting vein that needs to clear your shelf, your rest, you're you know, all of that, Like how much how important is that? Could be? Design a vein that would work better than what's available, but it may be louder, it may you know, put extreme drag on you know, all of these things, and it's
probably not practical. But is there a solution out there if that wasn't a constraint, that we could get these arrows stabilized and really steer a fixed blade really well?
Yeah, I mean we'll jump right into some of the this answers there of what can help you out, And a taller vein definitely helps and how having that area high and back also helps. So the shape of the vein and the height of the vein are two big factors.
So the from the first year study that that hunter profile, this using the max hunter had was kind of the best industry profile that we found because there's a lot of area high in high and back on that shape versus what's kind of known as more of a parabolic where it's more of a fully rounded back end, where there's more area forward. So this this geometry, if if there's a similar surface area, this geometry had I think was a twenty three percent increase in this restoring torque
or stability. So that was a big factor. Another thing was height. So what I what I find is a lot of people say they used to shoot a higher profile vein, but they've gone to a shorter one for sound or to reduce drag or you know, whatever reason. But what we found in the study is so this hybrid hunter is point five eight inches high. If we model one that's ten percent shorter, so point five to three, or you know, there's a lot of veins that are
point five to five. If you go from point five to five, say two point five zero that ten percent reduction in height, you get about a two and a half percent reduction in drag, but you get an eleven percent reduction in restoring torque. So it's not a good trade off. I think a taller veins better. That's why I generally recommend with with broadheads on the front that I think a point five to five inch point five to five point five eight inch veins, you know, are
going to perform better. You can even perform better. Yet by having more of that area kind of kind of high and back, that geometry you know, works really well to restore get them very quickly. You know, it both can be out of tune. We kind of quantify how far out of tune, but it could be pretty far out of tune. Still have broadheads hit with field points with those taller vein and that right kind of geometry of the vein.
Yeah, and then you know I used to I shoot a four and I'll ask you about four versus three or what you fell in there. But one thing I struggle with is if I start to get too taller on that upper end shooting a four vein, like I start to run into potential contact issues with my rest you know, some of these other issues that you know that that it's like the point of you know, limiting return or the point of I need to go backwards, and you know, there's just nothing I'm gonna make work
unless I was to go to three vein. Do you guys in your studies do you start to look at that? Are you just looking at just pure data on what controls the best and then you know if you can make a rest or a hunting rest work, you can? Or are you guys looking at that, like, how do we how do we get these to clear clear arrest at for four veins? Yeah?
So you know what, And we've done some modeling of four veins versus three, and I've done some testing at four versus three, and a lot of people are going much shorter maybe zero point four inch tall vein, but
four of them. And what I found is that it doesn't do nearly as good a job stabilizing as three taller veins, and you have the added drag and sound of a fourth vein, And so I feel like three taller veins is kind of more efficient in doing everything you want a vein to do, which is to me, you know, you want a vein to have good, good stability, So create that lift force that's going to push it
back on, but kind of minimize the drag. If you minimize drag, you also minimize wind drift because what happens in wind drift when you get this, say crossflow, what happens is your your arrow making an initial kind of kick sideways from that crosswind, but then it pretty quickly
aligns to that resultant direction of airflow. And like if you say you're bow shooting, throw eighty feet per second and you have I think a sixteen mile or across wind is what I calculated the numbers, four, your arrow would end up tipping like five degrees into the wind. And most of that wind drift is just due to that inline drag. So if you can reduce inline drag,
you can reduce wind drift as well. And that's why I think three higher profile is a little better than than four slightly lower profile, because you might you probably get less drag overall and better restoring. But to answer your question, if you had four tall ones, would that stabilize even better? Yeah, it would, But you know, if you're contacting something that kind of blows everything right because your accuracy is gone, So yeah, I can see the
trade off there. You for sure want to make sure that's not an issue, so you know, you know, pottering your rest or or somehow, you know, figuring making sure you're not getting rest contact is very important when you're shooting those taller veins. Yeah, definitely.
Another quick question for you. So one of the reasons I shoot four veane and my I feel like my arrows are pretty pretty good. You know, we'll talk about the quality of arrows. You know, everybody's got the one, you know, one one thousandth of an inch straightness or five one thousands how much all of that matters. But
I shoot a pretty good arrow. But I've always shot four veins because there are times where you know, and you probably know more about this than I do as well, but there's always like a strong side of the arrow, right or the spine of the arrow is usually stronger
no matter how you know, high quality they are. So by having four veins, it gives me the ability to knock tune, you know, more consistently, versus especially if I go with a cock vein and everything's kind of messed up, you know, or it's set, then it really kind of screws my coloring up unless I just went with all white veins and you know, took a sharpiend put a star on which everyone should be up or down or
whatever that was. That's my own personal reason because there are times where it's like, man, this arrow just flies with the rest of them. If I turn the knock ninety degrees, you know, I set set the knock out, you know, with the little tick the indicator or the index on the on the knock, I just set to the outside of my riser. And that's kind of my system. But yeah, that's really the only reason I shoot four
over three is for knock tuning. But now you're you're almost talking me into maybe going back and checking out three white veins and then I can just you know, draw on the one that needs to be up.
Yeah, I mean that's why I typically do, and that's what you do custom build aero builds and we just do the three white veins, and yeah, it kind of gives you the option for three different positions of your arrow if you would need it. But but honestly, what I what I've found, and you know, I used to measure spine on every arrow, and you know, go to the flutch to the high side and do all that. But as I've learned more, and what I've found is if well, first off, you want to be properly spined
like you do, not want to be underspined. So I and we put we put charts on our website. You know for this reason that the numbers on there, so it'll have different You can pick the chart for how it's total weight you want up front with your broadhead
end components. We have charge from one twenty five, seventy five, two hundred up to two and fifty granes up front, and then you know your arrow length and your bow poundage and it'll give you recommended aerowspine and those charts we put together at Ironwellfitters dot com, they're going to tell you there won't be on the light end. They'll be a little more conservative. They'll be like optimal to
slightly stiff. And what I've seen with that with the high speed camera is in doing that, you get very little flex of the arrow. Anyway, I get like a half inch of vertical flex coming out of the bow and then like within six feet it's just going straight. And I think for a hunting arrow, that's what you want for target arrow it doesn't matter so much. Watch you know, you you may find that and a lot of you know, target archers will do this. I'll add maybe add the more more or less point weight and
find out where they can hold the tightest groups. And if target archery is most more important to you, no no problem doing that. That that makes sense. But what you can find is that you could be underspined. And I've talked to doctor James Parks about this, who's done a lot of papers and research. He has a he has a PhD in mechanical engineering. A lot of it was on target aerow flight and then he was the
coach for the national team for Australia for archery. You know what he found is that spine doesn't matter that much. You can go quite a bit underspine and still shoot pretty good groups in target archery. I would not recommend that for broadheads for a couple of reasons. One, if your arrow's excessively flexing up and down, now that that blade is giving some you know, angle of attack to the oncoming airflow, it's.
Going to push you off.
Also at impact, you know, the best probably the best measurement of how much penetration you're going to get is that momentum which is mass times velocity and it's a vector quantity, so in that straight line. So you want that mass and that velocity to be in a straight line to maximize your penetration. And then that's going to be equal to some force time's time. So you couple that with a low force to penetrate. You know, a broadhead is going to have low force to cut through
high bone whatever. That's going to maximize your penetration. So anyway, that's that's kind of a long explanation of why you want to have kind of optimal spine to to a little stiff But once you do that, I found and you have an arrow that's got relatively consistent spine around the shaft, and I would say that you know, you know with the Eastern accesses is the ones we do custom EERI builds with. They do a good job. But you know, the top manufacturers out there, I think they
all do a pretty good job. You know, Victory Goal to Black Eagle, you know, they're premium hunting arrows. I think there's not a lot of variation. It's spiner on the shaft and what I've seen is if you have a bow just relatively well tuned and you're properly spined to a bit stiff, there's not really a need to knock tune. You put that broad head on and have a very stable arrow, and there's not really there shouldn't really be a need to knock tune to get that
to fly right. That's been my experience after you know, a lot of a lot of taking into this, a lot of experimentation.
Yeah, and my knock tuning may come as a result of me just shooting a bad arrow and me thinking that you know, I did I think fly perfect? No, you know, I think that's probably it's probably me torking the bow or doing something I shouldn't and that's what probably gets me into knock tuning. But uh, yeah, no, it's it's that's the reason why I went to four vein.
But yeah, I'll probably flutch them up with three veins this year and see if it doesn't doesn't work for me and give me a little bit more more ability to get around the rest by being able to have those at one hundred and twenty degrees instead of ninety degrees going over the over the rest. So is there anything else out of that study at Colorado. You know, I know you you talked about you know, mass versus speed, you know, foc We've talked about all that a little bit.
Is there anything else you want to you want to get into on those or we or or you know findings that came out of the study. Yeah.
One thing I would mention is is a spin up because I think there's some misconceptions out there. So so the arrow spin up isn't really doesn't really stabilize the arrow. It's not like a bullet that has to spin it very high velocity because it's an unstable projectile and that spin gives it to stability in an arrow, it's not spinning that fast. You do want it to spin, though, you don't want to have you don't want to have it straight fletched. I don't even like one degree. I
think it doesn't quite. It just spends too much time going kind of straight before it starts rotating. And the problem there is is that if there's anything that's off,
So what spin up does. It doesn't stabilize the arrow, but it does average out any asymmetries if if the point is tipped off to the left, because you're you're say, your half out's bent a little bit, and your arrow's pointing, you know, twenty thousands to the left, twenty thousand of an inch, and you shoot it without rotation, it's just gonna it's just gonna go further and further left and
impact you know, left to the target. If it's rotating, that lift force that's created now rotates kind of with it, so it still kind of opens up your groups, but it keeps it on average, you know, still heading down range at the target. So that's the reason for spin. But spinning really fast, even though there're be bents of videos recently with guys that are awesome shooters say the faster it spins up, the more accurate or stable it will be. I don't think. I don't think that's the case.
I liked.
I like, and what from all this study, I like the two to three degree offset or helical I think is a good amount of a vein angle to give you that spin up. And a lot of the we tested, you know, eight or ten to the top hunting what i'd consider top pending rains in the industry, they all gave very similar spin up results of you know, seventy
to eighty revolutions per second. With that you're rotating. You know, it's less than an arrow length that you're getting a full rotation, so it can't veer very far off of straight line, you know before it's rotating and you know, pointing a different direction. I think that's good. I don't see a need for that very high, you know, five six degree spin, because then you're going to add more drag and more drop, more, more wind drift. It is
fine if you're not. You know, a lot of these things don't matter if you're going to shoot shoot under forty. But if you're an out west bowhunter you're trying to shoot very accurately sixty yards plus, then these these factors are are more important.
Yep. I know you mentioned two to three degrees straight versus here cool. Do you have a like on your hunting arrows? Do you go one way or the other or does it really ends up being a wash? Yeah? I don't. I don't think.
Are you saying offset versus helical?
Yeah? Yeah? Just straight off versus yeah, yeah versus a helical and and all that you can say your preference and all kind of explain why I end up where I'm at. Yeah.
To me, man, there isn't really much of a difference. If I think about what a helix is in geometry, is if you take a straight line, you know, down the cylinder and down the top of the cylinder, Say you tip it at three degrees, you wrap it around the cylinder, that's a helix.
Yah.
And really that's kind of what you're trying to do with any of these clamps. To me, it's more of a clamp. You got a straight clamp or a helical clamp. But the straight clamp to me, is for small angles. You know, it works well for you know, one degree, maybe two degrees. If you get more than that, it starts not following the roll off of the radius, and that's when you need a helical clamp. But and that's why I say I kind of consider them both the same.
It's more that clamp system you use and is it fixed or does it wrap the narrow shaft. So my preference would be a helical like two and a half two to three degree, because I think it wraps the shaft and it keeps it attached a little attaches it.
A little better. Yeah, And that's that's exactly what I was gonna say, the only reason I went from you know, straight offset was because we used to shoot the older six milimeters, you know, the old the old gold tips when they had you know, larger diameters and you can actually get a two to three degree offset to actually touch and you're you know, you're the back of your
vein wasn't floating and the front wasn't floating. We're now, you know, shooting some of these micro diameter you know, I shoot Black Eagle, you know, ram pages, and it's like you can't get more than two degrees on the you know, on your vein without especially in the straight, without it touching. So we've just went to to Helo coal and it, uh, you know, it seems to seems to work really well. And that's really the only reason
I always preferred straight. But Helo coal seems to give me like better contact on the front of the vein in the back and it seems to kind of get stayed glued down a little bit better.
Yep, yep, I agree. And then the last thing I want to mention this study that we spent a lot of a lot of time on this year was sound. That's another reason people have gone away, maybe gone away from a higher profile vein, especially like a shorter, higher profile vein, is they feel like they're louder, and so they've gone to shorter, longer ones which are less stable, so less accurate. But what we've what I found was sound. First off, I'm going to say that I don't think
it's that important. I don't think it's as important as people make it out to be. And the reason for that is, you know, we're shooting over the over microphones, and we had we had two omni directional microphones, you know, down range that we would shoot over and then we would record the sound trace from the shot and then the arrow traveling to the target, and then as it
passed over the target. And we did a lot of analysis when the arrows ten yards away from the target or the animals, say, and when it's ten yards away, they're all pretty quiet. It's hard to get a statistically significant difference between one vein and another. I mean, we also found that our solid blade broadheads are very quiet and we can't really distinguish them from field points. And that's even as it passes, even as it passes over
the microphone. So that's kind of a side note, but some broadhads are louder than others, and I think it's because there's not a lot of fluidynamic modeling to try and minimize the turbulence and minimize that coming off the back. But also we did a lot of studying of the veins. So one thing I should say is that when the arrows ten yards say from the animal, it's hard to distinguish one vein from another. But that flare up of sound is more when it's in that last five yards
three yards. So again I don't think it's that important because I think if it didn't hear something it wants to react to when it's ten yards away, it's probably it doesn't have enough time to get out of the way. That being said, I don't think I'll ever convince people that sound doesn't matter. So I spent a lot of time on it this year. We really looked at the
fluid flow over all these different vein designs. What was causing the higher sound than others, And a lot of it was just the geometry and the way that the flow wasn't staying attached to the veins, you know, this airflow, it was you know, separating causing these turbulence, and we saw that show up and sound, and you know, sometimes it's if you're very very flexible vein, some of those would flutter and that would really amplify the sound. But a lot of it was was geometry.
Yep, Yeah, because and I don't I think my numbers are a little rusty. But what the speed of sound? So my thoughts on sound, which is probably incorrect. You know, speed of sounds a little bit over what eleven hundred feet per second. Let's say we're shooting a three hundred foot per second, you know arrow, so your arrow only makes it a quarter of the way. You know, it's
a little more than a quarter, I guess. But I think it comes down to the animal, correct, Like if the sound of your bow goes off will be, in my opinion, the sound that really alerts the animal, correct, Like the or do you think that the arrow flight would be the sound that the animal picks up on and they don't hear your bow go off? Yeah?
I think, Well, you can argue with how far away the animal is, but I'd say most archery shots, yeah, they're going to hear the bow go off. And and you're right, the arrow's arrows, you know, ten yards down Let's say it's just a forty yards shot. You know your arrow's ten yards down range before he hears the bow, because you know the time it takes for the sound of the bow to get there. What we also saw is that that boast is not instantaneous, but it rings.
That bon noise is ringing. So the arrows traveled ten yards and there's still bon noise ringing and coming off
and a lot. So any short shots, say forty yards in under, I feel like it's totally the bon noise, either they're reacting to that or not, because it's so much louder than the arrow noise and it rings for you know, the arrows moved ten yards and that all that ringing is coming off of it, and you know in that that noise is just getting to the animal when that arrow's ten yards down right, So you know, people say, well I looked at the video and the
arrow was halfway there when the deer moved, Well, yeah, that's really when he heard the bow go off and had time to react to it. So I do think the bon noise is a is a bigger factor, and
trying to quiet your bow is a good idea. I think those you know, the long range shots are where people might argue that all the bon noise is pretty quiet, and then he had quite a bit, you know, maybe he had a half a second to a second could before the arrow got there, and in them argue that aarrow noise matters more then, you know, and I would, I would kind of argue that I'm not so sure that it's aeron noise versus just what he what the animal sees, because an animal, you know, they hear the
bon noise, they look that way and then their their motion vision is extremely good. You know. It's there's different studies on this that will say, like you know, Darrin Elk, vision is all set up for movement. So if they look that way and then they and then you're moving, which you probably are, you know, after the shot, they could might see the arrow in flight. I think a lot of that later movement is due to a visual que But you know, it's all this stuff's really hard
to prove. So you know, we spend a lot of time figuring out how we could quiet down a vein, and we're actually gonna come out with a new vein probably sometime in.
August that has that same.
You know, has kind of equal or better accuracy stability to that hybrid Hunter profile, but it's got jiffing geometry on the front and back to keep that airflow attached to the vein to make it much quieter. It's you know, I think Max Stealth was our quietest you know, industry vein out there that we tested in the first year, and it's you know, equal or quieter than the Max Stealth,
even though it's got much better stability. So for those that really want that quieter vein but yet still have good stability, I think that'll be a good option for people.
Yeah, and I've always you know, I've just always been to the camp or the thought that keep my stuff as quiet as I can, and it's going to help it. It's not going to make anything worse because my stuff's quieter. But yeah, I can't tell you how much it really matters. It's just I'm going to make every effort to keep things as quiet as I can, you know, or as possible.
You know, some people are going with a shorter vein to be quieter, but then they're doing all these other things that make it louder. You know, some guys are like shooting feathers and then worrying about sound. Well, feathers are so much louder than veins and broad henad that's kind of crazy. Or they'll go very high speed, you know, that makes it louder. Of course it's getting there faster,
but your bow's much louder and the arrows louder. Or you know, they won't worry about their tunes so much. They'll say, well, yeah I can't if I go to mechanical, I can shoot, but I can't shoot fixed. Well that that'll point out they have some issue with say spine or the bow's out of tune. Both of those make the arrow much louder. If your arrow's fish tailing, it's way down there, or you're having a bunch of flexing, those increase drag, wind drift and sound.
So yeah, there's a.
Lot of other factors there that I don't think people necessarily consider that they're you know, choosing the wrong direction on So I just want to point that out too.
Yeah. One thing, you know, and I picked it up, I noticed it before, but like when we used to go to the ATA, I used to work with Martin Archerie a little bit when they were still back in Washington. You know, the old ATA trick. So everybody thinks you've got the quietest new bow as you have them shooting a nine hundred green arrow out of the boat. All the test bows, you know, they don't really know how
heavy that arrow is. But it quieted everything down and there was nothing there weren't enough limb savers, enough limb attachments, enough whatever to compensate for just a couple hundred grains in arroweight, you know. So there's things you can do.
You know, I don't shoot an ultra fast setup. I shoot two eighty with typically a fairly heavy arrow that you know, does more for noise, you know, than all these other I don't want to call them gizmos or gimmicks, but you know, any attachments you can add to that system, the heavier arrow seems to do it.
Yeah, definitely, I think kind of that very light, very fast arrow. There's a lot of negatives there, I mean, then the positive and it's great if you're shooting like three D are unmarked three D archery and you got a eyeball range. Yet I mean, that's really the reason for having a super fast light arrow is if your range is off. You know, you can still hit the target being off a few yards, say, but in a honey set up, it's not great for a number of reasons.
For one, a lighter, faster arrow, you know, you lose a lot more of that velocity due to drag. You know, velocity. Drag is velocity proportional to velocity squared. So a light fast arrow is gonna lose more velocity, You're gonna have less momentum at impact. Yeah, and your your bow's louder, and it's more difficult to tune and things like that as well.
Yep, yeah, all.
Right, let's move into You know, I I wish I was more of a of a bow tuner. I'm real kind of you know, I pay attention, but I'm kind of hands off. What's your process for going into season, because I'm gonna give you a real quick synopsis of me bow hunting fifteen years ago. You'd go in, get your bow set up, you get it all paper tuned with your your field points, go out and shoot, and then about two weeks before season, I'd start shooting broadheads
and my confidence would go out the window. All that confidence I had built up all summer was gone, and so then it was like start over, walk back, take it into the shop, try again. Take it into the shop. I would, I'd move my rest over, screw something up worse than I could figure out. And it was that was my process and then finally before season, you'd get it, get it back. Now, you know, my system is I
don't pay per tune hardly all anymore. We kind of just go a center shot, knock heite, get it close. And then my new system is just shooting field points and broadheads separately until I get them to walk together, and then I just leave my bow alone. You know, strings will stretch, cables will stretch over time. But what's your opinion, like, what's the how do you get your stuff ready? And is there a right way or wrong way or just a way that you go about it?
Yeah, and my my methods have kind of evolved over over the years. But you know, currently what I'm doing, and I'll say that I I'll shoot broadheads. Broadheads will be part of my tuning from you know, day one pretty much, or maybe not day one, but you know, within the first you know, a week or so, I'm shooting some broadheads to see how they fly because, like you said, if your target archer setup might be dialed and then you throw broad heads on later and they're
not flying well. Well, to me, it's I'm I'm a bow hunter. I mean, I do target shooting, I do tack events three d's for fun. But it's really comes down to I want to hit that elk or caribou or you know this year I drew a goat tag, or I drew a sheep tag this year, so I want to hit that sheep, you know, for sure at range. So really good broadhead flight is very important to me, so I incorporated fairly early. But anyways, my tuning setup is or my my method. I'd say, yeah, I'll set
up I'll set up center shot. I'll set up you know, the arrow to go through the center of the burger button roughly, I'll put a knock you know, knock points perpendicular to that. I'll shoot through paper. And what I do is, i'll have a I'll have a bear shaft and a flat shaft just with a field points initially in that bear shaft. It'll you know, if I already got all that, if I got out of the arrow's bilt, I'll cut the veins off one. Otherwise I'll just build
one up and I'll add some weight to it. I'll use like metal duct tape, so I have to put too much on, But you can also just put a
couple of wraps on. Try to get that arrow weight total arrow weight to be about the same, and that a mass difference in back will affect your dynamic spine a little bit, So I like to kind of add weight at the back to make them equal, and then i'll uh, you know, initially, I'll shoot through paper with the flat shaft and a bear shaft and you know, make some adjustments to basically getting getting a bullet hole
through paper. And the reason I'll use a bear shaft it's just easier to see when the veins aren't on it, if you're getting a perfect bullet hole or not, or if you're a little tail right up down or left. Just a little easier for me to see with the bear shaft. That's some of the reason for doing it there. And I'm doing it like ten to twelve feet, So I'll do that and then I'll get some shots through
the through the bow. You know, I might shoot it for a week before I come back and visit it again, and then typically I'll check again through paper if that looks good. My next kind of my next level of tune is shooting that flet shaft and bear shaft with field points on. And you can start at twenty you know, to make sure you hit the target, but I'll really look at thirty yards and then and then forty yards for kind of a finer increment. But what will happen is,
let's say your arrow's coming on your boattail left. Well, that airflow across that left side is with no veins to stabilize it back, it's just going to stay tail left and your arrow's going to hit off to the right, and you're if you're just shooting like a flat foam target, you can kind of see that it just stays tail left at impact. So your flet shaft will be say in the bull's eye, and you're right your bear shaft, you know, at thirty yards, say it's six inches right
with the with the nocktail left. Well, then you know your boats your arrow's coming out of your bow tail left, and then you can adjust do an adjustment that would be adjusting your rest a little bit right. And these are small adjustments at this point, like you know, if you've got a micro adjust where you're just doing these five thous clicks, you just do a few clicks and check it again.
But these aren't.
These aren't the big, you know, big divisions on your on your wrist. These are more like you know, fifteen thous thirty thous do little little adjustments. I would also say, whenever you do an adjustment, shoot three, you know, even right off the bat, shoot three times and see if it's consistent.
Because if you're.
If you're six inches right the first time and like a foot left the next time, well, now there's some other problem there. It could be some major issue with your bow, or it could be your form just isn't consistent. And if your formed is inconsistent, you know, spend some more time figuring out what's going on there. Are you creating a bunch of face pressure, are you torquing your bow? Are you anticipating your shot? You know, have somebody observe you shooting and see if they can help you with
your bow set up. But that's kind of my and then I'll go out to forty yards. And this is really how we quantified how far a bow was out of tune for testing these different vein heights and see how how well they stabilize a broadhead. What I found is that forty yards, if you're if your bear shaft hits within four inches of flat shaft, you're good to go. And you know, at thirty yards that would be saying
like two to three inches. If your bear shaft is hitting two to three inches from your flat shaft, that's good enough.
You don't need to be perfect.
If you're you know, at forty yards with with it eight to twelve inches, right, I consider that pretty far out of tune. But what we saw is with the you know, the best veins like the hybrid Hunter vein, your broadheads and field points are still going to hit within an inch or so. Just stabilize it so quickly in a will. But that's how I quantify how auto
tune it is. And that's what I'll say if we ever have a customer, you know, struggling to get brought into shoot, well for him, typically I'll just will figure out if you spine properly or not, and if his bow is you know, relative what vans he has on the back is aarow fairly stable and then is his bow just relatively well tuned, And we'll have him do that bear shaft floodshaft at thirty to quantify that. But
that's kind of my my process anyway. And I would one last thing I'll add is that I don't do it once and then never look at it again. I'll and that's a good reason to just keep that bear shaft because you can then you know, shoot that, you know, you know, every couple of weeks or once a month maybe at that thirty yard target and see if it's still consistent. That that to me gives me a lot of confidence before I head it out. See, I just got done with the hunt. I'm going on another one.
Shoot bear shaft, flotshaft at thirty and forty. If they're still hitting together, I know, nothing really changed much on the bow, and I'm still I'm still dial I'm still tuned in.
Yeah, that's a great, great point there. It's okay, So we got through tuning you know arrow, you know, veins everything that matters. Now you know, I'm gonna move to broadheads. And one of the things that I maybe stress out a lot is, you know, I got got new six iron wheels. You know, I put five on and I put them my quiver and I kind of go through
them like I like this arrow the best. I like that one second, you know, I number them all, go through, shoot them and like this one just give me the most confidence, and then I'll shoot that one or to the number two arrow quite a bit? What in your opinion? You know what the steel you're using, and the temper and and everything we've got on them, and the hardening, like how often should you have to sharpen after a target? Do you have to sharpen? And if so, kind of
how you recommend it. I'm gonna I'm gonna talk I blame myself last year, and I message you a little bit after that hunt on this and hopefully you don't mind talking about it. But I'm blaming myself on a blood trail I had last year. But first I'm gonna let you kind of go over sharpening, you know, and going through the target.
Yeah, and this will vary a lot by broadhead and steel used, and you know how sharp they start, but sharpness matters a lot, you know, and all the broadhead development work, I'd say that, you know, I was really going after durability initially like I wanted to get through that elk shoulder blade and you know, not damage a blade.
But what I realized pretty quickly is having a very good sharpness and retaining that sharpness is really what gets you that max penetration through an animal, keeping that force load to penetrate. So I think it's very important to shoot sharp broadheads. So first off, i'd say, whatever broadheads you use, make sure they're they're sharp, because there's a lot of them, especially you know, one piece solid three blades that just aren't very sharp in some of them.
Some of them they let you know that, but there's a lot of them that are just have a milled finish, so they're just machining with a you know, a milk a cutter and putting that edge on with no grinding at all, and so they're not they're not what I
consider a sharp edge. If you have those, they want to use them, you know, spend the time time to learn how to sharpen them, because I think I think a broadhead blade, you know, it should be able to shave hair or if you don't want to, you know, accidentally, if you don't want to risk cutting your arm, you know, take a piece of paper and just hold it up and just see if you can easily cut into that edge of paper or is it tearing. That's another good
test for sharpness. What I would say with you know, we use an a two tool steel and we use this you know, crygentic treatment triple temper, so we can get the hardness way up there at sixty rock we'll see hardness. So with that we can get it very sharp and it retains the edge well. So what I found is, and what I say is if you shot five times or less into foam, what I found is I can't measure a difference in sharpness. I would still
check it. I would still try and cut that piece of paper or you know, shave a little hair on your arm, make sure it's still shaving hair. If it is, you know, put it in your quip and go ahead and use it. I can tell you that most broadhead blades are you know, four to twenty ninety or ninety five percent of them using four to twenty aintless and it just doesn't retain the edge. So one shot in a target, you're typically not sharp anymore. And that's just
that's just be a practice head. But that's yeah, that's what I would say about that. But for sure, check your broad heads and you know, if if you want
to take one head, I do think it's important. What I like to do is take one head and maybe it'll be my practice head and put it on every arrow that's going to my quiver and shoot it at you know, moderately long range and make sure it hits well, just to make sure there's not some issue with that arrow with spine or straightness, you know near you know, I think you mentioned straightness, the one thou versus three
thousd straightness. It doesn't matter very much, I don't think unless it's all at say the knock, and if you've got like one little bend at the end that can make that arrow, you know, flex differently, shoot differently. So I like to shoot every arrow that's going in my quiver with a broad head, but it might just be my practice head and then I and then I just screw on a new one to make sure it's sharp. So that's that's a good way to go too.
Yeah, I always get nervous and I probably overthink everything. But it's like, man, if I unscrew this screw one on and then put my other one back on, like if I don't get everything just right, like, am I going to create an issue in they're somewhere? And I know it's probably overthinking, but that's one of my issues where I should just you know, dedicate, you know, whether I put black sharpie on him or something, just designate him as practice heads. That's something I might be doing.
But I messaged you last and hopefully you don't mind talking about this. It's just real world results. And I do blame myself on this one a little bit. I had shot my number one head probably or my number one arrow probably more than I should have, you know, forty fifty times to the target, and I always was kind of doing the thumb flick, you know, off of it.
Can you hear kind of the snap like you know, anybody's been around blades long enough usually if you get that like sharp crisp, you know, noise off of it, You're like, it's still pretty sharp, you know, it hasn't rolled an edge, And so I elected to hunt with it.
And I hit a bowl at forty yards good in the pocket and every iron will that I've hit an animal on like blood everywhere instantly, like had great blood and on that one, I picked up blood, but not until one hundred yards away, and then it didn't bleed a lot, but it did sprint to its death. Like I'll give the broadhead credit that the elk died really well, but there was you know, I reached out to you
just we found the bowl. Everything was good, but it was definitely a different blood till than I had before. And then I started to like blame myself, like you dummy, you shouldn't you know, usually it was five or ten shots and this time you went thirty forty fifty shots without you know, touching it up, you know. And yeah, like I said, I probably overanalyzed how sharp it needs
to be. But that was the one time I'm like, all right, we need to start paying more attention to how sharp your broadhead is, just because that flesh wound, that surface is what's going to give you that first blood. And I had a great pastor like right in the pocket, and just I didn't get a lot of blood. And I'm like, well, everything, all my experience shows I should have got great blood there and didn't. Was it a dull broadhead? And is that my fault?
Yeah?
I think I think that has a lot to do with it what I've seen. You know, there's a sharp broadhead gives you two things that are important. It gives you that low force to penetrate, so it increases penetration, but it also slices all the tissue going all the
way through. And you know, uh, Cody Greenwood trad Lab was doing some experimenting and where he was shooting through animals with different broadheads and then cut and then measuring like the the total lacerations, and and he said that every ironwell broadhead he shot, you get a full with cut with it, whereas a lot of other broadheads they're pushing a lot of tissue aside. Say a three blade that's not very sharp might only have like an arrow
sized hole through liver or lungs. It tears a hole through, but it pushes a lot of tissue aside and doesn't slice it. And I think you know a lot of the bleeding. You know, animals for the most part are dying by by bleeding. I mean their lungskin collapse too. But a lot of that a lot of has blood flow.
So you want to slice everything every little artery there a lot of times that's the difference between getting ANTM and not is slicing that artery, especially like you know, through the liver, say you can have you can shoot a liver in two different spots, and whether you cut an artery can mean it's it's dead in seconds or it's not dead for hours. So you know, cutting every every artery all the way through, you're gonna get more bleeding, better blood trails. So I'd say that's that's probably a
pretty big factor. I mean, you can sometimes hitting up into the shoulder, up into the muscle, you know, if their leg was forward when you shot and then it came back. You know, sometimes there's you know muscle or you know, layers of muscle that might cover up a hole and make a blood trail not as good, you know. I you know, I could say, like a high lung shot, that can happen too, like the lungs are gonna collapse
and then bleed. But if the holes are up high, blood coming out of there has got to go around the sides. You know, that can be potentially I'm not as good a blood trail. But you know, have that sharp broadhead gives you the best chance of slicing everything and giving you the best amount of bleeding possible.
Yeah, and and tighten that pocket.
You know.
I was trying to make excuses or try to figure it out, and I'm like, well, maybe it was so tight to the pocket that it was bleed in the pocket and then it would run down the leg, you know, and that's why we weren't getting anything to the ground, you know, outside of where it was. So, yeah, it's just one of those things where in from here on out,
everything's going to be razor sharp. I'll just get my flat stone out, you know, make sure that everything is touched up and sharp, and we won't won't want that at least it won't let the sharpness be the reason from here on out.
So yeah, we do have wide We do have Wide series broad hits too. It's not I don't trying to recommend him as the number one head for you know, long range out west, big game when you might have a sixty eighty yard shot, you know whatever, whatever is your effective shooting range. I kind of like our our S series or our single Babble for those that are relatively a little bit more compact, but our wide heads, A lot of guys are using those for ELK too.
They make they make big holes. And now we just came out with a wide single bevels as well, in one hundred and twenty five grain, you know, one fifty grain on up, and you know that is a wider cut. It's two and eighth in is total cut inch of three. It's main blade three quarter bleeder and our bleeders have a single bubble grind on them too.
So what that what.
Happens with that is there's this rotation through the animal that really opens up those holes quite a bit, creates a lot of trauma. So yeah, we just launched those a week or so ago. And for guys that want to have you know, bigger holes, quick kills, more blood on the ground, you know, that's a great option too.
I often carry a mixed quiver or a few of our S series or single bevel standard single bubbles, and then a few of our are wide or wide single bebbls And depending on what the shot is, if I'm if I'm melk cutting over water for the afternoon evening, I'll throw a widing because I've shot out with them. They penetrate great, They're just less forgiving on those longer range shots. But again with a very stable arrow. You
know a friend Dan stat in elk shape. He likes the wise even the wide solid blade, but he's got a very stable arrow set up and he shoots him well to eighty yards. So that's an option too for getting that bigger hole and more blood on the ground.
Yeah, you just brought up a point I'm curious on, you know, with you know, just the engineering and me thinking out loud, and you might be able to say why it isn't does a single bevel with that rotation through through bone, through you know, soft tissue. Does that? Have you found that the single bebel doesn't penetrate as well?
Is it?
Is it double bevel or is it negligible?
Yeah, it seems to be negligible. I mean that was my thinking as well. You know, as an engineer, I'm thinking, you know, slicing straight through has got to be less energy required than you know, that pressure on those two babbles creating that torque and rotating through. But what is also happening is the arrow's rotating that direction already at pack, so there's some there's some rotational momentum there as well. So and and the single bubble isn't trying to make
it rotate faster than that. So what I've seen in practical testing, man, I've had a heart.
You know.
I actually made single bubbels to try and prove that they weren't as good as double bubbles, but I really struggled. I mean, they they penetrate really well, and in the high speed video we've done, it just seems like that rotational you know, that rotation just keeps going through the animal, but it doesn't seem to really slow the arrow down anymore than the double bubble.
Gotcha.
Yeah, perfect, that's good to know. So you mentioned you got some new new broadheads coming out, anything else coming out or anything else that the listeners should know about, you know, choosing the broadhead this year? Arrow setup or vein set up to help mount this year is you know, seasons only a couple of months away.
Well, something new from probably the last podcast we had is that from that aero study the first year I decided and and just seeing how well how much more accurate an arrow can be that's very stable. You know, we started doing the custom errow builds. I work with Easton to get their axis and match Greade access arrows and we fletch them at about three degree vehicle with that hybrid hunter vein. We started selling that vein as well.
And for people that want, you know, don't want to build their own arrows, just want to have them built and know that they're done well. What I have is basically a machinist and a machining center, very accurately cutting and then facing both ends. I feel like that knock in is really important. It doesn't get enough attention. And that little squaring tool people often use and just do a couple of rotations, it doesn't do much to make
that very square. So anyway, we do custom aerill builds now, you know, just for your length and work with you to make sure that the spine is proper for you. So that's kind of new. We're gonna, you know, continue to build on that. Yeah, we do some ultra light hunting knives. We just added our we called our K
three boning knife ultra light boning knife. It's like about a five inch looks like a file a knife, a little bit stiffer, but it's a great boning knife for people that you know, like a little bit longer blade to take the say the hind quarters off off an elk. Things like that. So yeah, that's what's new currently. I've always got some prototype you know, broadheads in the works. I talked to you a bit about that one offline.
Maybe some more things to test, but yeah, we'll have a new a new vein here and in August from this study that I think, well, yeah, people will like it. It's going to have low drag, low wind drift, low sound, but yet great stability.
So it should be a great one perfect perfect. Well, how can everybody out there that doesn't already know about iron Will find you?
Yeah, our website is Ironwelloutfitters dot com. We're on Instagram at Ironwill Outfitters Facebook and yeah YouTube as well at iron Well Offaters. We'll put I should mention those we're putting out some kind of white papers from that study from the university study on our website. So if you go to our website, I think it's under it's the far right, you know drop down menu. I think it's bow hunter block where we're gonna post papers from that study. So if you really want to geek out on there's
one showing the arrow arrow. It's one on arrow height, our vain height instability and then you know vain shape, and we'll just keep posting them on there as we as we bring them up for you know, I love applying good mechanical engineering and science to becoming better bow hunters. So it's it's a it's something that I want to continue doing, and you know, trying to make people is reliable as science.
Allows, perfect perfect. We appreciate all your all your hard hard work and research there Bill and helping us as bow hunters. You kind of figure all this out, so I appreciate having you on the on the show and good luck this fall.
Yeah, thanks Jason, you too,