Ep. 43: Broadheads and Arrows with Bill Vanderheyden

Jason sits down with Bill Vanderheyden from Iron Will Outfitters to talk about the sharp end of the stick. They dive into arrows, efficiency, and ethics, discussing single bevel vs. double bevel, the optimum amount of offset and helical, as well as Bill's work on arrow flight with the University of Colorado.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
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 forty years. He grew up putting white tells in
Wisconsin before moving to Colorado twenty four years ago. He
still hunts white tales, but his focus is now primarily

(00:32):
on Western big game, with backcountry elk cutting being his
absolute favorite. He's been a mechanical engineer for thirty 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 Ironwell Outfitters and focusing
completely on broadheads and aero components just recently. He's also

(00:54):
an adjunct instructor of Mechanical engineering at University of Colorado,
where he's currently sponsoring and directing projects related to science
of bowhunting. So welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Bill, Thanks Jason, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
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 was just a tank of a bear
one hundred and seventy three pound and man, my heart
was beating hard when I saw him coming through the woods.

(01:40):
But yeah, a great bear is huge.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, the pictures were impressive, and a lot of times
on bears, it seems like pictures don't do him justice,
so I can only imagine how big that that guy was.
But yeah, for upper fours, you know, we're getting into
that almost five hundred range. That is a giant. So
congrats on that. No appreciate having you on. We're going
to talk a lot about what I consider, you know,
the killing end of the stick for a lot of

(02:03):
US archery hunters, and so I'm really excited. But like
every episode, we're gonna 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 Phelpsgame Calls dot Com, or

(02:26):
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? You know, a bunch
of diehard artrel hunters, and so I've got a list
of questions I'm gonna throw at you here. Bill.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
So I don't know if there's a science to it,
but we're gonna 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?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I'd say there's kind of probably three factors there.
There's you know, shot placement, did you slight? Are your
blazing able to slice all the way through? And then
you know what's the shape and size of the holes
really and so shot placement's going to be number one.
If you get the heart lung area and you got
a low exit hole, you know probably going to be

(03:20):
a great blood trail. If you're hitting a high back
lung shot, you know, just blow the spine high and back.
Those can those can be not so good. You know
you've got you know, the blood's got to float on
the sides of the animal. Also, you know you cut
the top along with that kind of shrinks down. Not
a lot of not a lot of bleeding coming from that.

(03:42):
You shoot a gut shot maybe that you know, often
the guts 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 you 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

(04:04):
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. They can be good,
but that's kind of a potential issue with just a
straight two blade. A three blade can give you more

(04:25):
of a hole then, because you know you don't it's
not a single slice that can close up. You've got
more triangular shape inside, and I would put a two
blade with bleeders in that same category. You get a
cross cut there inside corners don't can't really stay tension,
so they pull back and there's a bit of a
hole there in a single bevel with a rotation, and

(04:47):
I prefer single bubble with bleeders with that rotation that
can give more of almost a square hole because of
that rotation the way it cuts to the hide, so
that hole opens up holes 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 is going

(05:08):
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

(05:31):
after you get it, and you can see that with
Ironworld broadheads that are very sharp with good edge retention,
you get that complete cut of the size of the
head as it goes through, its slicing everything. It's not
really pushing the tissue aside, whereas a lot of heads
they're with cheaper blades, those edges are dull by the
time they get through the hide and for sure rib

(05:52):
and so they push a lot of tissue aside after that,
don't slice it, so there's a lot less bleeding involved.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, you know, And
you know, I just relate to sharpness to you know,
when you cut yourself with a brand new raisor 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 highe We've all ran our knife, you know,
along a bone and it doesn't take very long. So

(06:19):
that that that the initial sharpness, but then the ability
to hold that through is it gets through the animal
or out the other side, in my opinion, is one
of those like very important 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 we
get more blood out of that exit side, do you

(06:42):
This is this is something I've always talked about. Your
exit hole on a broadhead always seems to be bigger,
and it's I'm gonna let you you clear up anything.
I say that that may be a mistake here. But
when you on you on your entry side, let's say
you have a ribcage 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

(07:04):
your broad head, 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 that that hide will stretch a little bit depending
on the sharpness and the angle and whatnot. And as
you imagine that that hide stretching over the broadhead before
it finally starts to slice, you typically will get that
bigger exit side. And you know, growing up or everything,

(07:27):
you always you know that the exit hole is always bigger.
They bleed more out of it. Have you found that
to be true or are they very similar?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think that's probably true in general, that the exit
holes seem to be a little bigger than entrance With
single bubbles, I'd say that it seems to not be
the case so much because that rotation on entrance in
a way it's twisting and cutting. I see kind of
more similar. It's a pretty open hole on both sides.
God Joe's with a with a single ballot with bleeders.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
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,

(08:18):
you know, so I can I can track the thing
to its final location and not necessarily lose it.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
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 the better. And then one
other thing I was going to touch you'd mentioned like
a high lung shot, you know, 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

(08:44):
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, very quick and ethical, but doesn't yield
very good blood. And so it's that balance of you know,
hitting them there versus getting a blood trail. So I'll
diverge on that topic. We're going to get into penetration

(09:05):
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?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Does it?

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Does that affect aside from what you've already mentioned that
entry hole or are 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.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
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 there's kind of
an s cut as it rotates in so it's it's
not really a straight slit like you get with a
straight two blade without bleeders, and then with the once

(10:03):
you add the bleeders on a single level and get
that rotation there, it does. I mean, if you look
at the holes through the high on both sides, they
are more open with that rotation. I would say that
I've seen good blood trails with both. Really our double
bebble with the bleeder and then our single bubble with
the bleeder. There's a lot of cutting going on and
the holes are opening up both sides. I think they

(10:25):
both do really well. I might give a little advantage though,
to the single bubble with bleeder, just because of the
way it opens up those holes, especially the entrance hole.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense. So thanks Matt.
We're going to jump into the next question here. Can
you explain the warranty of iron Will broadheads and kind
of what that covers and what led you to that warranty.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, so, you know the reason for that initially was that,
you know, I spent many years trying to design 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 and what really got me started in this. And

(11:08):
after many years of different steels and heat treat processes
developed the steel and then in the feral material as well,
there was high strength to where I could pump through
the heaviest of bones and have no damage to the
broad head. So, you know, because of that and the
cost of our heads a lifetime, you know, guarantee you
ben or break it, we replace it. We had enough

(11:31):
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 any shot you know,
at or through an animal, we it's warrantied, will replace
it if it gets damaged shooting at or through an animal,

(11:52):
even if it hits rock on their side of the animal.
But you know, in a hunting situation, but we don't
want people shooting them. I mean some people would shoot
groups into target it's all summer long, until all the
blades were damaged and then you know, want to replacement
three packs. So we just kind of limited 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,

(12:13):
we do cover warranty.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
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. But no, it sounds like a
great warranty there, and you know, at least protect protect
the product for what it was intended to.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Do, right. We want 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
we've had people shoot and I probably have as well,
shoot the same broadhead through several animals, maybe ten animals,
and keep using that broadhead. You know, you typically you know,

(12:55):
might need to touch up the edges to for sharpness
after after couple, but you can keep using them. And
that's the intention there is that when people know that
once you buy the you can use these for many years.
Just take some care with the you know, target shooting
and things to not shoot them into something like a
steel plate or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's 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

(13:35):
switched over where it's you know, the iron wheel, 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 like being
able to get an aerow 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,

(13:56):
because I've shot it one hundred times into foam.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah. We generally say if you're going to shoot five times,
you know, I think I've measured up to ten. 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
toys for each arrow at you know, fifty yards or
whatever makes you comfortable that that arrow is going to
fly well, but five times or less than like a
foam target like right heart matrix. I can't measure any

(14:24):
difference to that edge sharpness. And that's because our hardness
is sixty rock well. See, so that's a very hard
strong edge. And then we do a multi stage grinding
and honey, get it very sharp and it retains that
edge edge really well. And that's why you can generally
shoot your an animal and one pass through of you know,

(14:44):
hide ribs exiting into you know, 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 pretty quickly, you know,
touch it up and keep using it too.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Ye ye, all right, So the next question comes from Chase.
Hopefully I don't mess up last name.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Eagerly.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Do your vented heads whistle or make noise?

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah? In general, vented heads have a little bit like
a like a shish to them. I guess in flight
are solid heads. We just I did sound testing years
ago and we just actually repeated it this past year
with a with a study we're doing at the University
of Colorado on aer veine designs or improved flight with

(15:35):
fixed blade broadheads, and sound recording was part of that.
We looked at the the sound from the shot to
you know, passing through, which would basically be when the
animals hit, and I looked at the frequency content as well,
and you know what we what I would say is
that our saw blade heads are very quiet similar We

(15:56):
saw similar to field point type sound amplitude on those,
so they're excellent, and our vent and blades are a
bit louder. Our original V series with the small events
are probably our loudest head, and then our wide series
with the larger vents, that vent is a bit quieter.
It's kind of like blunted through a whistle versus a

(16:17):
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 to some people do. Is that
you get the sound of the bow going off and
then the arrows, and really that bone noise is still
there's still vibration noise coming from that bow, and the
arrow is five to ten yards down range already, and

(16:39):
then it gets really quiet until the arrow gets pretty
close to that animal or the target, and then it
flares up. So and if we looked at the segment
that was say fifteen to ten yards from the animal,
it was very hard to pick up a difference between
different veins, different broadheads, anything. So I think I think

(17:01):
it's a bit. I don't think it's a big of
a concern that some people have. I think that sound
from veins or brighthead blades or vents, it doesn't really
flare up until it's so close to the animal. That's
probably not as big a factor as people think.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, and you may know better than me. I'd have
to go researcher or google it. I can't remember the
speed of sound versus the speed of a typical arrow, Like,
do you know which one's traveling faster at that point?

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Speed of sound I think is like twelve hundred in
your arrows, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, three hundred. 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 gonna hear your bow before an arrow ever matters.
And so it's like, in my mind, just comparing the speeds,
it's like, all right, that the sound of my bow

(17:54):
going off and with any reasonable archery distance, that animal
has been made aware of my bow before he's ever
going to recognize the arrow making a whistle.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah. I mean, my 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,

(18:24):
a quarter of the way there. Maybe when he hears it,
when he hears the bo go off and and that
bon noise continues, you know, for another five or ten
yards of that arow travel yep. 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,

(18:46):
maybe he sees movement of the hunter or whatever, or
maybe even sees the arrow in flight, you know, And
then I think with that movement, with that sound, they're
deciding am I gonna bolt 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, yeah, maybe he

(19:08):
moved when the arrow was maybe start moving when the
arrow was halfway there, but it's still that initial sound
of the bow, him looking over him, maybe maybe something
he saw with his vision it's making him react that way. Yeah,
that's kind of my feeling, not so much the sound
of the vein or the that head broadhead. But you know,
that's that's not the general thinking and industry. I'm just

(19:29):
trying to apply science and what I've kind of learned
so far.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, for sure, that's all we can do.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
That's where I love being able to balance the science
versus what we see out there as real world results
and kind of blending those two. So next question comes
from Chris past Though. What's your best practice for sharpening
iron will broad heads or any broadheads for that matter.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, I would say, first off, when you get when
you get our broad heads don't don't sharpen them. They're
very sharp ready, it would be difficult to achieve, you know,
the edge sharpness we have. We can zoom into two
hundred x and it's still you know, dead sharp to
one ten thousands of an inch, and so our sharpness
starts way sharper than many. But in general, I would

(20:16):
say that when you get broad heads 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 Often a lot of
times those just have a milled edge, mild bevels to them.
So just to note, first off, when you get heads,

(20:36):
check to see if they're sharp, make sure they're sharp,
or sharpen them when you get them. RGI 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

(20:58):
rib and have that edge would be pretty good. So
I would first just clean it up, check and see
if it's still sharp. Shaven hair, or you can see
if it kind of cuts paper. If it's good, just
leave it. If 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,

(21:21):
but I just start with like an extra fine stone
and by hand, kind of hold hold the bubble, kind
of match the bubble, just tip it slightly so I'm
contacting the edge and just you know, a few strokes
back and forth, over and over, and then lightning pressure
and really it's about a minute minute and a half
of doing that on edge, and I'm typically able to

(21:43):
shave hair again if it's if it's if it's been dulled,
I guess more than that, then that's when I tip.
I guess. The full proof 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,

(22:04):
but you know, 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 babble cleaning up

(22:25):
to the edge. And then you can you maybe just
start with a 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 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

(22:49):
can get in more details on this, but as you're
as you're doing it, initially you want to clean up
that edge to where you can feel a bird all
along that edge coming out through the other side. That
then you know, you clean up that full edge you
and you're doing it back then on the on the
other side to bring it back and then as you
go to the finer stones, you're kind of working a smaller,
smaller bird and then at the end it's it's you know,

(23:11):
you're just taking a completely off and it's dead sharp.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah. I like to use you know, I've had a
few broadheads get to that point. A lot of times.
I can just pick it up, you know, 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
one hundred and eighty. 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,

(23:36):
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, twenty two twenty two and a half
whatever it may be for a double bevel or or
you know, whatever that angle may be, and then yeah,
you can touch them. It really good. I do notice that,
like you know, the the sense you do get it

(23:56):
to a hardness of sixty. Sometimes can be a little
it 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 works
sharp lets me get those things dialed right. Back in
without removing too much material and kind of maintaining that
angle really well.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, it's a it's a two tool steel, so it's
it's a steel used in metal stamping, dice to cut
other metals, and it kind of has a unique ability
to have great impact toughness and retain retain an edge
in sharpness even when cutting through something like like metal.
I'd say it's a it's a pretty workable steel since
the tool steel it doesn't have. It's not like some

(24:38):
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 with standard sharpening stones. But yeah we take
a little bit more worked and say a soft you
know four twenty.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, yes, it's I know, it's not near as difficult
as like the s thirty vs as ninety v's 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 it's definitely easier
than that, but maybe a little more work than than
softer steels.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
So yes.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
The next question comes from Aja Doob. How much helical
for a single bevel would you recommend?

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, I kind of like two to three degrees. And
this is part of the university study too. We were
looking at with the high speed camera as the ear
comes out of the bow and I'll click it, does
it spin up? And then you know what's the maximum
spin it gets down range? And so I mean I
don't like zero to one degree. I mean zero definitely
you're not getting any rotation. And the reason you want

(26:00):
rotation in an arrow is it kind of averages out
any asymmetries. You know, if your your insert or broadheads
is pointing a little bit off to one side, and
then as 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

(26:22):
closer to you know, on on the bullseye. So you
want rotation, and I think two to three degrees is
a pretty good amount. I think on a vein 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,

(26:47):
you know, super high rotation, it seems could 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 of passing through a deer
and you can see that that the arrow is rotating

(27:07):
at impact and it just keeps rotating right through that animal,
doesn't doesn't really doesn't miss a beat there. It's a
single bubble head. So yeah, I like the two to
three degree range for shooting really any fixed play broadhead,
but definitely seems to work well with single bubbles too.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
And I'm going to piggyback on AJ's question. Some of
the stuff I don't claim to be an expert on.
I've shot helical, you know, right handed twist double bebble broadhead,
so I haven't had to deal with a lot of this.
But you know, single bubbles 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 it bo naturally wants to spin an arrow a

(27:47):
certain direction. So we take those three things that could
all work together, could work apart from each other, or
you know, you could have two working in one direction,
one and the other. What's your opinion on that should
we go to? Because it's something I've never thought of,
nothing I've ever went through. You know, when when I
was grown 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 feral from

(28:09):
the insert and so you always, you know, everything spun
to the you know, you wanted the erro spin to
the right, kind of kept your broad head 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 it's a lot all one question,
but if you can kind of elaborate on that whole idea, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I think the I think the important thing or the
most important thing if you're going to shoot single bubble,
is that your your veins in your bubble match you know,
you want that errow 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

(28:52):
or helical and if you're doing right offset or hehlicle,
then do a right single bubble. If you're doing left
offset or heelicle, just do left single bebble because you
want that. You want that rotational momentum that's providing some
of the torque to go through the animal, which which
is kind of needed with single bubbl. You know, a
single bubbel, all that pressure on that bebbl causes the

(29:13):
rotation as you go through the animal. But you don't
want it to like stop that rotation and have to
change the direction and go back to way. They lose
energy and penetration there. So that's the most important part
of this whole thing. The other question is really the
kind of the clocking they call it on the bow
or if you shoot a bear shit aft out of
your bow, which way is that arrow going to rotate?

(29:38):
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 or right. There's 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 NOx just kind of

(30:00):
releases from it. I first heard about this maybe twelve
years ago or so, and I when I first tested
on my boat at that time, I was getting like
a quarter inch rotation left over twelve feet. Well, I
knew from high speed video that my era was getting
like a full rotation right in like ten inches or

(30:21):
something from the veins when they're at two and a
half to three degrees. So, and you know from engineering
some of the torque sequels 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.

(30:43):
That was kind of my initial thoughts on it, and
I've still kind of tell people in general it's that
it's not the big of a factor. I mean, if
you want to really dig into the details and the weeds,
I mean, I do see with high speed video that
if the boat tends to want to make it rotate
a lobal left, there's a little bit more of a
hesitation there before the rate rotation starts. So I'm not

(31:03):
going to say that doesn't matter at all, but I'm
not 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 it
started doing it, but they said they don't really seeing
a difference in accuracy. So I'm a bit on the

(31:25):
fence on that whole thing. But it's it's one of
those details that there's a lot of other things to
worry about, bigger factors than that.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yep. All, 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 Mold's future?

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah? Good question. You know, are two blade with bleeders
is basically a four blade with with an advantage. I
think sitting there 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

(32:06):
blade with bleeds over a three blade as well. If
you think about hitting a scalpula 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

(32:27):
testing data on our website that shows this. But just
pushing down through hide muscle and scalpula with our two
blade with bleeds 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 scalpula

(32:50):
on an elk and not penetrating through, where artist penetrates
very easily through. So well, I ever make a three blade,
you know, I'm I might. I 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 is a better

(33:11):
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, we yet penetrates bone and
hide and everything else much better.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, no, 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 you know, it
may stay more open. But I think we still accomplish that.
Like you said, the tension from the center of that
whole on a four blade does the same thing. It
kind of keeps that whole open. But then you know
people have talked about well, you know, just basically two

(33:45):
two blades crossing, they can still close, but I agree
you kind of get that that middle open. So yeah,
thanks for thanks for taking that one on. And now
the last question, and you know, the question we had
got from a few guys is why are they so expensive?
And I'd like to rearrange this question, ask you why
are iron wills worth what you charge for them? And
you know, if you can go through the manufacturing process

(34:07):
QAQC materials, finishing, hardening, all of that and kind of
give us a look into why these broadheads you know,
cost what they cost.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, good, good question. You know, when I first had
a broadhead fail on an ELK shoulder blade in two
thousand and four, and it's pretty devastating for me at
the time. And you know, as a mechanical engineer, had
developed products for other companies for many years at a
high level, and then I took a look at this broadhead,
you know, really critically and decided quickly that this thing's junk,

(34:40):
it's prone to failure. And I really just decided, well,
I first, you know, research and test 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, should bone get through the vitals,

(35:02):
make that a successful hunt instead of you know, a heartbreak.
And you know, I'd also had a background when I
when I first graduated from engineering school, I went to
work for three M company at the time with development engineers.
They'd have you spend like twenty percent of your time
on a technology development project. And coming out of school,

(35:25):
I kind of had an emphasis in kind of mechanical design,
machine design, but then also advanced material materials engineering and
steals in particular. So the technology development. Program they gave
me was tooling development, tooling technology development for the corporation.
So I was digging heavily into steels, tool steels, heat treats, codings,

(35:48):
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 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,

(36:09):
so you know, I just knew there was that. You know,
most of the blades out there were using like a
four to twenty stainless steel, which is not really even
a good blade steal. It's it's kind of a nice
compromise of being very cheap and doing doing okay. But anyway,
I went through five different steels before I settled on
a two tool steel. I used S seven as well,

(36:31):
which is a great impact steel, and really they're both
used in metal stamping, dies and punches. S seven is
generally used to punch or form metal. A two is
often used if you're going to cut metal. And so
even though I liked S seven and used it, for
a couple of years in development. I say A two
is kind of a better because I could get it harder, sharper,

(36:51):
retain the edge better anyway, and that you know, I
process it like you would a high end knife blade.
We start with you know, steel plate, blank that out.
We do SENC machining, multi stage grinding, honing. We do
a heat treat process that includes a cryogenic treatment and

(37:14):
triple tempering to just get the best possible we can
geek out of why do that? But you do just
cryogenic treatment. You make sure all the you know, it's
basically making sure the microstructure is perfectly you know, changed
goes from austinite to martinsite and it's a very hard
dense structure and to make sure it's all uniform, and

(37:34):
then the tempering has 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 real real there's a reel of metal coming
in one side, and you can do that when blades
are you know, twenty thirty maybe even thirty five, forty

(37:56):
thouve 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 grind it right, they servent right there too.
They stand up run through a one side grinder, you know,
it comes off the other side of the machine. And
these parts cost. These blades cause dimes to make versus

(38:19):
dollars to make. So anyway, that's kind of why ours
more expensive, and that's you know, kind of explain the
blades are farls. We use a Grade five titanium for
our lighter heads, and that's really the best strength to
weight ratio of any metal. So I think that's the
best metal to use on a Farrell on say one

(38:40):
hundred grand head. We used on a summer one hundred
hundred twenty five grand 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 ferals. Our heads
out there are generally three oh through a two stainless,

(39:00):
which is not hardened. You can harden. You can use
martin ciitic steel, harden it and get strength. It's you know,
maybe three two to three times the strength of those
austinitic you know, three hundred serious steels. So we actually
harden them and machine them in the hardened state. So
it requires that we machine them slower. It takes longer
to machine and the material costs more. So that's why

(39:23):
those costs more as well. But we can get very
precise there's no distortion or discoloration from a later heat
treat and it's really 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

(39:43):
they do. And that's really why why I broadhads cost
quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, and you know, 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
let that lead a lot of our projects. But yeah,
for me, you know, and and not to over dramatize it.

(40:08):
But you know, 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, you're
you're one or two archery all counts because you're only
you know, maybe three max. The squeezes in. You know,
you drive potentially all over the country, you drive across

(40:30):
your state, or you drive you know, you're driving into
your unit and you've bought knew 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, this broadhead going
to perform or if I make a slightly less than
perfect shot, like is it you am I still covered?
Like is the broadhead going to be?

Speaker 2 (40:51):
You know?

Speaker 1 (40:52):
And for me, it's a 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.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
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 enemy 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 aeroflight and then having

(41:25):
your broadhead perform, you know, on impact. So it's you know,
our heads are probably twenty bucks more per head than
the things you're going to pick up at a department store.
But it's yeah, to me, it's is is worth it
at that moment of truth there get that animal and
have the best chance for success. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Well that that kind of wraps up the listener questions here.
I appreciate everybody over is September yet sending us questions,
and so once again you have questions of your own,
email them to us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com,
or send us a social message in we'll do our
best to include them for me or my guests. So

(42:04):
now we're going to jump into kind of my discussion.
I wanted to have with you Bill, 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 broadheads into you know, finding success and you know,
being able to you know, technical data surrounds them, you know,

(42:26):
the lethality of the broadheads. And so yeah, 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 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 their anomalies?
Are there reasons why what I've seen are different than
the data? And just like let the chips follow where

(42:47):
they do, and 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 back up what's found and you know, and what
I believe what I've been able to find, and I
think you and what you're doing with Iron will broadheads

(43:07):
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, gonna gonna 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

(43:30):
or ideas that have you know, come from many many
years of bow shop owners or in industry stuff, 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 you know
doing at the University of Colorado. You know, you've got
new veins that you're looking at, new arrow setups. Kind

(43:50):
of give us the full rundown of of you know,
lab testing and new products.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Yeah, so to give you a little background there. You know,
I develop products for the companies for many years, and
I was always seeking out the best you know, engineering
tools really, whether it was computer modeling, instrumentation, you know,
high speed camera accelerometers, just whatever kind of instrumentation, you know,

(44:19):
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 work for, I always you know,
really drove highest level engineering improvements. And through years of

(44:41):
doing that, I was leading engineering teams and you know
really kind of mentoring and driving other people to do
the you know, apply science, do the analysis, but then
also do some lab testing to kind of prove that
you know, computer mo model is accurate and this what

(45:02):
you know, the annalys shows will be an improvement actually
does make an improvement. And then in the final you know,
final assembly testing, you know, prove out that you did
make make it better. And so 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

(45:24):
client over those projects. And then about eight years ago,
the university asked me to be one of the faculty directors.
So I became adjoint instructor of Mechanical Engineering and it
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 are required to do it, but

(45:45):
they take an industry project and spend the year doing
you know, analysis, design, analysis, prototyping, testing, you know, iterating,
bring it, bring it to manufacturing typically. So I've been
you know, teaching students kind of best practices for mechanical
engineering and trying trying to kind of bridge that gap

(46:06):
between Okay, you have all the school knowledge and you
know all the tests, you've taken, all the information is there.
Now how do you solve the problem and you have
all the information that's generally what happens in the 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 a science here,

(46:27):
what is a 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,
I finally I got approval from the university to both
direct and sponsored projects. So iron Wellfater is just sponsoring
a sponsored project on improved aero van design for bow hunting,

(46:49):
you know, with fixed play broad hits on the front.
So it's been a great project. You know. It was
five seniors in mechanical engineering that had no background in
you know, archery or hunting, which I kind of like
they come into it with with no you know, preconceived
ideas of what works or doesn't work. They're just using designing, analyzing,

(47:11):
collecting data and really kind of making day in the
driven you know, decisions or showing the results based on that.
So this past year we tested six of what I
considered kind of the top hunting veins in the industry.
Did you know a CAD model of those at a

(47:31):
three degree here local on the arrow with the ironld
broad heads on the front. Did a fluidynamic model, so
it's really very sophisticated. One has you know, airflow gone
over the arrow even as it's rotating through the air.
We were able to model that we're looking at, We're
looking at really accuracy, stability, wind drift, drag and sound

(47:56):
from that. So we can we can we can model
all that here. We can and 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. You know, we tip, we can
tip the angle let's say five degrees to the wind,
like as if it's coming out of your bow and
your bos little untuned, and we can see what is
the restoring torque that quickly brings that arrow back back

(48:19):
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

(48:39):
machine using a high speed camera to kind of vary
to verify the spin up and then the stabilizing and
then the max 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 this very

(49:00):
sophisticated sound recording system placed out there that was recording
the sound with these omnidirectional microphones, and then we analyze
that through through Matt Labs, 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 killer herds and then also animals

(49:20):
which I believe was four to eight kill herts. So
we said, okay, is this arrow sound you know, errow
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 that's kind of

(49:44):
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
you know, penetrating really well through high 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

(50:06):
with shooting fixed plate heads is that they struggle to
get good aeroflight with fixed blade heads. So I wanted
to dig more into the science there and kind of
be able to show people, hey, you can definitely get
create long ra in flight with fixed plate heads. You
just need to do a few things here, you know,
get some rotationary arrow tunebo the right veins on the

(50:27):
back and you're good.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Gotcha? Yeah, I like it and see what I'm excited
to see what comes out on that white paper and
if it changes anything that we we think is right
as of right now. My next question for you is

(50:57):
what's your opinion on FOC. Did we did the pendulum
swing too far? Doesn't matter? You know, we we've went
to this, you know, all your weight in the first
two inches, Like, just give me your take on that
and what you've found or what your your opinion is
on if there's a compromise where where we don't have
to chase these huge FOC numbers.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, I don't think there's any I don't think there's
any science that would show that extreme FOC would 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

(51:39):
equal force time's time change of momentum of legal force
times time. Momentum is a 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 industry line, so having good

(52:02):
aerowflight 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 totally increased
mass times totally increased momentum at impact. It's going to
translate into how much force can that really aerosystem apply

(52:25):
as it cuts through and for how long? So it's
that product enforced time's time. So there's no FOC that
in the math of 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 how well your
arrow is flying or what it's doing at impact. So

(52:49):
I think the advantages with FOC the improved stability. As
you move your center mass a bit forward, you're going
to prove your stability. But I personally don't go to
any extreme tames. I think, say twelve to fifteen sixteen
percent is great. I've seen excellent penetration. My aero setups
are usually in that twelve to fifteen percent range, and

(53:12):
I can tell you throwing my testing with the right
broadhead on the front, you have excellent penetration. So I
don't see a need for this extremefoc. The physics doesn't
really justify that, you know, I think that doctor ed
Ashby's testing I've talked to him about this. He saw
now going from a nineteen to twenty two percent FOC,

(53:35):
saw thirty percent improvement and penetration. I really think that's
because he's shooting a longbow at close range and there's
a lot of flexing in that row, and it probably
improved his aeroflight or how straight that arrow was on impact,
and that was probably majority of the factor for penetration.
I think it's it's unfortunate. I think a lot of

(53:57):
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 underspined, but a lot of
mass out in front, and you don't have the arrow
stiffness to support it. You get massive flexing back and forth.
And I see this on YouTube videos of people that
are extreme foc, you know, advocates. You can see in

(54:20):
their aerowflight it's that thing's flexing back and forth like crazy.
And in my arrow setups, I may be getting like
a half inch a vertical flex of the arrow, and
then it's it's almost going perfectly straight, you know. Ten
feet later, I don't. I don't have that massive flexing
back and forth all the way to the target that's
going to reduce penetration because of a mentum. It's not

(54:42):
in a straight line anymore.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Yeah, definite, No, 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, 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.

(55:07):
And then you also factor in what you saw from
you know, maybe some of the female bow hunters you've
hunted with that got perfect pass through? Is it fifty
two you know pounds in a four hundred and twenty
grain arrow or whatever it is, And you're like, well,
what am I doing as a as a guy shooting
a you know, a seventy two pound bow in full
length arrows five hundred and sixty grain. It's like does
it does it all matter? Or do we just need

(55:29):
to be able to shoot our bows better, you know,
and it hit the animal right where we want. And
you know, I build my arrows somewhat backwards and I
fall into that same twelve to fifteen percent foc like
you do, just kind of naturally. I've got a fairly
long draw. I shoot full length thirty two inch arrows,
and then I just kind of keep stuff and weight
in the front until I get my bow to what

(55:52):
it says on paper is going to shoot about two
hundred and eighty to two hundred and eighty five 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 you got to do? And then
make sure my spine is still, you know, is correct,
and I'm not going to be you know, under overspined
and just kind of leave it there, like I build

(56:13):
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
five hundred and fifty to five hundred and sixty grein arrow,
but you know, it's it's just because of the thirty
two inch draw length and heavy arrows.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Yeah, there's definitely a trade up there as you increase
the mass or trajectory drops off, and so people ask me,
you know, what what weight should I go with to
maximize penetration. Well, I think you do continue to see
improvements with penetration with mass especially, And you know, the
technical reason for this, I think is because as an

(56:51):
animal tissue and everything probably asks the like visco elastic material,
where it's like, as you increase that shear rate, it
takes more four So a light fast arrow is going
to take more force to go through at that higher speed,
and it's going to slow down easier because there's light
versus versus a heavier arrow, and so but it's it's

(57:16):
not a huge of a factor. So I think I
kind of calculated in my setup. I thought one hundred grains, say,
going from four to fifty to five point fifty might
be a maybe a ten percent improvement and penetration maybe
not quite that much really, but but then there's a
drop off in trajectory as well, and that's why I'm
typically end up around five hundred grains. But It's why

(57:39):
I'm not going six hundred plus 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 for sure. As far as where to put
the weight, yeah, upfront's better than putting it. You don't
really want to put it at the back. And upfront's
better than having just a heavy arrow with a light

(58:00):
light head up front. You know, I wouldn't go with
the heavy arrow and then I have only have one
hundred grains or one one sixteen up front, like some
people will do with just an aluminum insert in a
hundred grade head, and then your FOC's down at ten
percent or below, I think, I think, say, you know,
the recommendations out there in the industry are maybe ten
to twelve percent for target setups and like tell to

(58:23):
fourteen for hunting aeroseeps. I think that's what like Easton
has said before, I don't like going all the way
down to ten or below. You add the possibility for
instability you to fix it light had So that's really
the reason for having some mass up front and having
a decent FOC. But there's no need to go extreme
in my opinion, it's more likely to hurt aeroflight in trajectory.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, this kind of segue kind of plays offul. We're
just talking about 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, I just shoot
a hundred grain solid head. I want the smallest cutting
diameter as possible. Now, I want that broadhead to be

(59:06):
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 encounterbone,
I've always thought that a one inch cutting diameter is
easier to push you that bone than an echine, you know,
an eighth or an inch and a quarter. Do you

(59:27):
have any data on cutting diameter in relation to penetration
And if my thought process is right or if it's incorrect.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Well, I totally agree with you that getting that exit
holes is important, and you know, cutting all the way
through the exit hole. And I like to shoot our
standard with heads on ELK they have like an inch
and sixteenth main blade three quarter inch pleter. It's one
point eight inches total cut, but it's relatively compact and
FLI as well at long range, and that's that's generally

(59:57):
my elk head. And you know, I'm zipping right through
that it takes such low force to cut through with
their heads that often they're going twenty yards and looking
around or sometimes not even moving. You know, it's zipping through,
and they'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,

(01:00:18):
and then we had enough people that really just wanted
a wider head for white tails, bears, things where the
shots are closer and long range flight isn't so important,
and just to get a bigger hole. When I first
started making those and doing all the lab testing, I
expected to see a higher quite a bit higher force

(01:00:39):
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 learned prior is
that sharpness and edge retension are huge factors in the force.
It takes to penetrate, especially in high and you know,
muscle and tissue, but it seems to be in scoplics

(01:01:00):
gapula as well. Now I might say, if you know, bigger,
heavier bone I do, you probably gonna have less force
to cut through Without my head, it's not quite so wide.
But if I just measure the force to go through,
see it 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

(01:01:21):
inch and three. It's wide main blade three quarter inch
plater for two hundred eighth inch total cut. So I've
kind of changed my thinking a little bit, and I
don't see any problem with using that head on you know,
deer and elk. I use it a lot, but I
also start using it on elk when I have a
setup where it might be over water or I know
the shot is going to be relatively close. It penetrates,

(01:01:44):
you know. I put one through a bowl last year,
exited the opposite side shoulder bone, 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 really slow down. I think once the tip
starts cutting away and maybe I'm on bone split it's

(01:02:06):
kind of split that far ready and maybe on the
highe and once you start cutting it doesn't take that
much to keep cutting it a little wider. 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, it is probably
going to give you less penetration in general.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Gotcha, Yeah, that's okay, perfect, That's kind of what I thought.
But it's that it's that idea that it's gonna in
my head it's gonna 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 sixteenth is
still going to do its job. But for the 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 I maybe have to go through there

(01:02:47):
or I miss 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 how everything's
working on those iron wheels.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Yeah. One thing I'd point out too, is it our
newest head now is a is a wide, single bebble
head that we've had a lot of people asking us for.
I've been testing that over last year, and just a
few weeks ago I was in Texas hunting hogs with it,
and one hog, you know, kind of a older bore
that I shot a little further forward than I intended to.

(01:03:24):
It was a forty yard shot or some leaves covered
his head and I ended up shooting too far forward.
I went right to 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, wide single bubble that's trying to
rotate you know, through the bone too. But it made

(01:03:46):
it through the bone and got, you know, all the
way through the animal. The arrow didn't completely pass through,
but the broadhead made an exit on their side and
that bone just cut clean into where you could just
kind of pull or part like a puzzle put it
back together. It was a slice holler through And so
that was with our wide and so again I feel

(01:04:07):
like it's gonna you know, you know, you need the
right steal, the right hardness, strength and everything to be
able to cut through that bone. But 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 in North America.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Gotcha. Yeah, I had a question here coming up to
that would have been a great segue you know, single
bebble versus double bevel. You know, we kind of exhausted
that on the on the listener questions, but is are
are you seeing the ability this is my last question
on single go once again bone? Are you seeing a difference.

(01:04:44):
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 tonnel point
on the double bevel able to break through bone similar
or is there an advantage of one to the other.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Yeah, good, great quote. 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 rotate
in pop bone apart. I've talked to doctor Ashby directly
about that and how my results were a bit different.

(01:05:19):
And you know, he was using a very long, like
three to one ratio head. He had a very slow,
longbo setup, and he was saying where a double bebble
could kind of just kind of wedge wedge into that
bone and take more force to penetrate versus that single level.
As it started rotating, it was kind of popping bone

(01:05:40):
and reducing the force for him to penetrate. It was
an improvement, and I think we've I've talked to this
with him a number of times now, and I feel
like with my set up 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 popping it apart. It's

(01:06:01):
cutting it apart very quickly, you know, and doing a
great job penetrating in that single blevel as it's cutting
in and popping it apart. You know, it's hard for
me to see a difference in in that at least
with my setup and my my levels of energy, it
might be more of a factor with a low you know,
lower energy set up, thicker longer, you know, thicker bones.

(01:06:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Gotcha. So we're gonna this will be my last question
for you. Kind of rolled it up a little bit,
you know, for ELK when you're when you're you know,
in close proximity. But you know, we got a lot
of white tail hunters out there, you know, so for
for setting up for ELK, what would you recommend the
best broadhead for white tail hunters, you know, to be
you know, out of a tree stand if that changes
angles and all of that. Do you have a recommendation

(01:06:57):
for that or is it just typically you're wider wider angles.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Yeah, you know, I've shot I've shot all of our
broad heads on quite a few white tails 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 bones, open up shot angles and opportunities there.
That's really kind of what I tell people that you know,

(01:07:23):
might shoot mechanical or want to know, what, how is
our head better than a mechanical at a white tail,
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 ducts and turns into it,
and you ad they go through the shoulder blade, even
the thickest part of the shoulder bone, it's going to

(01:07:45):
penetrate and it's it's going to get you through the
vitals or if it's a downward shot through the spine.
And really has to say that about 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 white tails. It's just that the shots
are you know, typically twenty to thirty yards, rarely are

(01:08:10):
they over forty in a white tail woods. And so
I know, I know our wide are going to penetrate, great,
why not get a little bigger houle if there's a
more marginal shot let's say you end up hitting you know,
one long liver guts. I've done that a number of times.
And with our wide, our wide belvel with that twoe
and eight inch total cut between the main blade and

(01:08:30):
the bleeder, you know, often they're going maybe sixty seventy
yards and dying even with a single long liver shot.
It's just doing enough trauma of it. They're going down quickly.
So that's kind of the advantage of why shoot Maybe
a wide over smaller one is just more you know,
more bleeding, quicker potentially quicker kills. So that's why I

(01:08:54):
generally recommend on white tails, our wide series, and that's
what I generally recommend on bears as well, which are
similar culture shots and 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 their
shooting mechanicals and if they're if they're a little bit

(01:09:18):
quartered away and hitting the oppositized shoulder, they're not getting
passed through and then they got a high entrance hole,
no exit hole. And on a bear, that's that means
no blood, no blood trail because it just soaks up
that that blood so much. So. Yeah, white sails bears.
I I generally recommend our wide heads for those shots.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Got you? Thanks for that, Bill, Tell everybody how they
can follow, follow along and you follow the company 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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Yeah, our website is iron Well Outfitters. We're on you know, Instagram,
Facebook as iron Welfare is. Also we're we have a
YouTube channel, it's also Ironwall Outfitters. And yeah, I'm committed
to uh improving you know, boon hunting, applying science to
make better products. We we make broadheads. You're currently working

(01:10:12):
on making better arrows. We've started through the university study
we we came up with. We found the best thing
from the study was this hybrid hunter vein which is
the Max Huino profile and a new hybrid material that
we had a make for us and worked with east
End to machine flesh is at three degree helical. So

(01:10:35):
that all the people ask that ask me, you know
what aero set up should I used to with your
broad heads. I can just say, hey, the one we
sell right now kind of did the best overall in
the study. And you know, we know this is going
to work well to make our heads fly. Well, it's
been really a few you know, have a bowton, so
your arrow's coming relatively straight off of it, you're properly spine,

(01:10:57):
and then you have enough vein on the back to
you stabilize that fixed plate head on the front should
have good air flight, and we have great tech support.
If people are having any problems with our broad heads
in flight, we're happy to help you get that set up.
But I want to throw it out out there too
that we're I want to help the blow hunters be
more successful and we're happy to help you do that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Bill, Thanks for jumping on.
Good luck this fall. If I don't talk to you
before then, and always appreciate your knowledge and perspective, you know,
in your opinions, whatever you may throw at this, because
I know you've tested it and confirmed it, so I
really appreciate having you on and take care.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Yeah. Thanks, Jason. Is good talking to another engineer, and
I know I might have got a little bit too
into the details, so hopefully Yeah, people have some takeaways
from it, but yeah, thanks a lot for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
Yeah, thank you. Take care,