Broadhead vs Field Tip Accuracy Tips For Mechanical and Fixed Blade Broadheads

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. Today we're going to talk about field tips versus broadheads. You're not going to want to miss this one. So let's start with talking about field tips. So there's lots of different designs. I'm just going to briefly show you two here. And the first thing that you're going to notice when you look at these field tips is, what are they? They're basically bullet shape, right? So it's all about aerodynamics. They're in the same line and plane and diameter as the aeroshaft. And of course, these are going to fly immensely well. Now, the second you change what's at the other end of your arrow, whether it's a fixed, a hybrid or a mechanical, you have changed your arrow. So there's a lot of talk about my broadhead should shoot exactly like my field tips. And to most extent, that is very true. If your bow is tuned and your arrow is tuned, if it is not, you will see a tremendous difference in how your broadhead flies, even your mechanicals. Now, the whole thing about mechanicals in the first place was we wanted to have something in archery that flew as well as this. So we went to mechanical style broadheads that were aerodynamic. The blades were closed. Some of them are totally hidden by the tips. We wanted something that was exactly like a field tip and so it would fly like your field tips, especially at long ranges. So the birth of the mechanical broadhead was born. And then later on, we started to get hybrid designs like the Afflictor where we have drive key technology. This is Afflictor K2 Hybrid. When the drive key is activated, you now have a locked fixed blade with an inch and three-quarter cut. This happens at entrance. As it comes in, before the blades have even gotten into the skin, they're already activated and locked. So this hybrid design is very good, flies true, and of course makes a massive entrance wound and exit wound. So when you're talking about mechanicals, the whole idea behind them was to fly like your field tip, but they don't all the time. So why? So let's talk about that. One of the reasons that you will find that your broadhead, whether it's hybrid or fixed, does not fly as well as your field tip is simply because your bow is out of tune. Could be a cam issue, could be a rest issue, anything along that nature. You could also be hitting your fletching, not clearing your rest. Maybe your fletching isn't clearing your cables. So what happens is when you're shooting a field tip, your fletching corrects all the mistakes from you the shooter, from your arrow, and from your bow. So the idea is these veins stabilize your arrow in flight. Now when you add any type of rudder or however you want to put this, airplane wings some people will call it, at the front, now what happens is the broadhead wants to steer against the fletching. So that's the reason that does not fly like your field tip. Now it will if your arrow is tuned and your bow is tuned. You can eliminate that because you're not depending on your fletching to do all the work. You're in tune. Everything is flying perfectly. So it's very important to not only paper tune your arrow but also to bear shaft tune. It'll give you a great idea of what is going wrong and then that'll allow you to make subtle differences on your rest. Maybe your knocking point is off. All those things that when you group your field tips and it all looks perfect it's great but the fletching has done all the work for you. So there's no resistance up front. Nothing to to go wrong up here and the fletching can do its job on your arrow so you get good grouping. The second you change that things can go haywire if you're not in tune. Even with a hybrid or a mechanical broadhead you have extended the length so your field tips are short. You've extended your length. You've changed your FOC. You've changed your balancing point. This is very important to keep in mind. When you change the balancing point of your arrow you have changed the distance that your fletching is allowed to make a correction. So it's very important to understand that even the length any grains up here anything that you change beyond your field tip is going to change your arrow and even change the spine of your arrow. So some things to consider if you're having trouble getting your hybrid your mechanical or your fixed blade to shoot. Now at Afflictor we have a special design tip it's oversized it hides and protects our blades on our hybrids and then our fixed blades it cuts through the air and is very aerodynamic in such a way where we get excellent flight all the time out of crossbows compounds and recurves. So as you shoot these you'll see that they do fly very well but again we get calls all the time I'm having trouble getting things sighted in and it always turns out to be a bow issue an arrow issue and occasionally a fletching issue. So let's talk real quick about fletching issues. A lot of vanes are straight fletched like this. Some have a slight offset and some are helical. You'll see a lot of people really pounding home helicals being a wonderful thing. A three to four degree helical is good it spins your arrow like a football it helps the fletching. Go ahead and get your arrow stabilized a little faster however if your bow or arrow is out of tune it'll also throw things off faster. It allows that rudder at the end to take more control this doesn't do a job and it'll actually veer off even faster where you can actually miss a target at 20 yards with a steep helical. So you got to be really careful with steep helicals in my opinion when you're going ahead and tuning that with your broadheads especially on fixed and some of the really big fits. I really like the blazer style vanes with a slight offset I also like four inch vanes and bigger vanes with a slight offset that's been my go-to for everything and I really don't have any problem but I've also taken the time to bear shaft tune my bow the paper tune and to make sure my cams are in time and then everything lines up. If you do those few steps you will see a really big difference in your setup from your field tips how your broadheads are going to fly. So we're out in the field I'm going to do a little shooting we're just we're going to see how the afflictors fly against the field tip we're going to be shooting at 20 yards now we're going to shoot the K2 fixed now we're going to shoot the K2 hybrid so you can see here at 20 yards the K2 hybrid basically scratched the shaft of our field tip right down alongside it so I'll have to make sure I inspect that make sure I didn't get a fracture or cut in the carbon the K2 fix was just a little bit low maybe about an inch and a half. These are brand new arrows so I have not had a chance to tune these at all and uh so I think after a little bit of tuning I think we can make this fixed it right in alongside these other two arrows. Hey thanks for tuning in today if you have any questions make sure you drop them in the comments also give us a give us a thumbs up and give us a follow it really helps us out any other questions you can email us or call us at any time