Trad Gang

OK so I'm going to South Africa and Namibia this summer,, ill be there for 2 months in total,,  god willing I'm planning on using my Howard Hill Cheetah,, Longbow,, its 70"  65lds @ 28",, for the main part of the trip I'm planning on using Woodsman's,, and or Zwickys,, but If the opportunity presented its self I thought it would be nice to try and take some Game with a Hill BH,, so I   got 6 Howard Hill Broad heads from 3 rivers archery

So when I got them,,  I had seen pictures of them,, and had a good idea of what they would look like,, but when I saw them In the flesh,, they were BIG,, but what I noticed about them is that the metal blade is very thick,, and the edge that has been ground on to it is at a very steep angle,, and as a result, if  I were just to  sharpen at that angle,, they would  not get very sharp,,that's what I thought  so I just put them to one side,, and left them,, but today I decided to give them a try out,,

So I decided that if I wanted to get them sharp I would have to put a bit of extra effort in to them,, and work a lot ( may be a few mm, so not a lot,, but you now what I mean, )  of the blade away, to make the angle a lot less,, to get them sharper,, ( well this is what I figured, )  so I don't have any power tools ect,, my little daramel tool and the little grinder end would have been really nice,, but hay,, I just had to put a bit of time in to this and do it the hard way,  ;)

OK,, so i just clamped the Arrow on to my Desk,, and got my tool,, i call it a dimond sharpener,, but i have no idea what they are called,, but there great,, this is all i had in the way of sharpening tools,, there is a fine and corse side,,  so i just started working on each edge at a time,, trying to keep it all at the same angle,, and i was trying to make the cuting edge biger with a lower angle,, and hoping by doing this would create a sharper edge,

so this was the " set up "  :)  

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/1-1.jpg)

The diamond sharpener is to put a finish edge on the blade.  If you want to change the bevel angle a little, you'll need to start with a file.  Good luck.

OK,, it took me about 10-15 minutest to work each cutting edge,, luckerly i was only doing one  :)  

so by the time i was finished,, this is what the head looked like,, and it is sat next to one that i have not worked on,, ( hope youll be able to tell witch one is witch )  ;)  

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/2-2.jpg)


(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/3-1.jpg)


it did not come out two well on the pictures,,, but i hope you can see the edge on the one ive worked on wider,, ( showing i have lowered the angle, )  

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/4.jpg)


(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/5.jpg)

its not amasing picturs,, but i think you can see from this one that the metal is quite thick,,

and showing the steep angle
(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/6-2.jpg)

Orion,, yes thats what i usually use it for on my knives,, but it seemed to the job,, on the heads,, but just took a long time,,  :)

I figure,, im going to have a lot of time sat in the hides,,  ;)

Looking good James! How sharp did you manage to get them? Good enough to hunt big African game with?
The pics are fine mate. We can easily tell which is which!  ;)   :bigsmyl:    :campfire:

Hey Trad Man now I don't want to be a party pooper...nor do I want to get sued,nor do I want to insult anyone in anyway...OK..Now I will most likely never set foot on African soil myself.And believe me that is one trip I would just about do anything to go on...but just not in the cards for the old bowdoc right now....However the same thoughts crossed my mind in my dreams.Please look at the pics of some HH's I was testing out on some plywood(not in my dream but for real).They worked super and will.. with out a dout kill any critter we would choose to shoot with one...But when used at a somewhat of quatering angle...you know maybe the critter is just about the perfect angle...The ferrule broke on impact..please see pic.They broke at the shoulder.please keep me posted and again I don't want to discourage you in anyway.Just thought it may help.bowdoc (http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii175/bowdocsarchery/hh001.jpg)

ok so now that i have sharpend the Head,, i wanted to test it,,
This was just my first Attempt,, and if i was going to use this head to shoot at a Game animal,, i would spend about 2x as long making sure every thing is perfect and as good as can be,,

so,, i decided to shoot 3 sets ,, of 2 arrows,, one arrow being the one i just sharpened and the other a head with the same agle,, as when purchased,,

So my Target is a Really big,, Foam Mattress, ( with out any springs in it  ;)  its been roled up and tied up,, so its 3 layers thick,, of mattres,, ,, hope you under stand,,

so thats the target,, and i figured that foam,, would be quite a good material to shoot in to because hope fully the sharp broardhead would slice thought it  like a hot knife thought butter and the blund head would just push and rip its way thoguht,, and hope fully show clear results,, that was the theory any way,,

Thanks Nige,,, Man,, ill be Happy enoght just being sat in the hide with you and Andy,,and the rest of the Crew,,,  im sure well be lagthing so much,, we wont see a Single animal,,  :)  :)  

BowDoc,, Thanks for the post,, REally interesting,, But i just realised the time,, and i got to run to my lectures,, ( Small-Scale Forest Goods and Services in South Africa, ) hum,, Interesting, ;) ,,

ok soo ill finnish my Report and Results and yes ,,, Pics,, when i get back,, sorry for stoping halth way though,, but as my mum says,, Playing with Bows and arrows wont pay the morgage,  ;)  ;)   lectures come fisrt,  :(  

Back Soon

Thanks for showing an interst

James

bowdoc:
I think the next time I go hunting for Wild Plywood I'll use a different head!!!!!!!! Thanks for the insight.
Bob

Hey Bob it's considered dangerous game in my hood.But my thought process was lets say a cape at 8 yards and that head breaks...yikes...bowdoc

thats the one time I would be hoping to hear a very loud BOOM  :D

Don, that's the exact break I was describing in the Update; it breaks where the ferrule retaining pin passes through, and then just snaps. It's not an uncommon occurrence on any heavy-bone angular impact - and on bone not nearly as thick as a buffalo rib.

Ed
TGMM Family of the Bow

those hill heads have an aluminum ferulle dont they,  quite a bummer if you ask me.   thats a dmt sharpener your using,  even though that blue grit will work just fine it does take about three times as long as if you had just bought a cheap 12" file.

Ok,,, So now to the testing,,,

There is nothing scientific,, here and im not trying to say any thing about the head weather its good or bad,, i was just curious about this head,, and thought i would see how it performs,, and thought that there may be some one esle that would be interested,,, so i may as well shair my findings,,even though there far from conclusive,, just a bit of fun,,


OK so iv described the target,, and i should really tell you what my bow set up is so you can have a greater understanding ,,  :)  :)

So at the moment im shooting my cheetah,, 70",, takedown sleve, and its 65lds @ 28,,

the arrow im shooting is a  Carbon Express Heritage 250,, the shaft is 29" long,, with a standard insurt you get with the Arrows,, and the standard Nock that came with the,, and im using a long Adaptor, thats 42 grains, and obviosuly a 160g Hill Head,,, so the total lenght of the arrow is 32.5"  i dont have scales,, so i dont now the weight of the shaft,, ect,, but hay,, the most important thing is that the arrow flyes Perfect,,
I havent tested to see exactly the poundage that i have when at full Draw,,

So this is how the set up looks,
(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/DSCN1775.jpg)

Im standing about 10  Yards from the target,, I guess you could say its a nice short shot from a hide  ;)  

ok So the first shots,, with both Heads,,
and this is the result,,

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s1.jpg)

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s11.jpg)

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s13.jpg)

the ruler is not there to measure any thing imberticular,, just to give the picture scale,

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s14.jpg)

Ow i forgot to mention,, im using 5 Inch Nanners,,  :)  these are my practice arrows and have been shot Thousand's of times and so the fletch is at little worse for where,,

ok,, just ill talk about when you see the other sets,, but just so you now,, the one i shrpened was the one with better penertration,,

ok now the second set,, obviously,, i cant shoot the next set in to the same area beacuse there are 2 great big holes in that area,,  so i moved a little to one side,, so as a result,, the mattress could be  more compresed in that section for example,, resulting in being harder to shoot thought,, and vis vursa,, but what i did was to shoot the 2 arrws in the same area,, so al least both arrows would go in to the same condidions,,  :)  hope i made that clear,,

so here is the second set,
(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s2.jpg)

and yes again the sharp arrow is the one with better penertration,, but nether of the arrows managed to come out the other side,, dont now exactly why,, may be more mattress to go thought,, ect,,

so with no exit holes to show you,, i took a picture of the entry hole,,  and with the rula,,  you can see that it is aproximatly 1inch accross,
(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s21.jpg)

When looking at the picture above,, the one of the entry holes you can actualy see that the fabric going around the mattress looks really quite different,, the arrow on the left is the sharp arrow,, and you can see that the fibers of the fabric look like they have been cut with a relertivly sharp instroment where as the one on the right the fibers have not been cut,, more riped and snaped from the force of the head making a hole,, you can see there are strands over the hole,, for me that is a sign that the sharp head has cut on entry,, where as the blunt one had made its entry just by force,,  :)   :)

ok now to set three,,

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s3.jpg)


this time are arrows came out of the other side,,

and yes again the sharp one is the one with best penertration,,  :)

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/s32.jpg)

i dont now if youll be able to see now iv shrunk them to put on here,, but in this picture you can see ,, at least on my computer the originals,, show a cleaner entry hole on the sharper arrow,, ( bottom one )

sorry up 2 pictures,, of the entry not the exit  :)

Nice photos! Great indoor shooting range, too!

ok so just so you get a better understanding,, of the ammount of mattress these arrows were going in to,, i got another picture here,, that will hopefully show this,, now,, since i have not shot any other Head in to this target except Field points,, ( i havent got a picture but the field points have now where near as much penertration,, i might even go as far to say the field points some times have less than half the ammount of penertration than the Boradheads,, even thought there the same weight,

sorry,, ok back to the point  ;)  haha,, theres my little joke,,  
sorry, ok,, so since i have not tested any other bhs,, i dont now what other heads would get for penertration,, but personally i think these heads go along way ,,

so heres the picture,, of the top of the target,, i cant shoot stright in to the broard side of the target beacuse thats all shot up,, so i have to move around a little to fine new bits,, so iv put the arrow in the general angle that the arrow are going in and exiting,, but i made a mistake and put the arrow upsidedown,, where the point is,,, is where the arrows are entering,, and the top of the shaft is where they exit,,

(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i164/The-Last-Wild-Man/a.jpg)

so from the picture you can see that 4 out of the 6 arrows i shot came out of the other side,, passing through about 16 inches of foam,, give or take with the shot angle ect,,,

Now with my big Zero,, experience of hunting with a bow an arrow,, ( as a result of coming from the UK) im only talking from what iv read and personal opinion,, but it was a long time,, ago and cant remmber exactly but i remmber that for  most of the smaller Planes Game ,, iv read that penertration is not such an importance,, beacuse they dont have large shilds i think you could call them,, the 3inch thick bit in the wild bore have around the ribs, protecting the chest cavity,, and there hides are not insulated with feathers or large amounts of hair,, and if shooting from a hide,, your shots mostly will be under 20 yards,, so your arrow still has a large ammount of speed and energy to go throught the ribs of the Game species,,

But obviously,, getting your arrow to go throught 16iches of Foam is quite different from that getting it to go throught 16inches of  flesh and bones,, ??
May be thats another test for another day,  :)  :)  :)  then a funny looking Sunday roast at the end of it  ;)  

But from my tests,, i have convined to myslef,, don't now about you guys,,, but dosent matter,, at least i now think that i was right in changing the bevel angle of the Head to make them sharper,, so  now that im happy that i have made them sharper,,  i think i have to now compare the penertration from the Hill Bh,, to another make of head,, so i can compare them both,,,  

and allso i have been thinking alot about the weekness that was mentioned earlyer about the Broardhead breaking when hiting bone or chipbord  ;)  at an angle,, so i think ill ring home and get my brother to send me the rest of my heads,,, and ill look in to doing some tests,, just to see how much of a problem this is,,  

also,, i would quite like to look in to seeing if these heads fly as accuraly,, as others,,

and i quite fancy puting a few in to some meat,, so ill have a think about it and see if i can get some think for dinner on the weekend,,

and if you want i can post results on here,, if your interested,and out would like to see the results,,

Many Thanks

James

TM 25 great testing idea...you nailed it.The sharper broadhead does start to cut a fraction of a second sooner and for longer cuts.I did that old drop the arrow & broadhead onto a bucket with elk hide stretched over the opening.The super sharp cut on contact broadheads would go right into the bucket when mounted on a heavy arrow.I did try to shoot a few thru some hide.But the spine of the arrow was to stiff.So I climbed on the ladder and just dropped them on the bucket(worked great).Hey Doc,I did a little testing on some old collecter type broadheads I had...H.Hills for one(see other pic) a StCharles Mickey Finn and a few others.I noted the Glenn StCharles MF has a spot weld almost right on the tip(all MF's do).I shot the plywood test...not great target matiral but it's a good broadhead testing backstop.Everything went well,until the slight-est angle shot again.Broke the tip of the Mickey Finn right at the spot weld and stopped penatraion.The weak link ???? bowdoc

haha,, yes my indore shooting rang has some nice chunks out of the plaster as well,,  :)  :)  nothing some white bluetak cant hide  ;)

ow one last thing i forgot to mention,, in the first shot with the head,, when i has just finished sharpening,, had by far the best penertration out of all the arrows,, and now i dont now if that was just a fluke,, or if it had some thing to do with being the sharpest in the fist shot and getting duler in the second and third shot,, as i did not touch up after each shot,, personally i think yes it problly was the sharpest out of all the shots,, but i allso think it was a little bit of a fluke as well,, but may be i should look in to how well the matal holds a sharp edge,,

woo,, looks like i got my work cut out,, but actually now im really interested to see how this older design of Bh holds up agains the new modles,,, obviously Howard thought they were good enoght for him,, and he dident seem to have any problems,, but im curious to now if he would stick by this design ,, if he got to try out the ne mobles on todays market,, ????  

Thanks BowDoc,, i got a lot of work to do till i can get these heads to go straight through elk hide,,,
ps,, would it be possible to get some pictures of these Heads,,  :)
and i hope you dont get in to the habbit of smashing old collecter broadheads,,  ;)  ;)  ;)

Thanks

James

Hill killed a lot of game with those babies, they'll do the trick.

Oh no please guy's..I don't want to beat on Howard Hill broadheads or Howard for that matter..Just a little something to share.Early HH's had a brass pin rather then a steel pin holding the blade to ferrule also.TM25 here is a pic of the Mickey Finn after I reshaped the tip,it still did the job.bowdoc (http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii175/bowdocsarchery/mf001.jpg)

James,

An interesting test I did with the Hill heads a couple of years ago against Zwicky Eskimos, Eclipse, and Ribtek......

I sharpened all heads one time at the beginning and then not again.  The first shot was through a steel belted all terrain truck tire through both sidewalls and the Hill head penetrated the farthest through the far side, with the Eclipse coming in second.  Then I shot all the heads 10 times into a 55 gallon steel drum, with the penetration of all heads being comparable and no heads being damaged even though the surface of the drum is curved and not straight and flat.  I finished with several shots with all heads directly face-on into the tread of the tire through the steel belts and the Hill heads were even with the Ribtek and then I finished off where I started with the shots being into the sidewalls of the tires, the Hill head penetrating the most, 1/2 way through the far wall of the tire.  Remember that all the tests were used on dull heads after the first shot.

I use the Hill head with confidence over here in the States for our game..............

I use mainly single bevel Hills either serrated or shaving sharp, I have not seen a lot of difference in effectiveness either way.  I like hunting arrows that fly flat and straight in the wind, I think if an arrow kicks around a the breeze you will lose penetration. I have never broken one, other than when they getting buried in a tree. I have gotten deeper penetration on trees than some guys get with expandables on deer.

Laddy...  :saywhat:    :archer:

Do you guys notice more noise with a Hill head than other solid 2 blade heads??

I know snuffers whistle 'cause of the vents; how about the Hill's?

BD

They may hiss a bit more than grizzlies, more if they are mounted crooked, but the grizzly will out penetrate a Hill on burr oak most of the time.

Trad man:  Am I missing something here, or did you just show that a sharpened broadhead penetrates better than a dull one?  Any effect changing the bevel may have had was confounded with the sharpness of the blade.  If you wanted to compare the effect of bevel, you would have needed to shoot sharp broadheads of the original and modified bevels.  Maybe I missed it, did you say you sharpened the original bevels as well?  They're not very sharp out of the box.

  :bigsmyl:

So what were the results of the matress test?

TM25...I had to do a little digging in cigar boxes last night.But I finally found the older style hill broadhead....Please note the brass pin holding the blade to ferrule...Rather then the later model with an aluminum pin...Never figured out why they changed it...Maybe Dr Ashby has some idea on that...Also Howard had at least one dozen broadheads cumtom made,I did get to look at and handle one several years ago...Built the same as all Howard Hill broadheads,but nearly 6 inches long and weighed around 2000 grains..I do not have a pic of that one but I do know a couple broadhead collecters that have then,they may be able to provide use with a couple pics...They are huge and by far the biggest broadhead I have ever seen.Although Howard did take them to Africa with him..He did not ever arrow any critters with them..They are really cool looking broadhead though....bowdoc (http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii175/bowdocsarchery/bphh001.jpg)

OOps, didn't mean to sound like an idiot, I missed page two.  Nice job on the report and photos,.

Cool thread!!!

Whats the specs on these Hill heads? Width and length and wt?Cool thread. RC

RC:  I see you're considering a few Hill heads to go with the new Cheetah you just ordered.  Howard Hill Archery sells two sizes -- 11/32 are billed as weighing 160 grains, but I have several older heads that are 175 grains before sharpening.  They're about 3 7/16 long and 1 1/8 inch wide.  HH also sells a 5/16 head.  Those are listed as 145 grains, and all the heads I have in that size are that weight.  Those are 3 inches long and one-inch wide.  They shoot real well.  I've never noticed noise from them.  A bit hard for me to get really sharp though.

Some of the 145s have very high rockwell hardness, for my daughters I used a dremmel tool to get them thinned down. I always wanted to get the 5/16'' pieces and parts to make single bevels, but hey have never been in reorder so I could get them.  Once you get them thinned down they can be sharpened with a Smiths sharpener very nicely.
I wonder if it is legal to cut the back of the blade off it serves no person other than making the broad head legal in nonbarbed states.  Hills don't pull out of a deer the way are anyway.

Larry:  I also have difficulty getting the larger heads as sharp as I want them.  Appreciate a tutorial, if you're so inclined.  Can do it off-line, so to speak.  Just send me an email.  Wisconsin is a non-barb state so couldn't cut off the backs here.

I sharpen them with a round chainsaw file, going from back to front, as if using a flat file.  The smaller diameter of the round file helps keep surface contact with the blade through the concave area.  they get scary sharp this way, a very thin jagged edge.

Thanks, Nathan.  I'll give that a try.  Now if I can only find my chain saw file(s).  I know I have more than one.  Can never seem to find one when I want one, though.  :D

I've often wondered if the file sharpening process, which takes off a portion of the ferrule, weakens the ferrule enough to cause breaking.

I use the Ready Edge.  It straddles the edge of the broadhead from the topside without interferance from the ferrule.  It also changes the angle of the edge from both sides simultaneously.