Yeah, I would give it up if I were you.  You are not likely to come up with an adequate study that would uniformly be accepted.

Done,taken my filed heads and going home...LOL

Well I could suggest that you go to Africa or Australia and shoot a lot of game with both heads.  Document your findings scientifically and then write the results so that even I can understand.

Or you could just read Dr. Ashby's studies and results.  And choose to believe it or not.

Mike

Just sharpen your broadheads as best you can with file or hone and shoot straight; double lung, tight behind the foreleg.  Bill mc

I read somewhere that ragged cuts clot faster due to the increase in surface area while clean smooth cuts bleed easier since the tissue has less ability to knit itself together.

I cannot prove or disprove this but I know that when shaving I bleed a real long time.  The idea behind the jagged edge is that it grabs tough tissue better.  

I like BH as sharp as I can get and have no problems with that.

Mike "Wingnut" You were reading my mind.

Most people don't know what a truly sharp broadhead is...They file sharpen and it works...No argument  Traditional archers tend to want to do thing "traditionally"  just like dad or grandpa.  Dad and grandpa killed a bunch of animals.  The science of sharpening has been around for decades but unfortunately as archers we are just beginning to understand it....or accept it.  Eye surgeons have used glass for years because of its superior cutting edge.  Like I said I have never heard anyone complain that they had a knife or broadhead that was too sharp...

Wingnut I respect what Dr Ashby does and If thats you cup of tea drink it I live in south Jersey and I dont plan on going to Australia or Africa .So I will use what I think is the most effective on the animals I hunt Deer, Squirrels, and rabbits.But dont get me wrong if a cape buffalo season opens in Jersey I will be reading his articles.and as always stated by many if you aim in the right spot and have good form and practice often the animal will go down effectively,file sharp or razor sharp.As I have become aware that there are way to many factors to satisfy the needs of all.The End

Love you guys in a straight way!  

Tim  
maybe try a very large chunk of raw meat, like a roast, then measure the amount of force it takes to push a broadhead arrow thru.  Everything else about the test has to be identical, arrow spine, diameter broadhed size etc.  
ChuckC

Don't give up yet, ipcjon2. Ideas like yours are what feed experimentation.   What I would like to see is which edge is the most durable.  Maybe you (or someone else) could come up with a repeatable method of testing for sharpness  (using rubber bands maybe?)and shoot the same brand of broadhead into different materials; one with a filed edge and the other with a honed edge, and see which edge proves to be the most durable.  I think we would all agree that the edge that is the most durable would probably be the most desireable.

to really do it properly with factual results the medium you're using would have to be almost perfectly consistent - and the ammount of pressure applied to each broadhead identical

right ?

I would think a gel type substance would work, and some kind of tool that accurately and precisely measures inch/foot pounds

I think with a file one can make a very coarse edge that is not necessarily sharp.  A very sharp filed edge if done with the Hill method if very sharp before the serration is done will be that much of a keener edge than one that is not so sharp. I put a very light serration on shaving sharp single bevel heads and we are getting great results with them.  however, not all files give the type of serration that I look for.  The corner of the file has to be very sharp for it to work.  If you look at each serration as if it were a tiny individual cutting surface, it would show to be extremely sharp. Plus, if a hard tendon or bone is contacted it makes sense to me that the blade would retain more of a cutting edge and possibly stay sharp in a back quiver longer. Animals are not a consistent medium nor are all broadheads equal. For a time and my son still prefers to use a raised burr done with a very fine diamond steel. The broadhead is shaving sharp under that burr, but the burr is a finer edge than that.  I am always surprised by how much of that burr stays in tack after passing through a deer.  I am not trying to disprove the findings of the Dr. in anyway, it is just that have found that certain modifications seem to work for us very well and it is perhaps a bit of a novelty and fun to find that our forefathers had somethings right as well.  I keep thinking here about the primitive fellow that buried an obsidian tipped cedar to the feathers on a canadian moose with a slower than average osage flat limb, the obsidian point certainly was not razor smooth unless one looks real close at the tiny chipped dimples along the edge, which were probably sharper than razor sharp.  The last deer I shot was with a shaving sharp broadhead that neglected to put the serration on,  I only ever have two serrated broadheads with me on any given day and I lost both of them shooting at a coyote earlier that day. I cannot say one way or the other that I had an advantage for the rather short blood trail to the deer.