saw a grouse. This one did not freeze. It flew away, but for some reason it stopped on a limb about thirty feet from me. This seemed a bit far, but the tree was situated so that if I tried to move closer I would be in thick brush and unable to shoot straight up. I drew and held and started to release and realized that I was thinking of the grouse as a whole, not focusing. I eased off, cleared my mind of thoughts and aimed again, thinking of the very center of the grouse, and released and knew,
knew
that I would hit the bird.
The blunt took it almost in the center, driving it back and off the limb, to flop briefly and then to lie still. I moved through the brush to where the bird lay and saw the shaft, the blunt driven completely through as if it had been a sharp point and killing the grouse as fast as a rifle.
And here I found another advantage to using a bow. A rifle destroys fleshâagain, because of hydraulic shock as the bullet passes through the tissue. Worse, if it first passes through the gut, it carries the contents of the gut into the meat and ruins still more.
An arrow, even a blunt, makes a simple hole and doesnât ruin any meat.
That night I cleaned and cooked the grouse over a fire and ate it, arrow hole and all. I hunted the rest of that weekend and took two rabbits and another grouse and they were all clean kills. I ate the meat the rest of that week, cooking it after school, and made more arrows.
Only this time I made broadheads. It was time to hunt bigger game.
There is as big a difference between hunting small game and hunting large game with a bow as there is between hunting small game with a bow and hunting it with a rifle.
First, of course, you cannot use blunts. With deerâor elk and moose, for that matterâthe deadliness comes from the cutting power of the broadhead. This was known by primitive hunters as well as modern ones, and they used razor-sharp bits of stone or antler or flint to make a cutting edge that would do more damage as the arrow went through. The truth is, it is possible to kill with a simple pointed piece of woodâand probably all animals in the world, including elephants (or mastodons), have been killed in this mannerâas long as it is very sharp and the point is placed exactly right, in the heart, for instance, or for a slower kill, in the lungs. But it is so much easier if there is a widened cutting edge involved.
And so, broadheads.
When I was young we were limited to simple two-bladed heads and the three-bladed. There were no razor-blade-type inserts as there were later, which would vastly improve the efficiency of the heads. The broadheads of the time came very dull and had to be sharpened, first with a file and then with a stone, honed until they could take hair off your arm.
I chose the three-bladed types for two reasons. First, they had an added cutting edge, which I thought was important, but perhaps more significant, they were army surplus (the military term was MA-3) and much cheaper. I understood they were used for âquietâ operations, although even when I was in the army and had knowledge of such things I could find no indication they had ever been used. Whatever the reason, they were available for just ten cents each and they were stout and well made (wouldnât break every time you missed and hit a tree limb), and while hard to sharpen they would hold a good edge once they were honed. (An aside: Last year for Christmas I was given a bronze arrowhead from about 300 B.C., and while it is smaller than the MA-3 head, it is so similar that I wondered if they didnât use the antique heads for a model.)
I bought a dozen MA-3s and made twelve big-game arrows using Port Orford cedar shafts I got for four cents each by mail order. I spent a huge amount of time on each arrow, making certain the feathers were perfectly straight and the head was truly aligned so that it wouldnât âplaneâ off to the side or fight the
knew
that I would hit the bird.
The blunt took it almost in the center, driving it back and off the limb, to flop briefly and then to lie still. I moved through the brush to where the bird lay and saw the shaft, the blunt driven completely through as if it had been a sharp point and killing the grouse as fast as a rifle.
And here I found another advantage to using a bow. A rifle destroys fleshâagain, because of hydraulic shock as the bullet passes through the tissue. Worse, if it first passes through the gut, it carries the contents of the gut into the meat and ruins still more.
An arrow, even a blunt, makes a simple hole and doesnât ruin any meat.
That night I cleaned and cooked the grouse over a fire and ate it, arrow hole and all. I hunted the rest of that weekend and took two rabbits and another grouse and they were all clean kills. I ate the meat the rest of that week, cooking it after school, and made more arrows.
Only this time I made broadheads. It was time to hunt bigger game.
There is as big a difference between hunting small game and hunting large game with a bow as there is between hunting small game with a bow and hunting it with a rifle.
First, of course, you cannot use blunts. With deerâor elk and moose, for that matterâthe deadliness comes from the cutting power of the broadhead. This was known by primitive hunters as well as modern ones, and they used razor-sharp bits of stone or antler or flint to make a cutting edge that would do more damage as the arrow went through. The truth is, it is possible to kill with a simple pointed piece of woodâand probably all animals in the world, including elephants (or mastodons), have been killed in this mannerâas long as it is very sharp and the point is placed exactly right, in the heart, for instance, or for a slower kill, in the lungs. But it is so much easier if there is a widened cutting edge involved.
And so, broadheads.
When I was young we were limited to simple two-bladed heads and the three-bladed. There were no razor-blade-type inserts as there were later, which would vastly improve the efficiency of the heads. The broadheads of the time came very dull and had to be sharpened, first with a file and then with a stone, honed until they could take hair off your arm.
I chose the three-bladed types for two reasons. First, they had an added cutting edge, which I thought was important, but perhaps more significant, they were army surplus (the military term was MA-3) and much cheaper. I understood they were used for âquietâ operations, although even when I was in the army and had knowledge of such things I could find no indication they had ever been used. Whatever the reason, they were available for just ten cents each and they were stout and well made (wouldnât break every time you missed and hit a tree limb), and while hard to sharpen they would hold a good edge once they were honed. (An aside: Last year for Christmas I was given a bronze arrowhead from about 300 B.C., and while it is smaller than the MA-3 head, it is so similar that I wondered if they didnât use the antique heads for a model.)
I bought a dozen MA-3s and made twelve big-game arrows using Port Orford cedar shafts I got for four cents each by mail order. I spent a huge amount of time on each arrow, making certain the feathers were perfectly straight and the head was truly aligned so that it wouldnât âplaneâ off to the side or fight the
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