00:00:00 Speaker 1: All right, what was people? The season is going to be here faster than you can imagine. I know you've all been out there dialing in your archery equipment. Actually, there's a real world out there, and if you're anything like me and my friends, you've been taking your time getting your bowl ready. We'd never advocate for you being irresponsible, but we understand it's pretty easy to end up really busy this time of year. I've been busy building browning points. Does it work over well? We decided to call up some of the experts to get some of their ideas on some of the things that might help you be more successful this season. That's a good thing because my ten yard pen needs a little work. Doesn't work out there? Okay? On the show today we got Bill vander Hyden with Iron Wheel Broadheads. Bill, how are you do today? Man? I'm doing well. How are you guys doing? Doing good? We are hiding from the Texas heat, which is something we really like to do in August. Um. I like to try to try to like fancy myself as a tough guy. But at the end of it all, like around noon to about three around here, actually to about midnight, but light here in the evening. It's pretty hot. I understand that you've been hitting some of the hot country stuff and getting away from some of the heats that are right. I have while that was pretty hot up there, it was actually seventy five or eighty when I was hiking around up a ten thousand feet the last couple of days. Wow, that's cool, man, I went up the pretty hot there. I guess it was what the week after July, and there was still like snow and ice everywhere, So I guess things have melted off pretty good since then. They have. I think a couple of weeks ago there was still a fair amount of snow, but it's it's really got it's really gotten warmed up and uh but no, it looks good up there. There's been good water all year. That's in Colorado. Um. I think some of the grasped was chest high as I was walking around in there. So lots of food, lots of food. Should be a good uh antler growth here and everything. So that's good. What what season are you looking forward to the most this year? Man? Um. I drew a mountain goot tag snap. I'm definitely excited about that one. In Colorado. I never hunted them before. I always wanted to and it's probably uh, kind of a once in lifetime tag. Maybe so excited about that. They'll be the first two weeks October, um. But I love I love back country elk hunting for sure, and that's that's coming up um at the end of August. So I'm I'm always excited about that one. Um. I got in there and was really kind of scouting that for that hunt coming up. Yeah, awesome. We Todler and I actually going on our first back country elk hunt this year. I drew a Healer Wilderness tag, so I'll be down in the hotter parts of elk country and doing that thing. Let's September down there, but looking forward to that's it's gonna be kind of a different experience trying to hunt off my back and it's kind of baptism by fire of course, going to a premier unit to do that. I wish. I really wanted to try to do that in one of the uh Colorado wildernesses that was O t C first, But hey, I got the tag, so it's time to go, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's great. A friend of mine went there last year, so can you advice I can connect you up. Oh, I most definitely do, so we'll get on that for sure. That's awesome. Though, did he kill ble got the next one elk or there? That's what I need to know. That took him, It took him quite a few days. He covered a lot of ground to find them. But yeah, but yeah, he ended up taking a nice bowl. Great. Great, that makes that makes me feel encouraged. I kind of gotten that, uh, that vibe from folks that, uh, they might be a little bit spotty, but there's some good ones in there. But so you like to do the the back country elk hunting. How did that kind of lead you into designing broadhead like you did? Yeah? I did? You know? I actually grew up in Wisconsin hunting white tails. You know, I didn't move to Colorado. Um, and moved to Colorado about twenty years ago now, but um, yeah, I white tail hunted for I don't know, fifteen years or so, so that's really all I knew. Um, took a job in Colorado, moved out here, was really excited to you know, get to the mountains to start hunting, and then I just, um, you know, I just became obssessed with with hunting elk in the back country, and yeah, that's what actually after a few years, you know, there's a lot of difference between elk hunting and whitetail and a lot of things I learned about white tail hunting, you know, growing up, we're we're just making me do the wrong things often and elkins. So it took a few years, UM before I finally got a shot in a good bowl and it a little too far forward, hit hit the shoulder blade, the broadhead failed, got very little penetration, and it's pretty devastating after all that work I've done. And yeah, I was a mechanical engineer doing product development for UM for companies, designing components and mechanisms already, and so I really thought, you know, I'm gonna use my engineering skills to find a better broadhead out there. And I started testing a bunch and then eventually decided to design and start building my own. Okay, so is that the last time he had a broadhead fail? Uh? To be honest, I had one more failure, which was one of my early early iterations where I didn't have the ferrel you know, the feral materials strong enough. Um, and it was a downward I called a bowl, and it was so steep. He was like almost straight down shot and end of hitting the spine and and the ferreal just um just bent right over and broke broke off right in the feral. And that's that's when I decided. I didn't you know, up until that point, I was putting all the all the mass really into that main blade, a very thick, you know, strong durable main blade, and and that really let me know that, hey, the ferrel and the attachment to the arrow has got to be really strong also. So um, you know, I'm I think that bull digit fine. Um. He actually dropped from the shock, rolled down the steep bill, got up and ran off there. So what's the For those who don't know what's can you just briefly explain what a farrell is? Yeah? So, um so my broadhead design, it's a it's a fixed blade broadhead. Um, it's a two. It's a two blade with bleaders. So it's got one main blade. This um, you know, regular elatively triangular in shape. Um, it's got a little different angle at the tip, tonto tip we call that. But the main blade is as a manufactured separate from the ferrell um. So we can use kind of the processes that you'd use to to build a high end knife for instance UM with the the key tree and the grinding and everything on the blade. So that blade then is is inserted into another part. And so that's called the ferrele that has the threads screwed on into your arrow UM and it has the kind of the body UM. This cylinder has the slots in it where the main blade goes into. It also has a cross slot for a bleeder blade, which is a smaller cross blade UM that goes into that. Okay, so and and that feral failure lad you to design a ferreal. That is what it was really the materials um. I was trying to get down to a hundred green head and I was had so much mass in the blade that I was trying to get by with like a seventy seventy five aircraft aluminum for the ferrel. And you know what I was seeing on heavy bone impact just through testing, is that you can pend that seventy seventy five aluminum fairly easily UM on a heavy bone impact and even kind of the next level of is typically a three or three stainless steel that brought as we used, and that's an annealed It's it's stronger than aluminum, but it's still um fairly soft steel. It's because it's in the annealed condition versus what we use. I used to use grade five titanium in the hunter grain um in our in our solid blade versions, or use a hardened stainless steel in our heavier heads, and so hardening steel you can get the strength of that steel up you know, two, three, four times as high as it would be if it was just in that annealed or stopping state. Got you. Now, I'm pretty basic on my knowledge of metals, okay, but from what I do understand, you have a really difficult time once you start hardening things with things being brittle. Is that right? So do you have to find a like a happy medium between those two? Yeah, you're right. There's there's this trade off typically between hardness um to get tire strength and then brittleness when it becomes too hard. And it's especially true and stainless steels UM. So if you had like a four or forty C stainless steel, that's a that's a pretty common knife steel. If you if you harden it enough UM to get a good So by hardening it you make it um. This compression strength is stronger and the hardness is higher. And hardness is kind of measured by just you drive this kind of dent to the surface and measure how far you dent with a certain force. But what you get by the with as hard hardness as you can get a much sharper edge and retain that edge better. UM. So if you say, with the four forty c UM stainless steel, to get it hard enough to hold a really good edge, it becomes pretty brittle. And that's one of the steels I tried initially, that was the initial steel I tried, actually four forty s. What I saw is on on um bone impact, I could I could snap those. They're pretty brittle UM failures, And so that led me down to trying some different steels, eventually going to tool steels, and I settled on a two tool steel and UM. A two is used for metal stamping, dies and punches, so it's it can not only get a very good edge on it to cut metal UM, it's also very tough, so you can, yeah, you can punch, you can punch and form metal or cut metal without shipping or breaking that edge. So it's really a great steel for the demands of bow hunting the animals because not only can you get an excellent edge sharpness and retain that edge so you can like slice all the way through an elk and still shape hair with it. UM, but it also has this great impact strength where you can I've shot it through most femer bones and blown right through and the blade looks good. Yet UM and stainless steels would typically break when you do that with those. Yeah, wow, that's cool. That's UH need to hear kind of what they can really hold up to. So, and we've been talking a little bit about blades now, but can you just talk a little bit now towards like the blade design and maybe why you decided to include bleader blades. Yeah. Yeah, So I started out with UM just testing a bunch of broadheads out there. I just bought a bunch of them and tested them. I was I was saving um lk shoulders and with the meat on, hide on and mounting a couple of them couple of feet apart and shooting through those. I was shooting through a bunch of different materials and bones and Um, what I was finding is that a two blade head I'll penetrated a three blade head by quite a bit. A three blade either chisel a point or kind of a one piece construction three blade and and so I was always been a three blade guy, and UM, I just thought they would fly better, or I thought they'd be a little more symmetric. But anyways, when I found the penetration was so much better on the two blade cut on contact design, I started down that route. And what I found out too is um, if it's not too on, UM, if if it's relatively compact, they can fly really well too. I didn't see any improvement in the three blade over a two blade in flight. Um. The one negative I saw on a lot of two blade is that if they had that same angle all the way out, then the the tip got kind of thin and weakly out the end and you can break those tips off on bone impact. So UM, in my design, I have where I have a second angle at the tip. So the main the main body is there's four degrees or twenty two degrees per side is kind of that main triangular shape of the blade, and then right at the tip it goes to eighty degrees or side, so brings that tip way back in. It shortens up the head to it's only about one two inches long. That main blade is UM and then it really strengthens up the tip as well. So anyway, that's kind of how I ended up with the two blade UM. For a couple of years, I didn't have a bleeder. I was just going for max penetration UM and it was penetrating great. But the problem I would see is UM once in a while, i'd get a really poor blood trail, like you know, no blood or very little and but I just realized, Um, I have my brothers and friends shooting is as well, and we had taken you know, quite quite a lot of animals in the first couple of years with them, and once in a while we get a poor blood trail, and it just seemed like that single slice through UM just depending on you know, where you hit and what angle it was compared to the muscle or hide, and if that hike can kind of get tension back up. And I don't know what all the factors are, but I can tell you that occasionally with that single split, it just get very poor blood trail. UM. So that's when I added the bleeder blade we UM part type, tested in different bleader blades, sizes, locations, UM and settled on this three quarter inch wide UM bleeder blade that set back from the main blade and found it that really helps open up the hall that UM doing that cross flice. Now there's kind of the corners of that tea at the inside UM they kind of pull back and leave a hole open. You know, they can't really stay tension up. There's got to be kind of an open hole, and it just kind of assures you're gonna get some some blood coming out of there, and and often of a lot of blood because with with our really sharp edges that stay sharp and slice holloway through you get a lot of bleeding um internally and a lot of that that blood can then make it out with that open hole. Yeah. Do you also find that, uh like in a real world hunting scenario you actually get better penetration because uh, I would think the friction of the arrow passing through a medium like say an eilk or something is less whenever you have UM, like you were saying, if it was a two blade, there'll still be tension on it where yeah, it would pull on the sides of the arrow versus if you have, you know, a four sided hole like that, they're gonna have more of a hole. Does that make sense? It makes sense. What I could what I could tell you was when we tested in other material like layers of cardboard or years of wood or um things like that, what we saw is that no bleeder actually would penetrate a little bit more than adding the bleeder. Um. Now in a real animal like an elk, you know, that's hard to say, because we increased our sharpness a lot over the same years where we added the bleeder. You know, I can I can tell you that in the end, our penetration was it was pretty incredible, like way more than I was expecting, Like we could shoot an elk, you know, frontal and have it come out to hind quarter contenting. It was just it was like amazing how much penetration we were getting. And that's with with the bleeder. But by then we increased our sharpness probably ten x over where we started. So um, I think if you so, my opinion on it is, if you remove the bleeder, I think you would actually you could actually get a little more penetration. But um, and now we sell this these buff series heads that are fifty grade and we have made we make a one foot degree on two where we've actually removed the bleeders. UM. But those are more meant for like keep buffalo where you have overlapping UM overlapping ribs. These are like one inch thick ribs. I think they're either shooting through an inch or two inches of bone right, you know, right before you get to the vitals. In that case, I just think just a single split through is um is the best. But but to be honest with even with that crosscut bleeder, I've shot right through moose femurs, you know, no problem. So you know it does kind of break out that more of a football shape hole through bone. UM. So it's you know they penetrate well, UM for sure. Yeah. So you're talking to a couple of guys from Texas and we have a pretty heavy Texas listener base as well as everywhere else, and um, here in Texas we don't usually in most areas have the biggest of deer. And I know you were talking earlier about how big targets are, big big animal. Um. You know, these broadheads do great on what's the incentive for someone to buy your broadhead. Um, if we're not looking at moose femers, we're looking more at like jackalopes. Right. Well, yeah, you know I use them on on mule deer, and I go back in hunt either Wisconsin, Illinois, or Indiana or sometimes multiple states there with for white tails along with my brothers. I have four brothers at bow hunt and we do a brother's hunt every year and and we all hunt white tail with them. And I think the advantage on a white tail is just you've got some more shot options there, because you know, and it's going to depend a bit on what your setup is, but for myself and my brothers, you know, kind of any any shot, any angle that thing's going through. Um, you know, I've my last couple of mule deer have been you know, head on or slate quartering. It was slight quartering, but head on basically, and um, you know, I know I can I can do that front the shot and not worry about really hitting that shoulder shoulder blade. I put right through the shoulder blade and passed through. Um. And so I think that's the advantage on a small animal like a white tail, is that you know, if you're straight down. You gotta go through the spine, you know, not a problem. We had a guys shoot a huge white tail and just sabered the spine in two and really the guy Tony Treat shot his mule deer buck high country mule deer buck last year. This is a two some inch buck in Colorado, straight down off a cliff um and it was a big mule deer and he completely sabered the spine and that brought it went down into the vitals. Um. So I think it. You know, those are cases where mechanical is gonna fail you, you know, if you're trying to get the spine like that. So I think it. It makes more um, more shot opportunities and more margin for error if you do hit say that shoulder blade or the spine or something like that. Yet now I should say that I don't reck commend I don't recommend taking you know, pass shots are shooting through bone. I mean, you know, try to make try to take your ethical shots. I'm just saying if something goes wrong, and something goes wrong, you hit a little forward, hit that shoulder blade or that leg bone. This this gives you more margins for air that there's a good chance you're gonna get through that and make it to the vitals. Yeah, and and I mean you might as well just uh, I'm a big fan of like preparing to be bad, but I also understand like why not shoot something that's going to work in more scenarios that makes more sense and that's more of a positible of looking at things, And that's kind of what you've got here overall. What's the uh, what's the cut diameter with the bleeders and the main blade. So the main blade is an inch and the sixteenth wide and the bleed to blade is three quarters of an inch wise, so total total cause one point eight one two inches. I mean, that's pretty standard for a lot of mechanicals really when you unless you're startling at the extremes, like, you're not really losing much on cut, especially if you're uh, if you put value on the bleeder blades is opposed to just two blades going in. So yeah, that's that's cool. So one of the things that a lot of times people have a hang up on with a traditional more or fixed blade broadhead is going to be actually an aero fly right in the aerodynamics that are involved with that with the you know modern mechanicals, they really compressed down to almost the size of a field point. And that's always you know, field point accuracy. It's what you see on the boxes and stuff. But can you talk a little bit about you know, maybe that design with your broadhead and um maybe some of the importance more of bow tuning and having that in check with with having a fixed blade like yours. Sure. Yeah, So my my broadhead blades started quite a bit longer. Um, you know, there was this this kind of past theory that a three to one you know, three times long, three inches long one is wide is what is what you need to get the best mechanical advantage for penetration. So it's started with a bit of longer blade. And what I found out is that wasn't really needed, um just you know, really sharp edges and bringing that tip in back a long ways. It's still penetrated really well and and the flight improved a lot. So, um, you know, it's just the point where at one point two inches as long as the main blade. So it it's pretty compact um design compared to some other um, you know to blade heads out there. And I used to say, these are gonna shoot well for everybody, because that was kind of my experience between myself and my friends and my brothers and stuff. But you know, we all had a had a you know, a level of tuning that was it was pretty decent. And um but I would say that most everybody they shoot really well for. And there's some guys that are you know, the two of their boat well and shoot a lot of long range that they really shoot create for them, you know, out to a hundred yards plus they're hitting with with field points and you know, I've got I've got a range here where I've got out, but I shoot the hundred a lot and to me, they're hitting right with with field points. Um. But what I'd say is that there's a certain level of tuning needed for that. You know, if you're shooting under forty yards, it probably didn't matter, um, but if you're if you're trying to make those forty plus yard shots, that's when the term matters more. Um. You know. I just I was just on a trip and came back yesterday and um my boat was bounced around in the back and I don't know exactly what happened, but oh man, it was way out of tune and and I spent about an hour and I got it back to where it's it's just shooting, you know, bullet holes through paper and shooting with fair chefs. So I think what you need to do is is have enough knowledge about tuning your bow so that the arrows coming you know, straight off of that rest. Um. So I think that's key to And it doesn't have to be perfect, um it's, but it's got to be. It's gotta be closed. So you don't want that arrow go inside to side or fish twel when it comes off. Because with the with the fixed blade broadhead, you've got more drag on the on the tip than you do normally. So um, because of that, a couple of things become more critical. One is that you need a little bit more vain um you know, really small target veins that are straight fleshed. I wouldn't recommend that for any any broadhead really, especially not for fixed blades. So um, you know, high profile veins were great, like um, say, blazer veins that a to a two degree or more offset or hlicle typically what I'd recommend, um, you know, something like that size of it, and you can do the lower profile longer ones to like a heat vein or a max stealth. But you know, put put some fletch on there, and put and get some twist on there. You know, having more twist will just just um, it gives you that stability to where you get rotational momentum going. Any little wind or anything like that is less likely to drive it off off course. So um, yeah, have enough fletch, you have enough spin. Um have the arrow coming straight off the bow, you know, relative relatively well. Um, you know another other things you can do to you know, do yourself favors rather than shooting you know three ten ft per second with you know, three or ninety grain arrow, you know, adds some weight to it. Shoot something that four fifty plus grain range and and you could just beat down under state two ninety And I think what that does. It just greatly reduces the drag. The drag is proportional to the velocity squared. So we've got a lot of drag on that front of that um broadhead compared to a field point. And the higher speed, the more of the drag, and and the harder it is to just shoot. Well. But what I say is that I see a ton of guys shooting as well that um, you know, don't know a lot about bonetooting, So I think in general that they were pretty well for people. But if you want to really push the limit on those distances and shoot long range, that's why I think it pays to do a little homework figure out how how to get your boat tuned in. Do not be underspining is another thing. Um, you can you can be underspined and shoot field points okay, and and probably mechanicals, um, okay, some of them anyways. Um, but if you're under underspined, you're getting a lot more flex back and forth as it comes off the bow and it takes it's gonna take longer for that to all kind of oscillate out and start going straight. And if you've got if you've got blaze at the front, increasing drag, um, it's just gonna open up your groups when you're doing that. So that's the problem I see with guys wanting wanting they're hearing FOC will improve penetration, and they're wanting more, they're wanting higher FOC, but they're doing it with their old arrows and becoming and become an underspined um don't make that trade off. I mean, my my advice is that make sure you're optimally spine or even a little stiff respined. Having that arrow fly straight off your bow um is more important than than a little higher flec. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's revisit something just for a second. Make sure that that I understand this and that our audience does too, because your a mechanical engineer, so you're real smart, and some of us are trying to catch up. So, um, you said that drag is velocity something squared, right, What was the formula you said? Yeah, so, so drag is proportional to velocity squared. So if you have, say, if your speed is higher, that would be double the drag. So yeah, if your if your speed was double, you'd have four times the drag for instance. So um, so dropping the speed a little bit makes a big difference on drag is the layman's way of putting that. Yeah, and that helps you in in flight in like holding better groups. It also helps you and retain momentum. So if you have a very high velocity arrow coming right off the bow, well it's it's slowing down at a faster rate than the slower arrow would be. So when you're out there at fifty yards, um, you've just you've lost quite a bit of that momentum when you're out there because that drag reduces your velocity. And so now you're momentum is really what determines how far it's going to penetrate. Momentum is mass times velocity, So your your velocity is getting shed by that drag. Um, So even though you're real fast off the bow it fifty yards, you're probably better off to have that little heavier arrow going a little slower it's gonna shed it's gonna shed less velocity and still have that higher mass. So overall, your momentum will be higher, your penetration will be higher. Got you. Okay, So for people who may be familiar with like ralphle cartridges, we're talking something kind of lack ballistic coefficients right where it's it's how efficiently the projectile moves through the air or whatever. So yeah, cool, yep, exactly. So, Um, you have quite a few different offerings. I guess that's just been you know, as you kind of expand and try to uh suit more people's needs. But you have like a solid version and then a vented version, and then you've got the one with the standards and then the buff series. Um, why the difference in like, like, why should I shoot a one verses one five? Can I not just make that difference up with my insert or vice versa? Yeah, you know what I think? In general, people are better off with a little more weight up front as long as the arrow is spine properly. Um. But there's there's different ways to get that weight now also, um JO. So we we sell hid inserts that are five fifty seventy five hundred grain. We also sell these impact collars, which are a sleeve that goes over the arrow to strengthen up the tip, and those are five grains. So um, you know you can some guys will shoot undergrain head, but then a little heavier insert to get that total weight up front that they want. So it's it's really kind of personal preference on what you want. Um. In general, we can get a little bit stronger with grain than a hunter grain just because there's a little bit more material there. Um. But you know, really are um it depends on which which broad head you're talking about. Our one are vented one and are vented have the exact exact same blades. We just go from a titanium ferrel to a hardened stainless steel, so those are virtually identical and strength and flight, and it's just two different weight options you have there in the in the solid blade we have but grain that has the same blade length and width as the as are vented one um. So you can actually swap off those vented vented blades from the hundred and become a solid blade head. And the new this year we have a solid hunter grain head where the length of the blade front the back is a little shorter. It's ustad at one point two inches, it's one five zero inches, so it's just a little shorter in length UM. And that that's a great flying head um as well. So that's that's an option that startles a little bit shorter on that one as well to get to weight down. So with all this said, and I guess where they're where, they're gonna be guys of all types out there there, the hunters and and some of us will take a little more serious than others. Some of us like to be more analytical or detailed than others. Why um, why spend the money for somebody who's who likes to hunt a lot. But why would why would you say a print they need a premium broadhead where they're spending maybe thirty bucks more on a set of broadheads. Then then you could get on that bass pro shops. Yeah, you know, you certainly don't need our broadheads to to kill UM deer, and not even to kill UK. I mean they've been killed with everybody head out there. UM. What I've tried to do, and I really just designed this for myself originally was, UM, I wanted to kind of make the ultimate broadhead for max penetration through and now you know, to get through that shoulder blade and get a complete pass through. And we've had probably at least thirty guys do do that at this point where they got pass through and now concluding one of both shoulder blades, you know, so that's really what I was going forward. Get through that shoulder blade, stay, start, don't bend anything, don't damage the blade, and continue to slice through the vitals. Get that quick kill UM. And and really to do that, I had to use what I chose to use the best materials I could through two years of iterating on design and testing. UM you know, using a tool steal with pretty involved heat treating process where I do this hardening process where we do a clent or cryogenic treatment a trip will temper to keep that high hardness and then get better impact strength UM. So pretty and then on the ferrel UM, you know, using grade five titanium very expensive. It's probably five times more expensive than using a aluminum or or a two or three stainless steel for a ferrel, but it's really got the best strength of weight ratio UM there. So you know that what you're getting here is you're getting premium materials, premium manufacturing processes that you're much less likely to have a problem or have a failure. UM. If they should increase penetration, it should slice all the way through UM. Typical typical broad heads UM out there that you're buying where you paint free for thirty bucks or forty bucks UM in retail, you know there's a couple of markups in there. So typically they're only spending two or three dollars total for materials manufacturing processes to make that broadhead. So it's pretty pretty low end materials UM, pretty low unblaze deal, pretty pretty low fern material strength. You know, this isn't everybody, but it's it's a majority that brought his out there. Um So a lot of times by the time you go through high and say a rib um, you know, on an elk, I shot a big bull a couple of years ago, where those ribs with three quarters of an inch thick. Um. So, in my experience, that's gonna take out a lot of blades. It's gonna either bendham or at least take the edge off to where it's not really cutting. Um. And so what you're gonna get in ours over that is you're gonna get a blade that can make it through bone and retain that edge you can slice all the way through. Um do you need it? No, you don't, but um in some cases, yeah, it'll make a difference. And you know, I think you know, some guys choose to using for white tail and deer and and you know everything if that's their thing and they want to get a big buck, you know, and and I'm not sure about in Texas, but you know where I hunt and Illinois, Wisconsin, those bigger bucks have a lot bigger bones too, And so you've got more and more guys are using them for white tail, but I certainly think on a you know, elk sized animal, having that um increased penetration that you get is um there's a big deal, you know what. I know guys still a lot of guys are using mechanical strout and doing okay, but a lot of guys are having failures too. And you know, it takes a lot more force to open up that mechanical and push it through the high and get through that rib you know, I've I've I've done some forced measurements to where it's it's over ten times as much force just to get through the hide um compared to our broad head. So you're you know, you're using up a lot of your energy um and you know you center on a rib bone or catch the edge of his shoulder blade and you could have a failure there or you could get very little penetration and and an elk. And if you get one long on an elk, if you only penetrate far enough to get one long, it's gonna be a long way as you're probably gonna find that elk. So yeah, it's uh, well, I don't have a white of previ, but I believe last season I had a malfunction on a on an expandable on a Now, okay, I also killed one, but uh I hit one kind of high on the shoulder and didn't get near the penetration what I thought I should. And that's kind of what has led me kind of down the path of wanting to go to a fixed blade and heavier arrow and this and that, and it's a constant progression, which is kind of fun for me. I really like that part of archery. I'm not a I'm not a boat take kind of guy. I can I don't know how to tune that well. Personally. I can move my restaurant stuff, but I kind of have to go to the shop. But I do feel like at least researching and figuring out airs and stuff, and then broad Hay combinations is something kind of cool and fun that we can we can all kind of mess around with um. And we asked the question about a premium head and and you know, with that comes price. What is the price of of a three pack of one of your broadheads? Yeah, they're three for okay, And so with that, how many times can you reuse the broadhead? Usually? Yeah, So there's a lifetime warranty on it. So if you don't lose it, you know, in theory, you're canna have it forever. But UM, I've I've shot one through two elk m without touching it up, and it's you know, I had a fifty four yard shot in an elk It zipped through and stuck in the in the dirt ten yards past it. UM picked it up. It looked good. It's spun true because shave hair with it, you know, put right back in the quiver. Um. It's it's very it's very common. It's very common to shoot um, you know, two or more animals without really having to do anything to it. UM. And then I just like to, you know, make sure it's spending true. Is it make stirs still shaving hair? Um? If it's not, then we there's just just touch up the edges were shaving again. But you know, I have a friend that shot UM sixth year with the same head so far, and I think he went three year before he did anything to touch it up. And then you know, you spent a minute touching it up. So even though they're more expensive, UM, you know, if you can use them over and over, it's uh, in the long run, it might be cheaper. Yeah, for sure. Just make sure you're shooting a heavy enough fair that doesn't just run off in an elk shoulder bone and you never see it again because then but no, that's that's super cool. You know, we all like to you know, the instant gratification is always the hard hump to get over, right, whenever you look at the premium brolly is being double the cost. But I mean, if you're gonna stand behind the warranty like that, then it makes sense. And that's cool man. And it's cool to get to to talk to and see um businesses like yours, where a guy it's a passion project, right, and people produce a product they really care a lot about and want to you know, keep people satisfied and also just provide people with adequate tools to to do what we all love to do. So that's cool man. If if any of our listeners want to go check out some iron wheel UM gear, where should we send them? Yeah, our website is iron Well Outfitters dot com. Um it's going to follows on Instagram. It's at iron Well Outfitters alright. Cool, Well, we will be sure to link all that in the show notes below Uh so they can find that stuff. Uh, Bill, thanks so much. Man. It's cool to get to talk to a person like you who who really knows the ins and outs and about manufacturing these things and and doing something uh right and doing a job the way it's supposed to be done. So thanks so much for your knowledge and your time. Man, we really appreciate it. Yeah, you bet. You know, I spent twenty five years design and products for other companies, and it's you know, there's a lot of the work I'm doing now is similar with design, analysis, testing everything like that. I just I'm just so passionate about bowl hunting. Um that it's it's I just love it, and I'm so glad that I'm now, you know, my full time job not last couple of years, just developing broadcasts that that I get to use and um and you know, I get I shoot every day and and test them do a lot of hunting. So yeah, I love it. And I've been back country elk counting for about twenty years now. So if you want to call and talk that to just you're welcome to anytime. Hey, we just might need to do that. Uh. We also just might need to pick your brain off air just to get the super secrets, you know what I mean. Awesome, Bill. Well, we'll definitely have to have you on again sometime, man, and talk a little bit more about the elk stuff, because I've spent some time up there in Colorado elkhunting quite a bit, and I love it. Man. I uh we watch till hunt because they're kind of more accessible for us, but I live and breathe elk hunting. It's just it's a it's a beautiful thing, man. It's just something about the elk mountains that are just just getting your soul and just move you. It does. You know. I went up scouting a couple of days ago. I just get up in that high country and I'm just like a kid. I'm just so excited to be up there and and uh where the elk and the bears and you know everything else live. It's it's just it's a good time being back there. Yeah for sure. Man. Well cool, well, Bill, good luck this season. Man. You've I guess you got the goat tag and then then the back country oak thing. You're gonna be a busy dude this fall, so I can't wait to see how those go for you. Yeah, I do an anilok tag here too, so next week and open next week. So I go right from Antelope to that country Elk and I got a bearcake too, and there's a ton of bears up for Elk hunt um and then I go out in the mountain goat um and then behind muled deer in November along with with two white tail stage. It's got to be a slam of some kind of most takes building the season by a guy that can't wait. Dude, can't wait to see how that was good for you, So good luck on that, man, Hey, thanks you too, good luck. Thanks Bill. We'll appreciate it, man, We'll see you understanding this stuff is really something I feel I can take my archery game to the next level. Absolutely, man. Guys, make sure you go subscribe to the podcast, leave us a review, and remember this is your element living in

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