26/27 Season Arrow Build

Coming into my 16th year archery hunting whitetail deer, I have found myself in seemingly every situation possible when it comes to putting an arrow in a deer. Heart shots, hitting the spine, gut shots, and I even managed to hit one in the hip one time. That was the result of inexperience paired with a handful of archery don'ts that I didn't even realize I was doing. It was on a large buck when I first started hunting, fortunately the arrow and broad head fell out and he ended up being fine. With that I have shot a countless number of different arrow set ups and combinations. I have now made it to the point where, so long as I place the shot correctly, I most often find success.

5 years ago I made one of the best shots I've made on a buck, got a complete pass through, and probably for the first time felt like I knew what I was doing. I executed a shot with intention and succeeded. That’s not to say that my past shots weren't intentional, but this one was different. I didn’t have that thought of “I hope that was good”, I knew it was. It was the second or third year since I started my journey of really focusing on arrow building and I felt it was the first real opportunity for me to test it out. I had shot some does before that, but they were all under difficult situations. Managing multiple deer around me at the same time, taking shots because I had to take it at that particular time even though it wasn't “ideal” (as in calm, head down, dead broadside). They still were successful, but I couldn't call it an objective test of my setup. 

From that point on I wanted to ensure that I continued to see those results. Complete pass throughs without exception. At that time I was shooting standard 9.1gpi black eagle spartan arrows at 28” with Wasp Drone 125 grain broadheads, a wrap, and three AAE Max vanes. That brought my arrow weight out to around 445 grains. I liked this set up, but I still had critiques of it. Mainly, blood trails were awful. Even with double lung complete pass throughs it seemed as though I could never find any blood for the first 20+ yards. It just wasn't making a big hole. Finally I had the opportunity to validate this observation when I shot a doe in snow. Even in snow, it was difficult to find first blood and I mainly relied on the tracks the doe left. I will say though, the shot did go through the far side shoulder blade and my arrow was sticking in the base of a small tree. So my penetration goal was still solid. 

The next iteration of my set up was to find a new broadhead and I wanted to add lighted nocks. Mainly, just so I could hopefully see the point of impact better. I was satisfied with the penetration of my fixed broadhead, so I didn't want to switch from that. But, I did want more cutting inches. I switched to a two blade fixed broadhead. I will not say the name because I do not want to place the blame specifically on that company. But, what I will say is I went through a string of deer that I did not end up finding. At that time I had been hunting for 12-13 years or so and had only lost one deer to that point (that’s not to say i didnt miss). With this broadhead switch I ended up losing 3 deer, all does, over 2 seasons. I also had switched to lighted nocks, and added a 25 grain insert weight to counter the added weight from the lighted nock. 

Following that season I knew I was not going to stay with that broad head. With the dissatisfaction of the blood trails from my Wasp Drones, despite my 100% kill and recovery record with them, I wanted to try and find something that could get me a bit more cutting area. After much research I landed on the G5 DeadMeat broadhead. It has the bone crushing chisel tip with 3 rear deploying blades. In theory it should maintain my penetration requirement while also providing more cutting area. Sitting on effectively the same set up, with the added weight of the insert weight and lighted nock, I’m now pushing a total weight of 500 grains. Last season I put this arrow to the test and completely passed through a buck at 38 yards. One shot, one kill, the buck ran 80 yards into a cut corn field and fell over. The buck was slightly quartered towards me, so I hit the back of one lung and liver. Sooooo….results are still unknown regarding what a shoulder bone might do to it. 

Now, onto 2026. Any changes, and why? Before I bought my arrows this year, I ran numbers through half a dozen online arrow building calculators. The results, make one change, arrow shaft. I first was exploring with VAP TKO micro diameter arrows when I was building my friend's arrows for him. The online building calculators were coming back with results that moving to a micro diameter arrow with less GPI will push my FOC from the high 12’s to up closer to 17%. Additionally the decreased weight increases the arrow speed and ultimately does not compromise kinetic energy. But, you can't buy VAP directly from them. I prefer to be able to buy bare arrow shafts and all the individual components from the company. I went back to Black Eagles website to look at Spartans since they've worked for so long, and that's when I saw their X-Impact arrow. I must've just never paid attention to it in the past being I wasn't previously considering micro diameter. After coming across them, I don't think there could've been something more perfect. 

This season I am running 300 spine 27.5” (cutting back a half inch due to the added length from the outsert) 8.1gpi Black Eagle X-Impact shafts. On the front, I have Black Eagles F.O.C.U.S. outsert system, a 20 grain outsert weight, and 125 grain G5 Deadmeat broadheads. On the back I am wrapping it with a 6” matte white wrap from One Stringer Arrow wraps and 3 matte white AAE Max vanes, right helical twist. I am dropping the lighted nock due to liking the factory nocks and nock collar system that comes with the X-Impact, plus I never really felt like I needed them previously, I had just wanted to try them. With the added length from the outsert and broadhead, my overall length comes right under 30”. My total weight comes in right at 460 grains with 16.9% FOC. The all matte white switch came from something I saw online. I previously used bright yellow and orange to help see arrow flight better. But the all white accomplishes this too, while also providing the perfect canvas to evaluate fluid color and composition (blood, gut fluid, etc.) to help identify where my arrow hits. 

Preliminary tests look good. A side-by-side comparison in my block target resulted in ~3.5-4 inches of more penetration. It's hard to argue with results like that. If I see continued success with this set up, I can't imagine I would change it any more after this. Maybe going back to lighted nocks, maaayyyybbbee. But, I hadn’t hunted with them in the past. Plus they clearly did not help at all when I lost those 3 does over the course of 2 seasons. I really like where I am sitting with this set up and am excited to see how it performs.