Penetrating the Armor with Arrows

[NightStalker]

I don't usually bowhunt hog from a tree stand, but due to a rare set of circumstances I ended up doing that about two weeks ago. The place had a feeder and just before dusk a BIG boar came out to munch the corn. I waited until he gave me a quartering away shot from the left side. I was up about 25 feet in the air, and I later paced the range to be about 50 feet. So not a 45 degree down shot, but still noticably steep.

I was shooting a 60 lb compound with conventional 3/4 broadheads. My shot seemed good, and I hit that sucker. But he ran about 10 yards with the arrow sticking out high on his left side, then the arrow fell out and he ran off. Checking the arrow later for blood and hair, it appears that the broadhead only penetrated about an inch. There was zero blood on the shaft.

I have skinned enough hogs to know about the tough armor that forms over the shoulders on the older boars. But I never imagined it would turn an arrow! Has anyone else had the experience of the shoulder armor stopping their arrow?

[Thorson]

Without seeing the shot, I would say that you probably hit the shoulder. I had a very similar experience on a 200+ pound hog. With hogs you have to hit them lower than mid-body and/or a little farther back on a quartering away shot.

[Africanbowhunter]

Sir what is a 3/4 broadhed? make & model


also what was the weight and details of your arrow shaft?

Thanks

Tink

[cfortner]

Year before last I was hunting from a tripod a boar came into the feeder and I shot while he was quartered toward me. My shot went into his shoulder, I did get more penetration than you described above but the boar ran for about 10 yards, reached back and broke the arrow off with his mouth and then trotted off. Someone shot that same boar about 5 months later and came and told me about the BH they found when cleaning him... Needless to say I'll not be taking any more shots when they are quartering towards me.

[huntresss]

NightStalker- we hunt hogs for a living and have the luxury of a good bloodtracking/bay dog to recover wounded animals that aren't quite dead, so we get to analyze exactly what went wrong. Although the shield on a mature boar can be over 3" thick, it's basically just thick cartilage that a good cut-to-tip broadhead will slice right through. I've seen bullets stopped by it, much like a kevlar vest, and it does impact penetration somewhat, but with a 60 pound bow you should have plenty to get a pass through (or at least a poke-through). What most folks don't realize however is that the spine dips down well below the midway point in the anterior portion of the chest, as shown in this cut down I did:

The spine is along the top of the lungs which I highlighted in red. Along the top of the spine are the vertebral processes, bones which project straight up and form the hump over the hog's shoulders. Many of the hogs we see hit too high end up with the arrow stuck in these bones; And many of the hunters who shoot them swear it was a perfect shot...and on a deer it would have been. Hogs are built more like African plains game then North American cervidae, so we have to keep our shots lower, further forward and most importantly, perfectly broadside to achieve a higher percentage of kill shots.

In addition to having the thick cartilaginous shield over their ribs, a hog's lungs operate more like a human's than a deer's. While a deer shot anywhere in the thorax is likely to die (there are always exceptions), you must hit both lungs to kill a hog quickly. Just like a human who drives themself to the hospital after collapsing a lung in a wreck, a hog can live on one lung for quite some time. We've killed many animals with one healthy lung and the other a black, necrotic mass with a broadhead encapsulated within it. Many folks simply don't realize what went wrong when they only hit one lung and lose a hog and for that reason we suggest to our hunters that they only take broadside shots to increase their chance of recovering the animal. I mean, many folks won't take steep downward shots at an animal because the severe angle lessens the size of their target. Well, the same thing happens when the animal is quartering...it's basic geometry. And it's nearly impossible to slip an arrow in far enough forward on a quartering shot where you won't bury your broadhead in the offside shoulder. That's fine in open country where you can find an animal without a bloodtrail, but in the heavy brush we're hunting it, it often results in a lost animal that we have to use the dog to find since the hog has no exit wound and the entrance wound is plugged by an arrow shaft.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough...I hope the Mt. Dew I drank wears off soon so I can get some sleep. Hope this helped you in some way though.

-Sleepless in Stonewall, Cheryl

[Africanbowhunter]

Amen

[River Bottom Hunter]

Cool!! Great info.

[NightStalker]

Thanks to all. I guess I probably did penetrate the shield armor, but hit one of those vertebral process bones above the spine, which stopped the arrow.

Certainly a non-lethal wound. He will live to confound some other hunter another day.

[Africanbowhunter]

whats a 3/4 broadhead?