When your broadheads and field points hit the same spot, you can move seamlessly from practice to hunting. But what if they don’t? In this video, we’ll break down the most common reasons why broadheads fly differently than field points—and how to fix it. From arrow inspection to tuning, vanes, and form, we’ll cover everything you need to know to get your broadheads flying true.

When broadheads hit the same mark as field points, hunters can transition back and forth from target practice to hunting. Although there are many reasons hunters might be experiencing a gap between broadheads and field points, here are the most common we've found.

First, inspect your arrow. Start by spinning your broadhead to make sure there is no wobble in the tip. Next, look at your vanes to see if there might be any vane contact with your bow or rest. This can be evident by marks being present on your vane. Make sure your nock looks clean and hasn't been damaged in any way. Also, inspect your arrow shaft to make sure there hasn't been any damage to it from practice shots going in and out of targets, etc. 

After passing arrow inspection, there are four typical issues that most frequently could be creating a gap between your field points and broadheads. 

1) You are underspined. Check spine charts for your arrows to make sure you are properly spined for your draw length and poundage. For arrows sold from Iron Will, please check the spine charts on the Precision Machined & Custom Built Arrow page. We recommend using the optimal spine, or a slightly stiff spine so there isn't excessive arrow flexing. With excessive arrow flexing (underspined) you probably won't see a problem with field points. However, with fixed blade broadheads on the front, you'll see an angle of attack that could decrease accuracy and promote planing. 

2) You don't have enough vane on the back of your arrow to steer your broadhead. Through our university studies, we've identified that small target vanes don't work very well for steering fixed blade broadheads. A 0.4 inch tall vane isn't high enough to stabilize a broadhead on the front. Whether using mechanical broadheads or fixed blades, either one has more drag and lift than a field point, so you want to make sure you have a tall enough vane on the back. We recommend a 0.5 inch or taller vane. The Iron Will 2.5 vane is a great vane for stabilizing broadheads and getting accurate flight that matches field points. 

3) You have a tune issue. Your bow doesn't have to be perfectly tuned, but if your arrow is coming out with a lot of right/left or up/down, the broadhead will catch more air, and that lift or sideways force will push it off more than the field point. To check your tune, shoot a bare shaft and a fletched shaft at a flat foam target from 30 yards with field points. What you want to see is that a bare shaft and fletched shaft have a point of impact within a couple inches of each other with those shafts being parallel. If you find that your bare shaft is hitting, say to the right of the fletched shaft and it's at a tail-left angle into the target, that means it came off your bow tail-left without any vanes to straighten it out. If you repeat this a few times and see the same point of impact, you'll know your form is consistent and that your bow tune is the issue. 

4) You have a form issue. If you're not seeing a consistent point of impact while shooting a bare shaft to check tune, then it's likely that your form isn't consistent or there's some other issue with the bow, like timing. 

If you examine and take care of these four things, you should get accurate fixed blade broadhead flight and get broadheads to hit with field points at very long range.