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Jesse's Hunting > Hunting Articles > Hunting Gear > Shooting Broadheads into a Black Hole
Shooting Broadheads into a Black Hole
Phillip Loughlin - JHO ProStaff Editor
- San Fransicko Bay Area, CA
September 06, 2007
I pulled another arrow out of the foam block target, watching in disgust as a blizzard of white powder drifted down off of the broadhead. The black circles of the “bullseyes” were all but disintegrated, so while the target still held its shape and stopped my arrows, there was no longer much to aim at.
This was my first Block target, and while it certainly held up for the better part of a year, I seldom shot it with broadheads after seeing the damage they did to the “self-healing” foam. I’d already been through a Delta 3-D, River Bottom Buck… literally. The last day of shooting cut the remaining foam clean in half, and the buck collapsed in two pieces. And that was primarily shot with field points!
I know that these big broadheads, the 140 grain Magnus Journeyman, have a lot of cutting area. But I would have expected some of these targets to hold up a bit better to them.
The target new
The Black Hole target is dotted with several different aiming points of different sizes. This is a great feature, that keeps you from getting in the habit of lobbing arrows into the same old concentric circles. |
With this in mind, I noticed an emailed press release late one evening, promoting the Black Hole targets. I couldn’t see a lot of difference between this and any of the other “block styled” targets, but I figured I’d give it a go and see how it compared. I contacted the PR folks, and had them send me one of the targets to try out.
When the target arrived, the first thing I noticed, and liked, was that there are several different aiming points of different sizes. This is nice for lots of reasons, most especially because it’s good practice to aim at different sizes and shapes instead of the same old circular bullseye. It also keeps me from sticking all of my arrows into the same hole, which should extend the life of the target.
The first day out, I wasn’t quite as thrilled. When I pulled out the first broadhead, a small slab of black foam came out with it. That couldn’t bode well for the longevity of the target. I sent a few more arrows into it, and a couple more times the same thing happened.
Then I switched to my new broadheads, the 150gr Magnus Stingers. These incorporate a large broadhead with a pair of bleeder blades, effectively making it a four-blade head. They cut the surface pretty good, and more pieces of foam fell out. I was getting a little disappointed with the target, but determined to give it the summer to see how it did.
I switched then to field points, and the target absorbed them nicely, closing up the hole as quickly as the head came free. I imagine I could work this thing over pretty good with field points without ever wearing it out.
The summer is over now, and while I didn’t shoot as much as I should, I still put a couple hundred arrows into the target. It still sheds some foam each time, but it shows no sign of losing its integrity. Also, I left the target sitting out in the sun all summer, which can play hell on most foam and plastic materials. The Black Hole seemed to hold up fine to this abuse as well.
100 arrows later
Notice that a lot of the holes haven't sealed up. The big, traditional broadheads cut big slices of foam out of the target each time they were withdrawn. |
I’ll continue to shoot it, and keep track of how long it lasts, but as of right now it’s on pace to hold up at least as well as The Block, which is the primary competition out there. Both are priced around $69 at most retailers.
All in all, it’s not a bad target. If I shot a hundred arrows per week, as I did when I was first learning archery, I don’t think it would have lasted the summer.
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