Show Notes
This week Andrew sits down with the team from Vantage Point Archery, VPA, to discuss what this broadhead company has going on in the hunting market. VPA is based out of Fort Wayne Indiana, so just next-door. This company has been around since 2009, with all American made steel broadheads. They offer a variety of single bevel, two blade, and three blade broadheads perfect for big game hunting. The conversation stems around tuning up for the upcoming season, how to choose a broadhead, and proper maintenance techniques.
The guys also got to sit down with Henry Distad of the Ohio Back Country Hunters and Anglers. Henry gives a quick run-down of all the MANY things happening at BHA and their summer event, Muster in the Marsh, from July 21-23 in Conneut Ohio. Check out their website musterinthemarsh.com for more information, but it sounds like an awesome event is ahead!
Have a great week and enjoy the O2 if you get out into Ohio’s great Outdoors!
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] All right. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the O two podcast. Tonight, Paul is out on the road again. Paul where are you at? I am just outside of Branson, Missouri. You're on the moon. And you're trying to create a Turkey population on the moon. Yes. Pretty much. That's the goal, right?
Funny hable population. Oh man. They'd probably flourish up there. Although I dunno what the habitat be like. And then we've got Henry Disstat. Is it dis ad? Yep. Perfect. Henry is with the Ohio b h a. So back country hunters and anglers. Henry, what's going on today, man? Anything new? We got a pretty big event coming up this [00:01:00] July July 21st through the 23rd out in county at Ohio.
I know it's hard to pronounce, but take No, Paul, I heard that all last time, so I thought maybe I'd hop on and give you guys a hand. With some of the info about the event. All right. Give us a second. It's called up. Give us a second. We'll touch on that here in, in a moment. I wanna go through some of the news and sponsor stuff real quick.
Sure. And then we'll dive into that. So let's see. I don't know if I have a whole lot of news. I should've been a little bit more prepared on that, which is nothing new. Let's see, down in Logan, Ohio. The Columbus Sympathy and Orchestra in Hocking Hill State Park. Nope. That's already passed.
Next. Man,
you're all over hike. I am all over the place. I'm, I put all these stories aside when I'm throughout the week and then I realize that they're past due all right. Nevermind. No news there. Paul, you [00:02:00] wanna. Hit down the sponsors real quick. Yeah, man. Thanks to our guys. Go wa. Time to go.
wa.com. Download the app. Android or Apple Website's also pretty functional. There's some really cool articles for summertime Deer Scouting if you're into that land management. So check out their store. Half Dash Rack is also on their intro half rack, available on Go Wild or their website.
Use the code Ohio. 15 right months. Yes sir. And we haven't we've let our buddy Glen down a little bit, but we when we went on our fishing trip there a couple weeks ago, Glen introduced us to Redfin polarized Sun sunglasses. Those I believe are also on Go wild and not official partner of the show, but have you a shout out.
Shout out because those sunglasses were legit, super. Lightweight, super clear. So check those out if you get a chance. It's redfin polarized.com. Like I said, I think they're on Go Wild. [00:03:00] I should probably have checked that first, but something else to check there if they're not, they're on way.
Yeah, for sure. We got first light thanks to guys at first light. They're probably coming out with some new stuff here soon. It's about that time of the year. So Henry, do you use any first. Oh yeah. Yeah. I have a pretty good kid I've gathered over the years. Yeah. You get a, you actually get a first light discount if you're a b H A member.
Oh, nice. Wow. And if the sponsor levels, they got some pretty cool rifles with some first light skin on them. Yeah. I got a Weatherby and two 70. That's the first light came up pattern I got with a lifetime b h a membership. Oh, nice. That's good to know. Deal. The thanks to the guys over at Midwest Gun Works.
So speaking of guns It's at Ohio Outdoors. Five. Lots of stuff there. Had some cool stuff up there for Father's Day which Happy Father's Day, belated to all the fathers out there. But thanks to Cameron and the team over there, great customer service. If you guys have any questions, amo [00:04:00] gun parts, all that kind of stuff that's needs to be one of the places you're definitely checking out if you're in the market and X vision.
X vision optics.com. Thank you to those guys for supporting the show. Another great customer service team over there and all your thermal imaging scopes and they've got range finders and night vision, all kinds of fun stuff there. And I think that's about it on that end. Paul, did I miss anything?
No, man. That's it. All right. All right, Henry. We've been talking about muster in the marsh here for a few weeks, but you are, we're gonna get it straight from the horse's mouth tonight. So tell us about this event up in co Ohio. You said it was July, 2020 first through the 23rd. So it's kinda like a onsite camping weekend.
Three day event starting that Friday afternoon of the [00:05:00] 21st. Friday kind of kicks off that evening. There's a separate ticketed event. There's a field to table dinner where we'll be having some locally caught fish and hunted deer and whatnot, served by Cleveland Field Kitchen. And that event will have some exclusive auction items that people that attend the dinner can bid on.
We'll have beer by the butcher and the brewer all weekend, but including the dinner. And there'll also be wine and mixed drinks too that come with your dinner ticket. If you don't wanna do the dinner you can show up and hang out. The beer truck will be there Friday for anybody to use.
We're still working on a possible food option for Friday evening, just for campers. But Like I said the place is open for camping, so you can just set up your tent, hang out the Coac Creek, which is really like a river cuts right through the property. You can fish. The bonfire live music Friday night too.
Oh, I should also add at the [00:06:00] event we'll have Ryan Callahan from Mer and Kevin Murphy too, who has been on a few mediator episodes. They'll be joining us for the whole weekend. Ryan is actually the vice president of the North American Board for b h a. So he's a really strong advocate for what we do, and he wants to come down and help spread the word and spread some knowledge on what BHA is all about.
I'll tell you what, Kevin Murphy, I think he might be one of my favorite, call him characters on any of the episodes ever. I don't know why, man, when he gets outta that truck and blows that conch shell or whatever it is, the horn, it wasn't not a she a conch shell, it was a horn. The horn, all that, the animals that he is coming.
I absolutely love that. Yeah. And I met him a couple years ago in Columbus, him and Cal, and. Some of the other mediator crew that did a live podcast there maybe six years ago or so. But he is he's exactly how he is on camera in real life, he is just, you get what so that's awesome.
[00:07:00] But Moving into Saturday. So Saturday is like the main event. Tickets start at just 20 bucks. So if you just wanna show up Saturday and see what everything's about. But for the lowest price, you got a $20 ticket. And then from there, there's a $60 ticket for Saturday that comes with a year membership to b H a and you get a little door prize bag and three raffle tickets.
And then there's a $80 ticket that gets you for the whole weekend, Friday to Sunday morning, and then camping's 10 bucks a night too. So Saturday will kick us off. We'll, we got a nice coffee sponsor who's gonna be giving us some coffee for Saturday morning, and we'll be led off with our Armed Forces Initiative.
Trevor Hubs leads the a f I branch of B H a, which is a pretty cool or section of b h A for veterans or active duty alike. They have a lot of cool chapters throughout different military [00:08:00] installations or. Or just each state has a chapter as well for the veterans that might be interested. I can say myself I'm a Marine Corps veteran and b h a kind of gives you that, that mission you might be looking for when you get out.
Give me a second here. You can cut out my pauses, right? Oh, yeah. But you're good. So Saturday, you've got the, you've got the armed forces. Part. Yeah. Let's see, where was I going from there? Yeah hold on. Lemme look at the schedule real quick. What does, alright, just in general. Go ahead. What? Bha we all hear about a lot of different organizations that we can join NDA and nwtf and, there's so many of 'em, right?
But what is BHAs place in all of that? No, that's good. I probably should have started off with that. So back country hunters and anglers are, Mission [00:09:00] in a nutshell is public land and water conservation and just to. Help protect it in perpetuity for the generations to come. But beyond protecting it is also enhancing it through a lot of conservation projects.
And also access projects too, to, improve the different areas that you can actually get to physically. Cause there's a lot of public land or public water that's not physically or illegally accessible for the public. I know that's a big thing out West. Do we have that in Ohio as well? We do actually.
Ohio b hha is teaming up to help with a access project on the Chagrin River in Willoughby, Ohio. By I 90. Okay. The park will be expanding. Okay. And the Ohio chapter of b h a, we were actually able to help donate some funds to that. So we're donating $5,000 [00:10:00] to that access project for fishing.
And, Funds like that come from events like this where you go and you buy a ticket or you buy a t-shirt or your, just your membership dues for the year. A lot of that comes back to the state chapters so we can work on things locally that are pertinent to each area. Gotcha. No, that's great.
That's great. Let's see. See a couple other projects. We partnered with Wayne National Forest and then there was rural Action and then another private company as well. We donated some money towards a a project down there near Athens to help prevent illegal at t v use that's causing watershed erosion, which is affecting water quality down there.
So we ended up blocking lots of illegal easements, if you will through planting trees. [00:11:00] Nice. That's very, so it was nice and thick and muddy. Spring we just planting, we planted about a hundred trees in a, in an afternoon. That's good work. That's good work. Yeah. Yeah. That was a nice muddy mess.
I brought the kids with me and they. We're soaked, but water quality is a big issue throughout the old strip mining areas of the state. So it's always, it's a constant project that the communities are working on and you can actually help improve those areas through public land projects too. Wayne National Forest, being our only state forest in Ohio, it's comprised of approximately 250,000 acres.
So that, that's a pretty special place if you are an Ohio public land person. Cuz that's like the big chunk we got. There, there's some good areas throughout the a EEP and whatnot, but Wayne's our biggest spot,[00:12:00] sure. So we gotta protect it and we gotta help do what's right to keep it safe for the future.
Absolutely. So Saturday at the Mustard and the marsh yeah. We got some cool vendors coming out too. Oh, big kid friendly event. So we got some like inflatable archery ranges for the kids. We got a kid's art class. There's gonna be a scavenger hunt. Z code donated a pallet of fishing rods.
Wow. So there's gonna be a lot of kids getting some fishing rods. Starting in the early afternoon actually late morning we got food trucks opening up. Beer truck will be opening back up. And then early afternoon we got some some cool like field skills or conservation skills classes. We have an intro to trapping.
We have I'm going to that Paul, how to get I'm going to that Paul to intro to trapping. Sorry. Go ahead. Oh yeah, you're good. We have how to get into Turling [00:13:00] and then we'll even have a turtle cleaning demonstration that's through one of our longtime sponsors, CMMB to Custom Knives.
He's a big turtle in the summer. Nice. You're gonna have Kevin Murphy doing a conservation class. You check him out at Small Game Nation at, or Kevin Small Game Nation on Instagram. We have a invasive species like invasive plant class just to help battle invasives with Tamini Outdoors.
And we also have a Aquatic microorganism class down in the river there so you can see what are the little bugs and fish and crustaceans living in the water. And call that the match, the hatch for all the diehard fishermen that'll be there. And you kind see what's happening in the water at certain times of the year to see what you should be using for flies or for bait.
Oh, I should also add we're doing a podcast, with the O two podcast, if you've heard of them. That'll be going on that day with Ryan [00:14:00] and Callahan and Kevin Murphy will be on that with you guys. After that, later in the afternoon, we will have a fly casting competition. The guides.
Oh, I forgot to add too. This is at Covered Bridge Outfitters in Con. So the guides a covered bridge and some of the folks from Ohio Women on the Fly will be doing some learn to fly cast classes. And we'll be wrapping up the afternoon with a casting competition. There'll be a policy discussion just to talk about local and national public land issues that.
That are going around. And then we have a really big raffle with all sorts of gear and guns and oh, we even have a sauna. We have a company that donated a, an entire sauna. It's like a $7,500 wooden barrel sauna that you could win as well. Whoa. [00:15:00] So that we'll be drawing that in the evening and. From there, we know we'll just turn up the party a little bit with some more live music and then some campfire stories and just burn the fire down from there, man.
And all That's for 80 bucks, for a couple days. Yeah, 80 bucks is the high end ticket for that. Yeah. Or if you're just curious, you wanna pop out Saturday, you can do all of that Saturday for 20 bucks. You just won't get a gift bag. I think you do get one raffle ticket, but you, for 20 bucks, you get, yeah, one raffle ticket, no gift bag, and no membership.
But you can come in and just see what B H A is all about, or if you just want to come and talk with Ryan Callahan or Kevin Murphy, Heck yeah, all that stuff you rattled off the classes and different things. That's great. All I hear is that I'm gonna have to figure out how I'm gonna afford trapping gear and fly fishing gear and all these new skills I'm gonna obtain.
Yeah. So I think I probably even forgotten a couple things here or there, but [00:16:00] do you guys have it? I apologize to anybody listening. If you're a sponsor and I missed you, do you have it up on the website or Instagram or something where people can go check it out? Yeah. We actually, we bought a URL just to make it pretty direct for, to check it out.
It's www.musterinthemarsh.com and that'll direct you straight to that event page for bha. That's awesome, man. And you'll also see when you go on that page there's a blue link a little ways down to take you over to the conservation dinner page or the field to table dinner if you're interested in buying tickets for that.
Now, that is a more expensive event, but you do get some pretty nice perks with open bar and amazing food and, exclusive auction items. That starts at about, I think it's two 15 for one ticket or 400 for two. So if you got a buddy or you got a spouse, you can save a little bit money there.[00:17:00]
Good deal. Paul. You wanna go? You wanna be my. Plus one, two, I've been to the past. I guess that's been all I've been to the three muster events that have happened previously and. You just come out of there just with like your belly's full and you're just fired up to get out there, get after it and make things happen for your local chapter or even your, even the, national issues going on.
Oh, that's great. You're gonna learn a lot. You're going to meet nude people. It's fantastic networking for your hunting. Sorry your hunting, sorry for your hunting group. It's grown my friend group of hunters and fishermen and pretty drastically since I joined b h a, six years ago.
That's awesome. Henry, I really appreciate you coming on and talking about it. Paul, you got any other questions? No, Henry, thanks for [00:18:00] all you do, man. For hunters and anglers and outdoorsmen and women in the state and beyond. It's it's something that we talk about a lot, just conservation and the need to really collectively put forth the effort and you're one of the people doing it.
So thank you, man. All right. I appreciate it and thanks for thanks for having us on, and thanks for being a Muster event. Sponsor an Ohio chapter sponsor. Absolutely can't wait with that. The other, only other thing that we had archery hike, the other event this summer down there in Hocking Hills are July 7th and ninth.
If you wanna get your bow tuned up and ready to go ry hike.com is for that event. But I think Paul, I think that's all we got for this week. So we'll leave it and Go for there. Our talk this week is with yep, vantage Point Archery out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. So I think you guys will like that.
We're talking a little bit about broadheads, how to pick the right ones, some maintenance sharpening, all that kind of stuff. It's good little talk with those folks over there. We look forward to talking to everybody next week and go check out Muster in the marsh.com, [00:19:00] right Henry Muster in the marsh.com.
That's correct. Yep. All right. Take care everybody, and we'll talk to you next week.
Okay, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the O two podcast. Today I'm joined with a whole slew of very important people from V P A, which is Vantage Point Archery. I've got Alex Christensen, Ryan Corwell, and Jeff Stringer. Welcome everybody. Thanks for having us. So if we wanna go around the room real quick and just talk around the per proverbial room.
And tell us what you guys do over there at V P A. Yep. So I'm Alex. I handle all the marketing here.[00:20:00]
Oh. Ryan, did you get muted?
We hope so. Brian's our sales manager. He does a lot of very important things and speaks through Alex. Got it. Okay. And I just do what Alex and Ryan tell me to do. I think you're bigger you're more important than that, aren't you? Me and Ryan and Ryan's brother-in-law own the company. Okay. And now you guys, how long have you guys been around?
You wanna give a quick history of the, of v p a? Yeah, I can. Go ahead. So VPA started in actually like 2009. So really are a machine shop and we still have that side of our business, absolute machining. And one of our head engineers just wanted to make his own Broadhead. He's been a passionate. Longbow shooter for his whole life and he just found a need in the market for a better broad hood and made his own back in 2009.
And it's really just grown from there. And over the past couple years we've been selling online and [00:21:00] getting in shops and here we are. Where are you guys located? Fort Wayne, Indiana. So you're nearby, you're not far away from us over here in Ohio at all? Not far at all. Yeah. That's good. You guys specialize in the single bevel, two blade, three blade broadheads.
We're not talking mechanicals, right? No, no mechanicals. All one solid piece. So they're CNC machined out of one solid piece of bar stock. So no welding together, no moving parts. Just good old steel. Yep. And is there anything special about the steel that makes it different than others on the market or I. From a that perspective I know nothing about steel, but obviously when you shoot 'em, if you hit a rock, some, sometimes they break, sometimes they don't chip.
Whatever we got, we have two different kinds. Probably not gonna tell you exactly what they are, but we have two different types of steel. Ones stainless one's, mile. It depends, some people like to sharpen 'em and hold the edge. [00:22:00] Stainless does that better, but they're harder to sharpen where the mild stills easier to sharpen, but doesn't hold the edge quite as long.
And then the price range is different, right? We give you two different pricing ranges within the same broadhead. Okay. All right. So as we, I was out in my barn the other day and Full disclosure I have not shot any ear broadheads. I do a lot with single bevel, but I'm looking at everything I have from last year and I probably should have put it away better and kept a better track of what was going on.
But, it gets to that point in the season where it's just kinda I'm done, put this aside, move on to the next thing. So now I've got just a heap of stuff. And this is not just. Arrows, it's brought, or not just broadheads, but it's arrows, it's everything. But it's time to start shooting and it's time to get things tuned up and ready to go.
And I guess, my question for you guys is coming out of the, off season and into, getting ready for white tail season coming up. I wanna talk about some of the things that people should be thinking about and looking [00:23:00] at. Obviously the easy answer, what you probably want to do, Ryan, is just go out and buy new broadheads, right?
But one of the beautiful things is with the single bevel and some of the tube or the double bevels, is that you can res sharpen 'em and reuse them, and you don't always have to do that. So what are some things that people should be thinking about as they're getting ready for the season coming up?
I guess if a guy calls me and says, Hey I've never had any issues with my expandable this, whatever that and my first answer is gonna be, and Jeff will say that I'm not a very good salesman, but it's then why switch? I want the guys that have had the issues I want the guys that like I'm gonna say it can, Alex will laugh at me like I want to know that ours is always gonna open on impact, right?
There's no doubt about that. There's no way that it's not gonna happen. That's where we're at. Like it's a solid one piece design. So I don't have an issue or any fail rate whatsoever on our broadhead. Now, if a guy calls and says, Hey, I'm thinking about going from a 500 or a [00:24:00] 450 grain arrow up to a 600 grain arrow, I'm gonna be like, dude, that's a big jump.
You gotta do a lot of research in that. But if he's going up 25, 50 grains, that's all something that's fun conversation for me that we can get in the weeds and okay, three Fletch, four Fletch, did you pay per tune? Did you do this? Are you messing with that? There's so many things out there that the guys are just like, what about this?
I'm like, that's a great idea. What about that? Have you tried that? Have you proven it out? And for me, I'm going 5 35 this year and that's my setup. I'm gonna rock a 1 25 single bevel, and that's where I'm at. And let it fly. Huh? So if you've got, I ended up last year, I think with about five 50 was my setup and I had some single bevels I need to get 'em resharpen.
That can be a challenge if you're not real good at sharpening. So do you have any tips on, on, is it just Yeah, I do. There's a bunch of different brains out there you can get. We use the k e sharpener. That runs off of a just off of a guide. It's a roller that you're just sitting on paper or stone and just dragging it [00:25:00] back on a stone.
You're just dragging it back, always dragging back. Starting with 400 grit. Some guys are like, I just want to get up to a thousand. Grit. That's too fine. Like you wanna start with a 400 grit to rebuild that edge. The other big thing is making sure you get cardboard or you get a piece of leather, your belt and strap that backside cuz you're building a bur.
You're building a burr every time you drag it back, and once it gets thick enough, then you're just breaking it off and then you're gonna be able to pop here and shave it. Okay. So it's, I make it sound a lot easier than what it actually is. It takes work. You do? Because I've tried this and I have one of those Kme Sharpeners.
Okay. So let's go ahead and back up. KM e sharpener. It's got the little roller, you put it in there. One of the things I always struggle with is I can't get it to line up, right? So it almost feels like I'm dragging an angle. Maybe that's just operator error. But. When you're talking the, you're talking it on top of sandpaper to start, and you said 400 grit. Yeah. So that's a little bit more coarse. And then the a hundred grit's, getting the fine finer. And so you're gonna start [00:26:00] there and how many times, and you're always, you're dragging it backwards, you said so towards you. Yep. Not pushing it forward. Yep. What ballpark are you doing this for hours or is this like you should have No, it's something that we've done in the shop here before where if I'm starting with a 400 grit, I'm gonna run it probably 20, 30 times and then I'm gonna break off that burn strap and see how it looks.
Then I'm gonna go up to 800, grit, run it 20 or 30 times, and then if I really wanna call, you're pretty much hone in that thing. If you go up to a thousand or 1200 grit, you're gonna make that thing polish. By using that. And really, you don't have to get that whole bevel, you just need that like first 20,000.
You don't need the whole thing. You just wanna do that first little bit. And the whole Sharpie thing is good that we can actually see where you're creating and removing material. When you say break, go ahead Jack. You wanna hear something cool here? This is breaking news for your podcast. You can say the first you've heard, but we are coming out with a single bevel.
Patented Broadhead a [00:27:00] sneak peek, but it'll be out probably the middle of next month that you can do on a stone. You don't need all this fancy stuff. You don't need. Figure out your angle. It's already on there by the way. It's designed so you can sharpen that thing and not have to worry about the sharpener.
And do I got the right angle and is how you still have to worry about how many times you run it, but it will make it much easier. And it's patented, so it's not a, not everybody's gonna have it. And it's revolutionary. That sounds awesome. So we'll definitely keep an eye out for that. I know.
When you say so you're going pulling it back, making that, that burr. Do you ever flip it over and do the other side at all? That's only for strapping. Okay, just for strapping. You do on both sides. Yep. Yep. Okay. And how do you know when sharp enough is? Sharp enough? I. I can, we always joke like I have hair on my arm right now because it's not hunting season.
That's how I know, like when I'm shaving it and I'm like, oh, that's good, go to the next one. There's meters out there. There's those little things, the guides you can get and see what your sharpness is. It's one [00:28:00] of those that's gonna be totally up to end user. I have no guys to just take him out of the pack and go hunting with them.
Okay, cool. I know guys that like, they wanna spend, just talk to a guy earlier today. He is man, I can just get in my groove and I'm sharpening. I'm like, okay, that's fine too. And I'm with you on the whole checking your arm thing. Although mine, I don't think I get him sharp as you do probably.
So I end up with this like weird skin looking rash. Looks like I have some kind of weird disease or something cuz I'm just like digging and sometimes it pulls hair, sometimes it doesn't. But Do you want to go over the, we talk, always talk about sharp blades no matter what broadhead you're shooting, but what what's the benefit, what's the reason?
And it sounds stupid, but I think there is some science behind muscle tearing and that kind of stuff, making sure you're like, if you're coming across an artery and you're not rolling across the artery, you're actually slicing that artery when you're coming through. That's a big thing. I feel like you're cutting muscle.
The one thing on a single bevel, you're not only cutting muscle, but you're cork [00:29:00] screwing through the muscle. So you're gonna cause a lot more damage. And obviously you want it to be sharp while it's doing that damage. Yep. And I'll tell you so I've shot mechanicals in the past a long time ago. But I've never had a single bevel not pass all the way through.
So for me, to get it through and make sure that it is doing all that damage while it's quick, it goes right through. You want to have all that maximum damage okay. And after this, I'm gonna go out and sharpen my broadheads to get those things tuned up. I always hear guys talking a lot about getting their arrows set up and some of the newer, I don't wanna say newer, but The trendier thing is they're not shooting field points at all.
It's just, we're just using broadheads. And that's great for business. But that is expensive and damaging to a target. So somebody who wants to get out there and shoot 50 arrows a night for the next three months, that could be a lot. And what are your guys thoughts on the field heads or field points?
I think, we always tell people that if you're gonna shoot if you're gonna get up and I'm going hunting [00:30:00] Saturday morning, shoot with your broadhead so that you know that you're gonna hit where you're at. Cause I don't care what anybody says. And even the mechanical guys, I would argue they don't flag exactly like a.
Target tip does because they've got attachments on it. Get up. Practice. Practice. Make sure that you know where you're gonna hit. Cause that's what it's about is getting consistent, knowing what you're gonna hit all the time. If you're gonna shoot a target all day long, like me and my wife probably shoot a hundred arrows every night for last.
Two months now, even probably yesterday we probably shot about 400, but we're shooting broadheads. My targets don't look any different. It's about how you tear 'em out. Don't you know, if you're just shooting a single bevel, make sure you let the twist come back out. Don't just drag it straight out.
But if you're just out there having fun, there's no reason you can't shoot a target tip. But if you're gonna go hunting we say it's all about ethics. Make sure you're comfortable and your shot placement is good with the broadhead that you're gonna shoot and get very comfortable with that out, out there to whatever you think your kill zone is.
If you're one of those people [00:31:00] that are out west that think you can kill out one 20 and you're consistent and you feel good about that shot practice all day long. If you're a 20, 40 yard person, practice that all day long. But remember, ethics, it's all about ethics, ryan, did you have anything on that?
No I was gonna lean that way too. We don't like, and that's on the sales side. We sell a ton of field points. We do. That's just the way it is. But for me, let me shoot my broadheads. Cause I always wanna know where they're gonna go and, okay. Let's be honest. They're like, I can, because I get to shoot a lot of broadheads and I'm making 'em every day.
But also doing that, I wanna know how to res sharpen them, right? And that's a good way to test your res sharpen ability. When you're throwing in a target, you're always gonna know, okay, if, and also if that broadhead like fails, if that broadhead doesn't hold up, and if that Broadhead has got run out afterwards, you better be calling me because that's wrong.
Unless you're hitting a metal post or a rebar in a target. Come on. But if it's [00:32:00] going in a phone target or whatever target that's off, like our Broadhead auto hold up all day long. Lot to what? What is runout? What's that? What is runout? You said if it has run out. Oh, so yeah. So if you've bend the tip, right?
So if you put your arrow on an arrow spinner, and if it mainly on a three blade, you're not gonna be able to see it on a tube blade and you're spinning it, you can actually see it wobble. Okay. You should be able to see it wobble if there's runout on that. Like you, you only would really see that coming from up if it's bent.
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Looking at what you guys have to offer, you've got single bevels, two blades and three blades. Do you wanna go through what makes yours different and how to choose between those, what type of situation you might use a, excuse me. Yeah, so I can start off at least what makes us different.
They're all 100% made in the US so we machine all of them right here at our facility in Fort Wayne. So we're not sourcing anything from anywhere [00:33:00] else. All of our steel is US sourced as well, so that's one of our big points that we're really proud of to support. Besides that CNC machined out of a solid piece.
I know we mentioned earlier no moving parts. Like a lot of other broadhead companies, not metal injected, like a lot of other companies, they are truly all one solid piece of steel. So they're gonna hold up a lot better and be more reliable. On the side of three blade, two blade single bevel, it all boils down to what the hunter wants.
Even on the vented side, like guys will say, Hey, I want a vented. And it's for deflection, right? And I'm like, awesome, that's a great idea. Like they're shooting out 80 yards somewhere and they want less wind to flight. Great. I like, and it came to us because for the single fact that. Can you do this?
Yeah, we can do that. We're a machine do shop. Can you do that? Yeah, we can do that. We're a machine shop, so we're always trying to push that limit of yeah, we can do something else. What else can we do? Let's see, what else? And that's why Jeff was talking about the new lay flat [00:34:00] sharpening broadhead.
So yeah, we just want to keep pushing the industry, do something better. So yeah, we pride ourselves on having a broad head for every hunter out there. And we do. Based on your personal preference or your setup, we really have something for everyone, whether it's two blade, three blade vented or solid.
Like Ryan mentioned, different cutting diameters, different steel materials based on like how easy you want it to be able to sharpen or really anything like that. Okay. Really stupid question. Difference between single bevels and two blades, or are they the same? Not the same. They're not the same. No.
Like a tube blade would be like a knife, like a 45 degree, right? Or 22 and a half on each side or a single just tube. Like double Ryan? Yeah. Okay. So that'd be a double bevel. Yep. Double. Double. Okay.
How do I want to, I had to say this. So your two blades would be double bevel and then the three blades are all double bevel. Bevel be, wow, that's [00:35:00] tongue twister. That'll get you guys probably get good at that. Yeah. But, okay. But the three blade doesn't that give more of like a pun a punch than the twisting corkscrew through the animal?
Or is it more forgiving? What's your question here? Like as far as on a three blade, like you're just gonna punch through and keep rotating through. What's on a three blade, and maybe you answered this while I was trying to pull that up, but we're cutting surface, right? Cause it has three blades.
So who's using the three blade? It's just preference, right? That It's just preference. Okay. We make 'em from 100 grains up to 300 grains. What's your preference? 1 25. Single bevel or single bevel. Okay. I just like the damage there. Yeah. Now one of the things I've noticed, and it, I guess it depends where you hit him, but the blood trail isn't always the greatest on the single bevel.
Do you have any thoughts on that? Yes, he does. Tell me. Oh, so when was the last time you shot your single bell? Did you kill your buck with [00:36:00] it? I did. You did? And how far did it go? Oh, probably about 40 yards. You, did you watch it fall? No. But you know where it went. So why do you need a blood trail?
Bingo. And I get it. I'm there with it, man. I've killed more deer with the single bevel than anything else before. But I also know there's been times if I can't keep eyes on it. And like this one, that one he ran. I had the idea of where he was going, but man, there was no blood. Now there's been other times where that thing, it looked like a murder scene, which I guess technically it kinda is, but I mean there's just blood everywhere and I don't know if I hit the right artery or what.
Yeah. But so yeah. Yeah, that's one of those big age old things. Like I hear that question a lot and I was like, oh, did you? Yeah, I watched him fall, but there was hardly blood and I'm just like, Why do you need a blood trail? So it's kinda like one of those fights that I have internally ok, like I get what you're saying, but really like, why do you need it?
I get that. I get, and I get what you're saying. I think that's one of those we need to have that blood trail, that way we can follow it. [00:37:00] And there's probably some situations where it's really thick and it's really dense and you don't know where it went. And I would agree with those guys too. That's why I would say then go with a three blade.
Because you're gonna have more cutting diameters. You're gonna have more options on a three blade of doing, cutting more arteries, right? Instead of having one cutting edge, you're gonna have three cutting edges. So do you think with a three blade you should have a larger draw weight to get more of a punching factor with that?
Or is it cuz. Not as much. Don't matter. Oh, don't Jeff answer that. He's good on the dynamics on that. Jeff didn't realize he was getting on a podcast with an idiot today. He is oh my god. These questions are just like, we love the questions. Yep. I'm with Ryan. Is I like the single bevel.
I, I probably wouldn't have said that two years ago, but I like the single bevel just because of the cork screw. But when I shoot, you can see this is one of our three blades. I actually shoot our biggest on my Matthews. I shoot our biggest 300 grain, three blade on it, six something on my [00:38:00] total arrow weight, and it'll punch a big hole.
But I like the cork screw with the single. Three blade is, it just goes straight through, right? Ours are our, is our, can't speak today. Ours are designed so that we want you to hit the same spot, get consistent, go for the ethical shot. But if you miss, we're still going through the shoulder. We're gonna go through the rib cage, we're gonna go through wherever you need it to go through and get past, whether it's our three blade, our two blade, double bevel, or our two blade single bevel.
I'm convinced just, and we test this out, we don't just throw crap at the wall and hope that it sticks, but we know that you get a bigger cutting diameter with that single bevel because it goes in and once it catches, it moves towards that, that angle, that 35 degree angle we have on there, it makes a great big cork corkscrew wound in there.
I would say on the, to Ryan's point on the blood trail, Man, if you watch some of these videos of guys [00:39:00] hunting, guys and gals hunting with the mechanicals, they're the ones that are worried about the blood trail because they're not making enough damage. Not always, but I would say more often than not, they're not making enough damage.
They're wondering if they're opening enough. They're wondering if they got through the shoulder, they need that blood trail, so two days later they can track it. Me and Ryan are those and Alex are the group that say we wanna track it in 15, 20 minutes, not two days. That, that's controversial, but I think it's fact that ours will punch through, make a big hole.
You don't need a, mile or two mile blood trail. We hope you find it in 30 yards or your hair tip over. And it is so dependent on where you hit too, because we get so many pictures in and see it every day of someone who used our single bubble and there's a huge, great blood trail. So it's really just.
Dependent on the situation. And that's, that's how it is with hunting and bow hunting especially. Okay. So if you've got a new hunter, let me back up here. These tips are broadheads, they're all good on cross bows as well, right? Basic question. [00:40:00] Yes. Yep. But if you've got a new hunter and maybe, I've got a nine year old that who's asking me to take her out hunt hunting, which I'm all about Except she started looking at the map of the United States on where she wanted to go hunt.
And I was like whoa. We're gonna go to the backyard first, right? But you got a new hunter and we'll just say we're gonna use an upright bow, for example. Is there broadhead that you would suggest for somebody younger or new that's gonna be shooting a lower poundage, maybe needs a little bit more forgiveness, anything like that you recommend?
Or is again, is this all preference? I'll say it's all preference, but I'll also caveat that with, I see a lot of the, like obviously a nine year old, her draw length is not that long, right? So you're gonna have, you're gonna have to do some work with some F O C you are. That way, you know that you're gonna get through.
I would say in that maybe you're like 25, 26 inch draw. You're gonna at least need something. Something around that [00:41:00] 17 to 18% f o c, just to know that you'll get that pa that punching power to come through. And also, I would probably go a hundred grains up front if I could with a full out or a half out or something like then you're going your bow shot and Hey, can you build me something like this?
And trying to just like you're getting, I don't know if you're building your own arrows, but that's where you're just totally getting in the weeds really fast. Maybe I. I can always send some thumpers and she can kill squirrels. How about we start that? There you go. There you go. When we go with her, it's gonna be crossbow, but okay.
But I'm just thinking, I know some friends that have sons that are, 15, 16 are getting into that kind of, that new realm, picking up a new bow and starting to go down that path. Another flip side of things. Somebody just draws a tag out west. So you're, now, you, I don't know, pick big game animal elk.
Obviously antelope's a little bit different, but is there a broad head, whether, style, grain, weight, anything like that you would say for an elk that would wor work better than, a [00:42:00] whitetail or that, step it up a notch or same thing? Yeah, it's the same. It all comes down to preference.
I see more guys out west going that 1 25, 1 50 range, cuz they wanna reach out to that and they're probably building the arrows no heavier than 500. That's just because they wanna maybe reach out to that 60, 70, 80 yards. But for me and you back here out Midwest, like 40 yards is max, maybe that's max, right?
So you can pack a little bit more punch and. And still have fun doing it like it is, you're just gonna have fun doing it. And I don't want to pigeonhole guys into one thing. They're like, oh, you gotta shoot like a 600 grand arrow. You gotta shoot a 435. You can build it all. You just gotta do the work behind it.
That's exactly right and that's what we get. We get so many people like, oh, I wanna go heavier cuz I'm going elk hunting. We get that all the time. And it's okay, good. As long as you're like practicing and making sure your setup's good, like you're good to go. Why you don't really have to stick to one certain, this is the Broadhead I [00:43:00] shoe.
If you have the time and passion to tinker around with it, why not? Shoot what you're comfortable with. We're not telling you gotta be here. You gotta be there. That's why we have such a bigger range of broadheads shoot what you feel comfortable with. What's repeatable and what's ethical.
We don't really, we're not gonna dictate it. We're. Unlike everybody else. Not everybody else, but a lot of different companies. We're not the master of it all right? It's evolutionary. We're trying to figure it out long as we go along here and understand the differences and there'll be changes as new technologies come out.
But just feel good about what you do and have fun. The key about it's having fun. I think that's part of the beauty of it. Yeah. Like hunting seasons, whatever, four or five months long. But it's that off season tinkering, right? And putting things on scales and back and forth and different combinations until you come up with what you really like.
Man, is there anything else I'm missing that you guys wanna talk about as far as VPA goes?
We have a lot to talk about if we stay on here long [00:44:00] enough, but really just we're excited about our new product coming out, like Jeff mentioned next month. So stay on the lookout for that. It's. It's gonna solve a lot of the drawbacks people see you with, like you mentioned, taking time or struggling with sharpening.
And we really just wanna be the broadhead that everyone can use regardless of we don't wanna be so expensive and we want you to be able to come to us if you want tube, blade, three blade whatever, grain weight, like we're here to help you. If you call, Ryan's going to answer the phone. If you send us an email, we're gonna get back with you.
We just really wanna help everybody out and. And that's how we've grown our customer base and how we have such a variety of different customers who live in different places and shoot different bows and all that good stuff. Very good. Where can everybody find you guys? What's the website and Instagram or any of the social media stuff?
Yep. VP archery.com and just search VantagePoint Archery for everything. And you'll find us on all the social media as well. [00:45:00] Very good. I think the one thing that kind of touches home for me is we're built around integrity, right? That's something that Jeff and I like want to stand behind 100%.
If you have an issue, if you have any problems whatsoever, if you have a Broadhead that was damaged on a pass through, on a kill, like you're gonna call me and I'm gonna send you a new one, and we're gonna stand behind it one per 100%. We're in it for the little guy as well as the big guy.
If you wanna go to Africa or if you just want to shoot. Rabbits in your backyard. Like we just have fun getting those stories and have fun with it. Yeah. We're broadheads really we say this over and over. It's the blue collar people that shoot. We wanna be the, our main customers, right? We want to give you a good quality product for the price you pay.
Something that you don't have to replace every year. It's not a one and done, shoot it into a target, shoot it into an animal, and it's spent. These are things that you can sharpen, pass down, use year after year. Maybe not the best marketing program out there, but we can sleep [00:46:00] well at night knowing that what you pay for our broadheads is worth the amount you pay for 'em, and they'll be there for years to come.
Okay. One other thing I just thought of. Bleeder blades, is that a thing you guys, or No,
Alex is shaking her head. Come out, we're gonna come out with something, but we don't wanna, we don't wanna p plagiarize and we wanna make sure whatever we come out with doesn't ruin the integrity of the blade. So we put a bleeder blade on there that can bust off or get twisted, or we haven't mastered it to the point where we.
Like the quality that comes out with, but we do get a lot of requests for bleeder blades. We're just at a customer two weeks ago, Ryan, a week ago, something like that. That's the first thing he asked was, when do we get the ones with bleeder blades? When we master it. We don't want to come out with anything that's just kinda.
Janky want it to be. Cause yeah, doesn't I go, if it's a bleeder blade, then it's not a solid one piece. If I'm machining a feral and like adding blades to it, like it's not [00:47:00] solid one piece, and then I'm selling you something extra and that just hurts. For somebody like me, I don't care that you're selling me extra.
If it makes, if it doesn a better job, then that would be my reason to buy it. So I guess the question is, does it make that much of a difference? I think it's proven that it does, like having an extra cutting surface on a single bevel. I agree with you 100%. It really does. Yeah. It's just an extra, like it's a floor blade.
Then that's what we're calling it. A floor blade or a single bevel with a bleeder. Yeah, we can do it. We just wanna make sure we're gonna do it right. Yeah. And then and you're like complaining about sharper in a single, but can you imagine when you're trying to sharpen a single metal with a bleeder?
Like I've tried, I get cold on that all day long. I don't know if I'm doing it right or not, but I've tried, so it'd be hard on the lay flat technology. Ryan's Ryan usually comes back with, sure, we'd make you a bleeder blade. We'll just make a four blade, it'll be four equal size. And now you got, they're not bleeder blades, it's just a four blade.
So maybe we come out [00:48:00] with that. We don't know. There you go. Guys, And Alex, I appreciate you coming on today and giving us a little bit of insight on VPA and we look forward to the new release and the upcoming season. And hopefully everybody goes and checks out your website and pick up a pack or two, so I know I'll be here soon.
Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew.
