Presumed Lost:

To set things in prespective, please understand that back then the point of a broadhead was slightly thicker than a razor blade. We did not have broadheads with hard leading points that entered before the thin blades as you find on many broadhead arrows today..

When I was still able to bow hunt (damn knees won't cooperate any more.), I never had a small axe available and back then, they were not as small as the mini. With broadheads (I preferred the two-bladed Bear with the removable inserts for 4-bladed cutting.), any arrow that did end up in a tree was removed with my old Craftsman carbon steel hunting knife. The inserts sat farther back on the arrowheads and thus did not ever come into contact with the wood which made digging the arrows out much easier. Most of my time bow hunting involved never even getting a shot off because even with sights and constant practice, I never felt comfortable shooting anything more than fifty feet away.

The machinist deburring tool came into play during practice shooting where trees and other wooden objects were purposely shot at. The people I learned to shoot with did most of thier practicing with what are known as field points which could be purchased in various weights to match the weight of the broadhead you preferred. Just before the hunting season started, we would take our broadheads to archery ranges that had straw bales for final tuning of the sights and snap shooting. The reason for this was that even though the practice field tipped arrows and the broadhead arrows weighed the same, the flight characteristics were a little different because of the shape of the arrowhead.

We would never ever target shoot at wood targets with broadheads as back in those days (leading tips, slightly thicker than razor blades.) they were too fragile for repeated impacts in wood and too expensive for that. The machinists deburring tool had about a 5" handle and with a 4" blade, there was no bulk and minimal weight and I already owned it.

Bountyhunter