A few weeks back, I set about whippin' up a cheap broadhead target whilst gettin' ready for the bow season.
Well, I commenced to sendin' some arrows through it the next day, and somethin' bad happened.
On my ninth shot that day, I heard a weird noise upon releasin' the arrow, and felt a slap at my wrist. Sure 'nuff, I'd gone and blown the bow up.
Granted, I've got nobody to blame but myself. It'd been at least nine years since I'd had a new string put on the ol' gal (the powers that be recommend a new one every two to three years). I've sent thousands of arrows a'wingin' in that time, so that ol' string didn't owe me a thing. I just got lucky and didn't get hurt when it decided to go.
But, back to the target...
I managed to get nine shots on target before the bow blew. The first three arrows almost knocked the target backwards, so I took the target back into the shop and added a few small 2x4 lengths to the back of the frame to help brace it against the ground. After that, it worked flawlessly.
At eight inches thick, it had no problem stoppin' my arrows from punchin' through.
The only special treatment it's gettin' is that I'm takin' the practice heads off the arrows before yankin' the arrows back out. This not only makes it easier to remove, but it'll help the insulation panels to last a little bit longer. Also, to help distribute to wear a little more evenly, I'll shoot at the small dots in the corners at closer distances, rather than the large center dot. That helps keep me from bangin' up arrows as well.
The only downside is that the insulation leaves a bit of a film on the arrows after a few shots. I know a lot of the 3D target shooters use a special (expensive) arrow lubricant on their arrows to avoid this. Since I'm cheap, and I already have the practice heads screwed off, I find it just as easy to use the blunt edge to scrape the junk off.
I picked the bow up from the shop after my trip, and have since thrown close to 150 arrows through that target with no problem. Based on the current wear rate, I imagine that I'll have to replace a couple of the center panels every 300 shots or so.
Overall, for around $10 and the time to build it, plus a few bucks and a half-hour to replace a few panels here or there, I got a solid, portable broadhead target. Not too shabby at all.
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