02/22/2026
A couple of partners and I have been working on the design and manufacturing of a new crossbow broad head over the last 2 1/2 years. It was born out of necessity, trying to solve a couple of problems my clients were having when hunting with the new high speed Crossbows. After 38 years of outfitting and wildlife management here in Texas, I have seen just about everything that can go right and wrong while hunting. Over the last few years we have seen an increase in crossbow hunters. One of the main reasons for that is the aging population of bow hunters. A lot of guy and gals don’t want to give up the excitement and challenge of trying to get close enough to their target animal to make a bow shot. Often times, because of age related issues, some hunters cannot draw their compound bows back anymore. Crossbows allow them to continue to hunt without having to go to a rifle. They also allow kiddos to hunt without having to use a rifle before they are physically able to draw an acceptable weight on a compound bow to hunt wild game.
I have been bow hunting since the early 80’s and I have seen a lot of changes and innovations take place in the equipment we hunt with. The industry became obsessed with the need for speed. The faster bow’s translated into flatter trajectories and less time for deer to react to the sound of the bow going off and the arrow headed their way. In today’s market we are seeing cross bows with speeds of 515 feet per second or more. Keeping in mind that it only takes 30 foot pounds of kinetic energy to pass an arrow through a deer’s chest cavity, these new fast cross bows are producing kinetic energies of 130 to 200+ foot pounds. We have reached the point of diminishing returns and/or wasted energy. 
What I have seen as two consistent issues with hunting with the new high speed cross bows on the market today are the following.
1) Often times my cross bow hunters are losing their bolt after it flys through the animal and skips off into the brush making it very difficult to find. Lighted knocks improve the recovery percentage, but they still lose quite a few. Hunters that choose not to add the expense of lighted knocks to their bolts have seen loss rates of 70% or higher. That gets expensive when rigged out bolts can get into the $25 to $45 range with each shot.
2) The next biggest issue I’ve experienced with my cross bow hunting clientele is poor blood trails. Almost always I can’t find the first blood for 30 to 50 yards from where the deer was standing when the broad head hits them. Part of this is because they are usually shooting smaller( 1 1/8”) fixed blade broad heads to get their bolts to fly straight and not plane off. Another reason is we hunt predominantly from ground blinds which causes the entrance and exit wounds to be at the same level. This delays the blood trail starting until the chest cavity starts filling up.
There are more variables, but this post is already too long. 😜
What we have designed has greatly improved the two biggest issues I mentioned above. In fact, we have now shot over 50 animals with the final version of the Backdraft broad head and have not lost a single bolt. A few have been broken but we were able to retrieve the broad head for reuse.
Below is one of my best friends, Keith Beam, one of the inventors of Double Bull pop up blinds and the hub system they use. He is involved with us and brings a lot of knowledge to the table.
Check us out at www.deadlykinetics.com
