You are correct as I have had it happen with both types of broadheads.

By the way even with the animal close it still screws up the shot as this just happend a few weeks back. The deer was merely a few yards from where the arrow "ticked" the twig, with a mechanical blade, and I could see the arrow alter enough and hit the deer enough that it was a non lethal shot...........SUCKS!!!

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's bad no matter what you're tipped with.

 

I'm also a gambler. I, too, say a limb will deflect both types.

 

Depends on how far from the target the limb is. But either way hitting limbs is bad. Im gonna say 99% of the time hitting a limb at all will cause you to miss. regardless of how small the limb is. It could make a good shoulder shot a gut shot, or could fly over or under the deer. I have had bad luck hitting small limbs, especially at farther distances since the arrow has a larger arc getting out to 50 yds. Missed a coyote sunday cause of a limb. Arrow ended up buried in a tree several yards from the yote. Only time i would purposely shoot through limbs is if the limbs are basically touching the target and they are very small.

 

Anything even lightly hitting the arrow in flight will have a dramatic effect on the flight and impact point. You will change the flight path of the arrow. Closer to the target, the less the change in vector could be due to having less time left in flight. Still not something that you should ever not take into account on a shot. Whether the obstacle is close to the deer or not shouldn't matter.

 

Hitting leaves will have not bother mechanical or fixed heads. I shot through the doubled up mesh on my blind with a Rocket Hammerhead and it did not open and flew perfect. If you hit a limb that is of any size it will throw your shot off. I have shot many deer through the leaves though.

 

Limbs, twigs branches all will affect arrow flight as well as bullet flight. That's just how it works...if you have any obstruction between a moving object and its intended target it will change the path of that object...bullet, arrow, baseball, football or bus...make sure your path is clear for accurate placement.

 

You could also spin that argument the other way and say that a mechanical head is less likely to hit twigs because of it's smaller profile in flight. But, like everyone else said, no matter what head you are using nothing good comes from hitting twigs.

 

It was the season of the limb for me, I shoot mechanicals and hit a limb just in front of a yote, the arrow deflected straight down and caused a clean miss. I hit another limb while taking a quartering away shot at a nice 8 point, this limb was mere feet in front of me and during all the excitement I never saw it. This deflection caused my arrow to hit the buck clear back at his rear end, luckily the hit just caused a flesh wound and the buck was seen a week later by a few of my friends trailing a hot doe. Lastly I had another opportunity at a monster 8 point, I only had one small opening to make a 40 yrd shot and it appeared that I could squeeze an arrow to his vitals so I took the shot. Everything looked good as I was following my firenock right towards his vitals until just before the arrow reached him, that's when I heard and watched my arrow nail a branch I didn't see. This branch was close to him and caused the arrow to deflect down but the arrow still impacted him low just behind his front shoulder, dead deer. In my opinion it does not matter what type of broad head you use it is BAD news to contact a limb and it will throw your point of impact way off. I was lucky plain and simple.

 

The first thing you lose sight of is small twigs and branches. As darkness falls all the holes seem to "open up".........and look better than they ever did.....much more inviting. Something you really have to be aware of before it gets dark.

 

I had this happen the other night. It looked like this doe was stopped in an opening I could shoot through. 30 yards, ended up with a clean miss. When I went back in the morning to investigate more I couldn't believe I thought an opening was between me and her. Bottom line: even the smallest of branches effect flight.

 

Hitting ANYTHING with the arrow in flight will have an effect. The question is how much. The closer to the target the deflection occurs, the more likely you are to hit where you aimed regardless of the effect on the arrow.

In my opinion it is best to not hit anything at all, and I set my stands accordingly. Depending on the shot I am willing to shoot through a small amount of grass or leaves, but not a bush or blowdown.

If you want to test it out, go put up some branches and stuff in front of your target and see what happens.

 

Don't matter what type of head is on the end of the arrow, you hit stuff in between you and the target, bad things can and will happen.

 

Also depends on the mechanical, I would think "jack-knife" style would be the worst to snag on brush. Compare say a spitfire to hell razor or any fixed blade and the fixed wins going through the brush imo.

 

3 weeks ago, I shot a decent buck at 23 yrds right before dark. The arrow hit a very small twig(that I couldn't see in the failing light) about 8-10 feet before hitting the deer. It caused the arrow to move back just far enough to make it a liver instead of lung hit. I still recovered the deer (3 hours later and 60 yds away). The thing I noticed most was that the arrow sounded MUCH different when it hit the deer. Instead of the normal slap or spat sound, it sounded "sloshy" as it passed through the deer. I will never knowingly try to shoot through any obstruction on a deer. I learned that even the smallest twig can make a big difference.

Just last week I shot at a coyote behind a bush at 25 yds. Even though the arrow did not hit brush until it was only 3 or 4 feet from the target, the arrow still deflected over the coyote. In my experience, any obstruction will have a big effect on any arrow/broadhead combination.

 

It doesnt even have to be wood to deflect.

I hit a milk weed stem (the only one in front of the deer btw) and watched the arrow veer to the right at a 60 degree or so angle compared to where I was aiming. Sucked, but as soon as it veered all I could do was pray for a miss real quick since it would have beena far back gut shot or butt hit. Prayer was answered...

 

I shorten my effective range as light starts to fade due to the "invisible" sticks growing in the darkness.

 

I had 2 deflections that resulted in clean misses this season, one doe was dumb enough to stick around for another arrow though!