Iron Will Broadheads with the Man Behind the Plan Bill - Episode 69

Archery Maniacs

English - February 11, 2019 13:00 - 57 minutes - 78.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 43 ratings
Wilderness Sports elk deer adventure mountainbucks huntinggear backcountryhunting whitetail archery hunting bowhunting Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Why the “How” of Hunting Big Mule Deer Trumps the “Where” with Robby Denning - Epidose 68

Next Episode: High Country Colorado on a New Knee with Shaun Smith - Episode 70

It all started with family for Bill Vanderheyden, the Co-Founder and Lead Engineer of Iron Will Broadheads. His grandfather and father had long been telling of the adventure to be found from within the Wisconsin woodland.

Bill’s love of the outdoors paralleled his affinity for math and science, especially physics, which led him to become a mechanical engineer. He has earned a total of 50 patents throughout his career. All the while, his passion for the outdoors continued to grow, with ever more time spent hunting and exploring remote locales.

Since moving to Colorado in 1999, Bill began supplementing his whitetail hunts with backcountry elk hunts. Finally, in 2004, after many years of hard work with no payoff, it all came together and he shot a nice bull. Dreadfully, the broadhead apparently hit the back edge of the shoulder blade and penetrated only a few inches and the bull was never recovered. This incident led to wanting more out of a broadhead.

The pursuit began by analyzing the physics behind every aspect of the shot and reading scientific studies. Current broadhead offerings were researched, purchased, and thoroughly tested. Bill was looking for a broadhead that would achieve maximum penetration, pass through bone undamaged, maintain a razor sharp edge, and fly great at long distances. Every broadhead tested fell short in one or more of these areas. Frustrated with the offerings, he decided to engineer his own broadhead. Over 7 years later, numerous field tests, computer simulations, material tests, all resulted in a long-range shooting broadhead that maximizes penetration, durability, and lethality. A broadhead we all now know as Iron Will.

In this episode we cover:

Bill’s Story
Time line from idea, to drawing, to actual product in hand
Broadhead accuracy
Performance in wind
Decision to go with bleeder blades
What is up next for Iron Will
And A lot more