Steel Force Phat Head

[Mike]

By Mike McCombie

I’ve always been a fixed blade broadhead kind of guy, but last year I made the switch to mechanicals. Now don’t get me wrong, they worked, but I did notice a lack of penetration on the ones that opened(don't ask)compared to the fixed blades I have used in the past. And for the poundage and speed I was shooting I was kind of disappointed in the penetration I got on a couple of whitetail does. But that was last year, this year I'm going back to what I know works every time! I wanted a tough, sharp fixed blade head that would hold up to multiple deer!(is that asking to much?) All I had left to do is find one.
So while attending this past years ATA Show I was secretly on the mission to find a new fixed blade broadhead to replace the mechanicals I had been using the previous fall……….. and I found them!!
After viewing dozens of heads and listening to twice as many sales pitches, I came across the Steel Force booth. It took just one glance to know I had found my new head.
I introduced myself to the President of Steel Force, Nickolas Giannetti and asked him to tell me a little bit about these heads. Well, I gotta to tell you, after hearing more sales pitches in one day than I care to in a lifetime, I was pleasantly surprised to find Nick a very down to earth guy. Mr. Giannetti was also one of the most passionate people I’ve ever had the privilege to talk to about broadheads. This man lives, eats, and sleeps broadheads! Nickolas spent quite a bit of time going over his products and why they were better than his competitions. This in itself spoke volumes about the man and the company since usually once a manufacturers lays eyes on my media badge they realize I’m not there to place an order and move on to the next potential buyer. Nickolas didn’t do that, he took the time to go over his complete product line and discuss the benefits of his products. Which clearly I had already noticed or I wouldn’t have stopped at his booth
The first thing I noticed when I spotted the Steel Force display was the Phat Head. Here was a relatively short, stout, and mean looking head! I could see from the blade thickness (.080) it would be a bone busting head that would hold up to repeated uses(big bonus!!). And being a cut on contact head, I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble with penetration. What I didn’t know was how sharp they were, until Nickolas said, you better watch those and with good reason. They are extremely sharp!!.

How sharp are they?
Steel Force takes great pride in how sharp their broadheads are and I gotta tell you, they are some of the sharpest heads I’ve used to date! How sharp are they? You can shave with them, but you can shave with a lot of heads right? But can you shave with your broadheads after you have shot them into a block target 150 times? You can with a Phat Head! At least you could right up to the 150 shot mark, after the 150 mark they started to roll the hair instead of cutting the hair on my arm. The Phat Head even at that point was still sharp enough to cut you fairly easily but it wouldn’t shave hair anymore. I personally have yet to see a head hold an edge like the Steel Force Phat Head. Most of the heads I’ve used in the past lose their edge (if they had one to begin with) only after a few shots into the target.

After 150 shoots into a Block target

For a base line penetration test we used our block target. We compared a traditional 3 blade style head, a popular mechanical head and our Steel Force Phat Head. All three heads were 100 grain, and shot from the same bow with the same arrow. The Phat Head repeatedly out penetrated the traditional style 3 blade head as well mechanical head by as much as 6 inches. (that solves my penetration issues)

Durability
For a durability test I like to use real bone, but my cattle bone supplier was a little short this time around so we were forced to use plywood. Now I know plywood isn’t an exact representation of bone, but it does give us insight on how a particular head will hold up to a tough, solid impact. For this test we shot an Easton Lite Speed arrow tipped with a Steel Force Phat Head out of a 70lb bow into a piece of ½” plywood at 20 yards. Well we soon found out a ½” piece of plywood is no competition for a Phat Head! The arrow sailed clean through the plywood and buried into another piece of plywood 5 yards behind the first plywood target. The Arrow was destroyed as we expected but surprisingly after we dug the Phathead out of the plywood backstop, there was no visible damage to the head. It was just as straight and clean as it was before the shot it. So we shot it again, but this time from an aluminum arrow. The results were the same. The Arrow was destroyed but the Phathead blew cleanly trough the plywood slamming into the second piece of wood in the background. Again the Phat Head was unharmed. It wasn’t sharp enough to shave hair but it was still sharp enough to cut you and I would have no reservations about using this same head on a deer if the situation called for it.

After two shoots through ½” plywood

Accuracy
Let’s face it! A broadhead can be as sharp as hell but if you can’t hit with it, it’s worthless!
Now we know the Phat Head is sharp, (extremely sharp) and it is very durable! But how does the Phathead fly off today’s modern speed bows? For this test we used a brand new Hoyt Alpha Max and my APA X-2 and Speed Pro arrows. Both bows were pushing in excess of 330 fps.
Using 2” blazers we held a respectable 3-4” group at 20 yards. Not bad considering the Phathead has a lot of side surface area, which can cause plaining when hitting speeds over 300fps. Once we remove the Blazers and added Aerovane II fletchings to our set up we were forced to start shooting at different spots, because if we didn’t we'd cut flecthing off and bust arrows! This really surprised us because I’ve never had good luck shooting traditional style 2 blade heads at speeds over 300 fps. They usually plane and turn after 20 yards making them not the best choice for hunting bows shooting high speeds. But the with that particular combination the Phat Head will drill 1-2” groups out to 30+ yards in the right hands. And depending on how much you practice you could probably hold that out to 40+, but I'm a little out of practice. ;-)

Conclusion
If you’re looking for a sharp, accurate, bone busting broadhead, look no further! The Phat Head has it all! It’s incredibly sharp and holds it’s edge even after repeated practicing. It’s just as accurate as a mechanical broadhead when coupled with the correct fletch and it’s very, very durable and will hold up to repeated uses! All in all the Phat Head maybe one of the best overall fixed blade broadheads I've used to date and will be in my quiver this fall!

Pro’s
Very durable
Extremely Sharp
Superior penetration
Very accurate even out of today’s speed bows when coupled with the correct fletch
Can Resharpen


Con’s
Accuracy suffers slightly when shot at high speed with standard fletching.

For more information regarding the Phat Head Broadhead as well as other Steel Force products, you can visit there website. http://steelforce.com/home.html



As the co-founder and contributing author on BowCountry.com Mike brings a wealth of knowledge and real world experience to the hunt. Mike currently resides in Georgia and spends far too much time in the field testing products. If anyone sees him please tell him to check back in. We're worried about him.