Camping is one of the best ways to truly see the natural world in all of its glory.
Camping in some of the most gorgeous areas in the world will give you a new perspective about some of the amazing places you can find and visit in an otherwise “regular” life.
But what about in your own “backyard?” What are the best camping spots in the United States?
There are so many locations in the U.S. that have fantastic camping adventures awaiting you. So, before you back up the vehicle, let’s take a look at 8 of the tops spots!
Throughout all 50 states, there are certainly many amazing areas to explore. Although we cannot get to all 50 states in this article, we’ll cover some awesome camping opportunities for you to consider below.
So, without further adieu, let’s cover the best camping locations in the U.S. right now!
Click any location in the list below to jump straight to it!
Glacier National Park boasts not only majestic mountain views, but 13 campgrounds as well.
Located in the Rocky mountains of Montana, Glacier National Park is one of the most underrated camping destinations in the country. With incredible mountain landscapes and other natural features, everywhere you look, you will be surrounded by beauty.
Throughout this huge national park, there are 13 campgrounds and hundreds of individual sites to enjoy. So, there is plenty of room for everyone. And, If you like hiking, there are over 700 miles of hiking trails stretching through many areas and ecosystems.
Overall, Glacier National Park is a quiet, serene location to camp in the United States that has tons of fun opportunities and so much scenery to enjoy.
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Arches National Park
Arches National Park, in Utah, is famous for its beautiful natural rock structures and great hiking.
Due to the natural rock structures and mountainous areas, Arches National Park is a site to behold. This is one of the more exclusive opportunities as there are only 50 campsites at the Devils Garden campground.
However, Moad, Utah is known for its other camping opportunities, but they will be off the main property. The park gets its name from the natural rock arches that are all over the property. This is a great place to hike and explore while taking in this area’s natural beauty.
The Grand Canyon National Park is an absolute must-see location, but be sure to plan ahead!
No list of the best camping locations in America is complete without mentioning one of the natural wonders of the world. The Grand Canyon is certainly one of the most impressive places in the entire world.
Camping in Grand Canyon National Park can happen in four developed campgrounds. If you would rather rough it, you can enter the backcountry on a permit if you are able to secure one.
Now, all of these opportunities fill up quickly, so the earlier the better in terms of planning.
Joshua Tree National Park has over 100 individual campsites.
Joshua Tree National Park is a great destination to camp in for a number of reasons. The biggest of which is the location. Located in California, this park is a few hours drive from cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
When you can get away from the big cities easily and access natural beauty like this, it is a game changer.
In terms of parking at the actual park, there is plenty of room. There are over 100 individual sites with a few off-site places offering spots as well.
Temperatures in this part of the country get insanely high in the summer, so you might consider planning your trip during the other three seasons to get the best experience possible.
Looking for an island with wild horses… Assateague Island is the place to see! (photo credit: National Park Service)
Located off the coast of Maryland sits Assateague Island. This is a natural paradise with nearly 40 miles of coastline and plenty of beach camping available.
Assateague Island is a place not too many people away from the east coast know about, so it is a bit of a hidden gem, at least on the national level.
A super unique factor of Assateague Island is the population of wild horses that inhabit it. These are gorgeous horses that roam the island and frequent the various campgrounds on the beach. This is a really unique experience that does not happen much in the United States, especially on the east coast.
The Florida Keys may not be the firstthing that comes to mind when considering camping locations, but they are home to the beautiful Biscayne National Park (photo credit: Biscayne National Park Institute)
Further down the east coast and around the tip of Florida sits Biscayne National Park in the Florida Keys.
The Florida Keys is a series of gorgeous islands and land masses connected with one major road down from the mainland. As you work your way down, there is so much natural beauty to enjoy.
One of the focal points along the way is Biscayne National Park. There are not many areas where you can see a large city and also have the natural features such as this park. With downtown Miami off in the distance, you can pitch a tent and enjoy southern Florida life all in one location.
There are two campgrounds in the park, but both are on individual keys and have to be accessed by boats.
Badlands National Park is a great location for backpacking and seeing incredible views like this.
In order to make the Top U.S. Camping Spots list complete, we need an entry or two in the midwest. One of the most impressive of which is Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This is a large park that harbors incredible views and hiking opportunities.
In terms of camping, there are two campgrounds on the property and one of them is only accessible through the backcountry. So, if you would like to do some backpacking, you are covered in areas that cannot be reached by RV travellers and others.
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has three drive-in campgrounds. (photo credit: Tim Trombley)
Michigan is a very underrated destination when it comes to natural beauty. However, it’s home to the beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Here, there are three picture-esque campgrounds that are actually drive-in sites. This means that you pull your vehicle into a spot and enjoy the park.
Between the three campgrounds, there are a total of 65 sites and each one requires a reservation to secure the spot. The gorgeous rocks pictured above are only a short paddle or boat ride away.
Although these are several of the top locations to camp in the United States, this really only scratches the surface as to what there is to explore. However, this is a great starting point.
Each of these locations brings something unique to the table, and camping on-site puts you in the very best position for enjoying it all fully, whether solo camping or with friends and family.
Enjoy these best locations to camp in the United States! Good luck, and happy camping.
People interested in managing their land for wildlife are continually seeking better and more efficient ways to improve the habitat so it can support more and healthier animals, particularly deer.
As is so often the case, nature has already figured out the best ways – sometimes it just takes us a while to recognize them.
Let me give you an example.
Hardwoods: Then And Now
Deer hunters head to the woods for many reasons, not the least of which is escape. And most of us, at one time or another, have lamented that perhaps we were born a century or two too late.
As we slip through the local woodlot, which is little more than a vestige of days gone by, we wonder what it must have been like before men and metal changed the landscape.
The American chestnut, prior to the blight that nearly wiped them out.
The first Europeans that set foot in the New World, and those that followed for several centuries found a forest that, rather than being patchily distributed on the landscape, stretched on unending for miles.
Canopy openings that allowed sunlight to reach the forest floor nurturing small glades were sparse, and usually caused by natural events.
The understory beneath ancient towering hardwoods was much more open as less sunlight could reach the forest floor during growing season.
But, the biggest difference might well be what covered the ground after the growing season ceased.
Rather than the carpet of acorns we’re now accustomed to seeing in the fall, the forest floor of 120 years ago would have been littered with green pods that more resemble some spiny sea creature or alien spawn than the fruit of a plant. Inside each, one would find several chocolate-hued nuts.
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Chestnut Trees – King of the Forest
Prior to the turn of the previous century, and for millennia before, American chestnuts (Castanea dentata) dominated the eastern hardwood forests of North America. They could grow as tall as a 12 story building and as wider than two men could reach around.
The nuts they dropped in
voluminous quantities were a vital food source for countless wildlife species,
and later for humans, who could shovel up bushel baskets full of them in short
order.
But, in roughly 30 years, the American chestnuts were wiped out by a blight.
Oaks ultimately filled the empty ecological niche once occupied by chestnuts, dominating the overstory and providing an abundant source of hard mast.
A 20-year-old chestnut can produce as much as 20 pounds of mast per year. On a per acre basis, that’s as many carbohydrates as corn, but without all the labor and expense of replanting every year.
Research has even shown that whitetails prefer acorns over just about any other widely occurring natural food.
The deer don’t know the difference, but as you’ll soon learn, this stand-in source of mast doesn’t quite stand up to their forerunners.
Fortunately, like healthy seedlings of the once mighty chestnut, hope springs eternal.
In the early 1950s, James Carpentar discovered, in the state of Ohio, an American chesnut that appeared to be resistant to blight. It was large and very healthy.
So, Carpentar budwood from that tree to a well-known plant breeder in the state of North Carolina named Dr. Robert T. Dunstan. Dr. Dunstan began grafting, and later cross-pollinating, American grafts with a mixture USDA-released Chinese chestnuts.
Are acorns really a whitetail deer’s favorite? Keep reading!
After selecting individuals with the best hybrid characteristics, Dr. Dunstan crossed them back to both the American and Chinese parent trees, creating the Dunstan chestnut, a breed with the optimal combination of blight resistance and production of large, high quality nuts.
Today, Dr. Dunstan’s great grandson, Iain Wallace grows Dunstan chestnuts as well as a variety of other mast trees and shrubs at the family’s Chestnut Hill Orchards in Alachua, Florida.
The business started largely as a commercial chestnut orchard.
“Until fairly recently, most of the millions of dollars worth of chestnuts sold each year were imported because there were no commercial orchards in the U.S.,” said Iain’s father, Robert Wallace.
He further elaborated that one of his biggest problems for commercial orchardists is deer eating the nuts before they can be collected. However, the elder Wallace quickly recognized it not as a problem, but an opportunity.
With help from friends in the outdoor industry, Chestnut Hill Orchards formed Chestnut Hill Outdoors as a subsidiary to market and sell trees to people interested in planting them to attract and feed wildlife.
When compared side-by-side, the nutritional value of the chestnut dwarfs the acorn.
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03/06/2024 03:11 pm GMT
The Chestnut… A Better Nut
Trying to compete with the mighty oak might seem a particularly risky business venture, until you learn about the chestnut’s nutritional superiority.
Chestnuts contain 4 times the amount of carbohydrates that a white oak acorn possesses. And, it has 2.5 times the amount of protein while only having a fraction of the fat found in acorns.
Chestnuts also have less tannins, making them a much sweeter, and thus more palatable (no-one ever wrote songs about acorns roasting on an open fire).
And though chestnuts have not been present on the land for more than 100 years, the ability to instantly recognize their nutritional superiority and palatability is still permanently encoded into the deer’s DNA.
They know a good thing when they smell, and taste it.
There are other advantages chestnuts hold over other mast trees that might be of particular interest to those looking to plant wildlife mast orchards.
Chestnut trees grow faster and bigger, sometimes bearing mast in as little as two to five years. A white oak, by comparison, might not bear acorns for 20 year.
Eventually, chestnuts can grow a dozen stories tall, becoming prolific producers of the caloric carbs wildlife like deer are so dependent on for their winter survival.
They also lack the bumper crop and bust that tend to be more common with oak trees. Chestnuts bloom later in the Spring as well, which makes them much less susceptible to severe mast crop failures that can be caused by late freezes.
Before we go further we should probably back up momentarily as some readers are probably wondering why you would plant trees instead of just building food plots like everybody else.
Regardless of what you plant, your goal should be not just to attract animals like deer during a particular part of the year (hunting season), but to hold them there as close to year-round as possible.
Because the more time they spend on your property, the more comfortable and habituated they become. And the best way to do that is by providing the optimal year-round habitat, the components of which include food, cover and water.
Building and maintaining food plots with annual or perennial herbaceous crops is a very popular way to increase available nutrition for wildlife, but can result in nutritional gaps during certain parts of the year. It can also be costly and labor intensive, particularly with annual crops that must be planted every year.
Mast orchards, like chestnut trees, help provide year-round nutrition for the herd and produce year-after year.
Your property will be far more attractive to, and beneficial for wildlife if you can strive to keep fresh food sources available for as long as possible throughout the year.
Mast orchards represent an alternative or complement to your food plots, and after the initial investment and establishment, will provide increasingly more food indefinitely, and with a great deal less cost and effort compared to food plots or even feeders.
They also provide a means for landowners to fill potential nutritional gaps, ensuring there is plenty of the right food throughout the year.
As previously noted, chestnuts offer several advantages over other hard mast sources by growing faster and larger, bearing fruit at a younger age and providing a more nutritious nut.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plant other species, like varieties of red and white oak. Variety is the spice of wildlife, and the more you provide in the way of food, the more attractive and productive your land will be. But don’t stop there.
All too often, landowner’s focus on fall foods and forget about the rest of the year.
As previously alluded to, the more deer and other species are present on your property in the spring, summer and winter, the more likely they’ll be there in the fall.
Visitors become residents as feeding areas become home ranges, and home ranges become core areas. And it shouldn’t be just about deer either.
You can further fill the void with species like grapes, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries, at the same time attracting a broader spectrum of upland game and game bird species, not to mention non-game animals.
Again, you improve the habit quality over a wider time span by providing greater variety of soft and hard mast plant species, particularly those that help fill gaps in the nutritional calendar.
For example, plums provide fruit as early as May and June in southern regions, and a little later further north.
Pears, which ripen from mid to late July through August, depending on variety and location, can fill the next gap as herbaceous plants mature and lose palatability but hard mast has yet to fall.
Which Trees Should You Plant?
Next on the nutritional calendar come things like apples and persimmons, the latter of which come in early-drop and late-drop varieties and are an incredibly powerful deer attractant, particularly during ear to mid-autumn archery seasons.
By then, hard mast should start dropping and, if you’ve planted enough variety, will continue providing fall attractant and winter survival food at least through the end of the calendar year, and quite possibly through the winter.
Planting soft mast species like persimmons widens the window of attractiveness your property provides for wildlife. Persimmons are a prized treat for whitetail deer. (photo: Bob Humphrey)
Now that you have an idea of the types of mast-producers you’d like to plant, you need to select a variety of species from each group.
Chestnut Hill Outdoors offers an array of both soft and hard mast producers in several different size containers.
Furthermore, they will help you select the optimal varieties for your specific site conditions, including landscape level variables like plant hardiness zones and regional climate as well as local variables like slope, aspect and soil type and moisture regimes.
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And, they don’t stop there. In order to ensure you receive the maximum benefit from their products, the Chestnut Hill Outdoors staff also provide sound advice and instruction on proper site selection, planting and care.
They even continue seeking more effective and efficient ways to get products to their customers.
Planting larger, and thus older trees helps shorten the waiting period until your mast orchards produce fruit, but large trees can be expensive to ship.
That’s why Chestnut Hill Outdoors teamed up with Walmart to provide a more convenient and economical distribution hub for larger trees.
They now ship Dunstan Chestnuts and other mast orchard species to Walmart retail locations across the eastern U.S. And they are scheduled to arrive at the optimal time for planting in different regions.
When it comes to planting mast orchards for wildlife, about the only down side is that it will take a few years before you begin realizing the benefits of your investment.
The upside is that with little or no additional input from you, your initial investment will continue paying benefits indefinitely.
Short of buying land, it’s one of the soundest long-term investments you can make for yours and future generations of people who appreciate and enjoy wildlife.
For more on Chestnut Hill Outdoors products and how to care for them, visit www.ChestnutHillOutdoors.com, or call (855) 386-7826.
Bob Humphrey. You can learn more about Bob at BobHumphrey.com
Tooth of the Arrow broadheads have been around for while, but I was intrigued and finally got my hands one so I could test it.
Now, Tooth of the Arrow is certainly a cool name for a broadhead, but the company also has a great perk. They are so confident that you’ll like their broadheads, that they advertise that you can get a free sample.
Now that’s guaranteed satisfaction!
Tooth of the Arrow is so sure you’ll like their broadheads that they’ll give you a free sample. Wow!
You can jump straight to the testing of the Tooth Of The Arrow heads by clicking the links below:
The Tooth of the Arrow broadhead is a 4-blade head that is similar to a Slick Trick head.
Each of the blades are exactly the same cutting diameter, so it’s a true 4-blade head. It’s a little bit bigger than a Slick Trick Magnum. But, rather than being 1 and 1/8-inch cutting diameter like the Slick Trick Magnum, this is 1 and 3/16 cutting diameter. So, it makes a little bit wider hole.
For the testing, I shot 450-grain Bishop mammoth arrows, using my Bowtech SR6 which is a 27 inches and 72 pounds.
What makes this head unique is that this is machined out of a single chunk of high-carbon steel. So, there are no blades to be replaced. It’s just one solid chunk.
So, as a negative, you can’t just replace the blades and put in new sharp ones. As a positive way, it’s a pretty stout, strong design. And, with it being such high-carbon steel, it’s not too difficult to sharpen. So, it’s intriguing to see this.
The Tooth of the Arrow XL is a 4-blade head that is machined out of a single chunk of high carbon steel.
I’ve spun these heads and they spin very true. They also fly well for me. I’ve not tested them at super long ranges but they do – well, I think through a well-tuned bow, they should fly well at longer ranges.
I’d heard really good things about the smaller, standard head.
But, I’ll start off by testing the XL, which intrigued me the most because I just like to make a big hole if I can! I was excited to see how it performed.
So let’s see how the Tooth of the Arrow XL did. (Further down I’ll do a head-to-head battle between the XL and the original, so check that out as well!
Below I test the Tooth Of The Arrow vented broadheads.
I shot it into my broadhead box where I’ve got four layers of MDF and they’re half inch each, and two of those layers have a rubber foam layer in front to simulate hide and a little bit of soft tissue there in the beginning and the end.
Penetration wise, the XL did just about like most of the heads I’ve tested. It went well into the second layer of MDF. So, it went through that initial rubber foam mat and then through the first layer and then it almost buried the blades all the way into the second layer. You can see it protruding out, bulging out the backend there. It didn’t actually breakthrough the blade but it pushed the board out there just quite a bit.
OK, it’s 1 and 3/16 this way, 1 and 3/16 this way. So it’s a total of 2.75 inches of tissue being cut. Comparatively, the QAD Exodus has a total tissue cut of 1.875. So, with the 3 blades of an Exodus and 1 and 1/4 inch cut, it’s 1.875 total tissue being cut, whereas, with the Tooth of the Arrow here in their XL model, it’s 2.75. So, it penetrated just about as well the Exodus, and better than the other heads that I’ve tested so far and yet the total cut is about an inch more than most of those heads. So that’s pretty remarkable.
If we examine the head after it went through the wood, it held up extremely well. The blades are in great shape. They are still remarkably sharp. They bite into my nail. It doesn’t look like they were dulled at all. Now, I should add as well that because it’s 4 blades and two blades covers a diameter of 1 and 3/16 inches, that means the total tissue being cut is 2.75 inches.
Next, I shot it at a 1/2-inch MDF board at a 45-degrree angle to see how it would do through that.
Here is the head sticking out just as it went into the Rinehart target behind it. It protruded that far, which is very similar to the SIK F4 that I tested a while ago. You can see that in a video. However again, this has about almost 1 inch more cut than the SIK F4. So to penetrate that well, again, is pretty impressive and the blades are extremely sharp. There’s no nicks. Looking really good.
I shot the Tooth Of The Arrow head into a 22-gauge steel plate to see how it would fare.
Look at the hole that this thing made. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with that. It’s like a giant square was cut out of the steel. I’ve never seen anything like this.What a hole!
The blades still look pristine. They are in very, very good shape. There are no nicks. They still cut into my thumbnail. Really good. Impressive.
Cinder Block Test
The cinder block is the final test that I do with the fixed-blade heads.
I don’t do this test or the steel plate test typically with the mechanical heads, but when you’re using a fixed head, you’re typically doing so because you really want to have some structural integrity and blade strength that’s above and beyond what a mechanical can do.
So, I just like to test the limits. Not many heads hold together after hitting the cinder block. A lot of them take chunks out, but then just kind of bend or fall apart. Very few heads hold together. There have only been a few that have made it. Let’s see how the Tooth of the Arrow did.
Here’s the chunk that it took out of the cinder block. A finger goes right into it. And then if you look at the head itself, it did remarkably well, completely holding together. The nose got covered in concrete and got a bit nicked up there from the concrete.
I would say this head is amongst the top few in terms of structural integrity that I’ve tested. It’s right up there with theQAD Exodus and the Muzzy Trocar and the Trophy Taker A-TAC.
Comparing the Tooth of the Arrow Original to the XL [Broadhead Battle!]
I wanted to compare the Tooth of the Arrow Original vs the XL version.
Now, I’ve done this in some other instances, like with the Magnus, where I tested the Stinger compared Black Hornet. And in this case, I tested the two models of Tooth of the Arrow broadheads.
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03/07/2024 03:35 pm GMT
The Tooth of the Arrow broadheads are 100% made in the USA.
I tested these heads for long distance flight (I was able to pop a balloon at 80 yards) and I’m going to test them for edge sharpness and retention, for penetration, and for durability.
Let’s see which one prevails!
On the right is the Tooth Of The Arrow Original, and on the left is the XL. These are the 125-grain models of these heads. The Original is 1-inch, while the XL is 1-3/16 inches. They are machined from a solid bar of 11L41 steel, so a high carbon steel. They’re brought to a Rockwell hardness of 45. As you can see, they are plated with a black oxide to cut down on glare in the field.
With the Tooth of the Arrow Original, more than 85% of the weight is kept within the diameter of the arrow shaft. That’s going to really help in long range flight and spinning. With the XL head, more than 80% of the weight is kept within the diameter of the arrow shaft.
I tested the Tooth of the Arrow broadheads for out-of-the-box sharpness. The purpose is to see if they can still cut paper after a stroke of a carbon arrow shaft. Because both the Original and the XL have the same blades, I only tested one of the heads.
I gave the broadhead arrow shaft strokes to see how well it would maintain its sharpness.
The Tooth of the Arrow broadhead was able to cut paper still after 5 strokes of the arrow.
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03/07/2024 08:41 am GMT
Penetration comparison
I tested the Tooth of the Arrow Original and the XL for penetration. My medium was ballistic gel that was fronted with a rubber mad and 1/2″ MDF board.
The XL penetrated 8 inches. Tooth of the Arrow Original penetrated 9 inches.
Durability comparison
I shot both heads into a 22-gauge steel plate 5 times to test the durability. Check out the holes these heads made in the steel plate!
The holes themselves are really what sets the Tooth of the Arrow apart. OK. Here you can see the holes from the XL. OK. They are just bit squares. They are not just like four crosses or two crosses, four little slits. They are true squares!
Here is the Original, the 1 inch. So the 1 inch, the 1 3/16 inch, and you can see even with that, it’s just a nice chunk of a hole.
In the steel plate test, there are very heads that are able to punch a chunk out like that. The Exodus does it in a triangular shape. And, as you can see here, the Tooth of the Arrow does it extremely well in a 4-blade shape. So that’s going to be a really difficult hole to close up in an animal.
You can only see on one of the XL blades a little bit of cosmetic marking. I don’t even know if you can pick that up in the picture below. It’s very hard to see.
These heads have extremely impressive durability. Some of the very best that I’ve tested.
Here are the heads after they’ve gone through the 22-gauge steel plate 5 times. And as you can see, they look brand new. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to tell that these were even shot at all, let alone shot through the steel plate as well as in the penetration test through the MDF. Really impressive durability and edge retention through that really hard medium.
Now, I have heard some reports of people shooting them and hitting them into a big heavy bone and one of the blades bending or shearing off. That can happen with any broadhead.
There are all kinds of crazy things that can happen in the field as you hit heavy bone at different angles. But through the steel plate as you can see in the picture below, they faired extremely well.
Let’s look at these heads and see how they did after being shot into the cinder block.
The cinder block didn’t fare too well!
Here’s the Tooth of the Arrow after going into that center block and busting it apart. It’s just in incredible shape. It spins perfectly true. The tip is still super pointy and didn’t bend over at all. The blades are in great shape. They only got a just a little bit nicked up on the top of each blade, but they could be sharpened again.
I spent about 5 minutes touching these blades up just to show how easy it is to do it. And I understand they have a sharpener that you can purchase on their website. I don’t have one of those. But, honestly, I do really well with just a little sharpener. This is the thing that I use. It fits in there perfectly.
This sharpener is from a Spyderco, but you can use any brand. This is like a little file. I just sharpen the blades individually, about 10 strokes on each blade. And, then on the tip, I just use the same thing but I just use it flat ways to cover both blades at once. I don’t know if you’re supposed to do that but it sure worked well for me.And this head, it’s now like shaving nail. I mean it’s just like it was. The tip was super sharp. And this is right after going into that concrete block.
Final Thoughts On The Tooth Of The Arrow Vented Broadheads
So, what do you think of this broadhead battle, the Original versus the XL?
In terms of penetration, the Original penetrated much more deeply. But, in terms of hole size, man, the XL really ruled in that department, though both of them really made a nice square hole in the mediums that I shot them through.
In terms of which one is the winner, really, it’s a toss-up. I have to call it a tie. I hate to do that. But, this really is a draw. It just depends on your personal setup and what you’re hunting.
If you’re going after a really big animal where penetration is the most important thing then man, the Original is the way to go. If you have a lighter setup and you’re concerned about your penetration, then the Original is the way to go.
If you are going after a really long range shot like a pronghorn or something like that that you’re going beyond 60 yards, then the Original is the way to go.
But, if you are going for a shot under 60 yards and you really want to make a nice big hole and you have the kinetic energy to drive it through, (and honestly, it really doesn’t take that much kinetic energy to drive it through), then man, the XL is the way to go. For whitetail and hog shots under 50, 60 yards, I would definitely choose this one.
What I think is the best combination is to have a few of both in your quiver. If a shot is going to be longer, then you pull out the original. If the shot is going to be shorter, use the XL. And that way, you’re ready for any situation, and honestly, any animal as well.
Below I will test the solid version of the Tooth Of The Arrow broadheads…
Originally, Tooth of the Arrow only made the 100-grain and 125-grain in a vented version.
But they also have a solid, non-vented version in 100-grain and 125-grain.
Interesting Ferrule Design On the Solid Version
So let’s zoom on in here and let’s check out this new Tooth of the Arrows Solids.
Here’s a good look at the Tooth of the Arrows Solid in the 100 grains. Just like the vented version, it’s machined out of a single bar of steel, brought to a Rockwell hardness of 40-45.
What’s interesting in this solid model is that most of the specifications are exactly the same as the vented model.
The overall length is the same, 0.77 inch, making them to my knowledge the shortest single piece for blade steel broadhead that there is, which is just going to aid in flight.
The blades are also the same thickness as the vented model. They are 0.040 inch thick. The blade angle is the same at 45-degree blade angle to maximize the penetration.
And so, the same short profile, the same cut size of 1 inch, and 2 inches of total cut.
So, many things about the solid are the same as the vented model. But, what’s different is they’ve taken up the weight from the ferrule itself on the solid version.They’ve taken some grooves out of the ferrule and that’s all that has made the extra weight. So, that is really interesting.
Here’s the 125-grain model vs. the 100 grain, and you can see that everything is exactly the same as the vented, same as the 100-grain, but they’ve taken a smaller scoop out of the ferrule to make up for the weight. So with the 100-grain, they’ve taken a little bit bigger scoop and you can compare right down. You see the line of the scoops, you can see. So the 100-grain, they just took a bigger scoop. Other than that, they are exactly the same.
Why A Solid?
So, why come out with a non-vented blade, a solid blade?
Well, many people prefer solid blades over vented blades because they do have some advantages.
One of the advantages is less noise in flight than with vented brodadheads. You have air passing through that hole and it can make whistling or a wheezing sound as it rotates and flies at really high speeds.
In addition, a solid can be more durable because there’s not that venting that creates a thin area in the blade that could be more prone to bending or breaking than a solid one. So, that’s the primary reason for doing it.
But, I wondered how it would affect flight and penetration?
In some ways, you might think, “Well, it’s going to fly better, because with these grooves, it’s going to be more aerodynamic in flight.” But, the opposite side of that is, “well, there’s more exposed surface blade than there was in the original, because so much of that blade was covered by the ferrule.”
So, I was curious to see what the flight would be like.
And, same with the penetration. On the one hand, I can say, “well, with this groove, it might penetrate better.”
But, on the other side of that, I go, “well, I’ve noticed that there’s a really thick ferrule. It often opens up a hole for the shaft to just glide through really easily, and those broadheads penetrate more effectively than the ones with a smaller ferrule.”
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Penetration Test 1 Of The Solid:
The 100-grain solid penetrated 7-5/8 inches and the 125-grain solid penetrated 8 inches. And, the 125-grain vented penetrated 8-1/4 inches.
Edge Retention Test: (sharpness after Penetration Test 1) Of Solid
Sharpness after ballistic gel penetration test: 300
Penetration Test 2 Of Solid: (layered cardboard)
The 100-grain solid penetrated through 72 layers. The 125-grain solid penetrated through 69 layers. The 125-grain vented penetrated through 73 layers.
Durability Test Of Solid: (22 gauge steel plate, max 2 shots)
Here, you can see the 100-grain solid after going through the MDF 3 times and the steel plate 2 times And, I’m only testing the durability of the 100-grain, because if anything, that’s going to be the weaker one and really everything else is virtually identical for these durability tests. But here, you can see it looks pristine. I mean, it almost looks brand new, even after going through the steel plate twice. And you look at these holes and they are the classic Tooth of the Arrow squared chunk holes, not just a little round hole with 4 slits coming out of it like you see in many 4-blade heads.
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Durability Test of Solid: (Concrete Block)
Here’s the head after impacting the concrete. And, as you can see, it held up really well. There was a slight wobble to it, but that could just be the concrete that got fused to it as well. Really impressive durability.
Final Thoughts On Tooth Of The Arrow Solid Broadhead
The solid is going to be a little bit quieter in flight than the vented version and I think the blades are going to be a little bit more durable, because they have that extra support.
However, I think maybe the vented models are going to penetrate just a little bit better and you saw that in the testing. And, I think they might be a little bit more forgiving in really long range flight.
But again, that may be all within the margin of error.
There may not be differences at all in those areas because I think all of them, both the vented, the non-vented are really durable. They fly really well and they penetrate really well.
