Tom Claycomb shares how easy it is to sharpen your own broadheads at home with just a few tools.

How to Sharpen Broadheads – by Tom Claycomb

As hunters, it is only ethical to hunt with razor sharp broadheads, but misses do happen and that broadhead may have hit a rock, stump or bone. It gets expensive to buy new broadheads every time this occurs.

Are we in a dilemma? No, not really. You just need to learn how to sharpen your broadheads.

Years ago, it was tough to match the factory angle on some of the broadheads, but on the 3-bladed ones that I buy now, if laid flat on a stone, it matches the factory angle. This greatly simplifies things.

I conduct a lot of Knife Sharpening/Choosing the Proper Knife seminars and in those also cover how to sharpen your broadheads. First, to help stabilize your broadhead while sharpening it, grab a broken arrow next time you’re at a 3D shoot and cut it down to 10-14 inches long with a hacksaw. Then, screw it into your broadhead to help stabilize it while sharpening.

If the broadhead is really dinged up from hitting a rock, begin the process on a Smith’s fine diamond stone. In the old days I’d rub it a few times, flip sides and repeat. Then one day it hit me. We don’t do that while sharpening a knife do we? No, we do three strokes on each side or we get an out of whack angle. Today I recommend counting and doing an exact number of strokes on each side, rotate and repeat. This will produce a sharper blade, plus theoretically, it should keep the broadhead balanced so it flies truer.

When you get down past the nick or straighten out the mushroomed edges, then go to a smooth Arkansas stone. Repeat until sharp. You can have someone hold a sheet of paper and shove the broadhead through to test the sharpness.

If there is still a nick on the edge, it will hang on the paper. It is not really dull, the nick just catches. The same situation applies when sharpening your knife. You think your knife is dull but it is just a nick catching the paper as you slice it. And therein lies the problem. You don’t want your broadhead catching or ripping. As a side note, Smith’s Consumer Products also makes Mechanical Broadhead Sharpening System.

After reading all this, I wish I could tell you that one sharpening system works for all of your broadhead sharpening needs, but each type of broadhead is different, so you’ll need to experiment.

And lastly, it is all in vain to sharpen your broadhead if you don’t take care of them properly during storage. Avoid throwing them all together where they’ll bang around and get re-dulled. I have a WASP broadhead carrying case that I use to transport my broadheads to protect them.