Methods · PCA 2026 Archery Sound Lab

Quiet vs. Loud — Broadhead & Vane Sound Rankings

A 15 dB spread separates the quietest broadhead from the loudest in the PCA 2026 Arrow Ballistics Study. That’s nearly 3× louder, deer-weighted. Pick your components knowing what they cost in stealth.

Why this matters

Deer hear most strongly in the 8–16 kHz band — the same band where broadhead-spin whistle and vane flutter live. A-weighted (human-perceived) dB readings underweight that band by 5–7 dB, which is why a head that sounds “not that bad” to your ear can be very loud to a whitetail. The deer-weighted Lmax column is the relevant number for hunting.

The dataset below is from PCA’s 2026 Archery Sound Lab — a Class-1 Earthworks M30 mic at 1m, anechoic chamber, 5 valid shots per build, 80 dB resolution. Every broadhead arrow used the same baseline build (Easton Axis shaft, AAE Max Stealth 3-fletch, Bitzenburger 2° right helical), so the only variable is the head.

♥ Quietest broadheads tested

Sorted by deer-weighted Lmax (dB at 1m). The top three are within 0.4 dB of each other — effectively a three-way tie.

Broadhead	Deer Lmax	Human (A)	Type
Gold Tip EZ Pull 100gr (field point baseline)	55.3	55.8	field
G5 Montec M3 100gr	56.1	56.5	fixed
QAD Exodus Full Blade 100gr	56.3	55.6	fixed
Toulou 100gr (PCA ‘quiet’ reference)	56.5	56.6	fixed
Evolution Whitetail Fury 100gr	57.2	56.9	mech
SEVR 1.5 100gr	57.3	57.0	mech
SEVR Hybrid 1.5 100gr	57.5	56.9	mech
SEVR 2.0 100gr	57.7	57.0	mech

All ratings are at 1m mic distance, 5-shot Lmax mean, on the same baseline build (Easton Axis + AAE Max Stealth 3-fletch + 2° right helical). Quiet tier in the Forge = deer-weighted Lmax ≤ 57.5 dB.

⚠ Loudest broadheads tested

Sorted by deer-weighted Lmax (dB at 1m). Anything above 65 dB on this list is “you can hear the difference at 30 yards on a still day” loud.

Broadhead	Deer Lmax	Human (A)	Type
Iron Will Vented 100gr	70.1	68.1	fixed
Iron Will Wide 100gr	68.3	65.8	fixed
Slick Trick Standard 4 Blade 100gr	67.0	60.0	fixed
Iron Will S100 100gr	66.6	62.6	fixed
Evolution Jekyll WYDE 110gr	65.6	63.3	fixed
G5 Megameat 100gr	63.9	62.2	mech
Muzzy Trocar 3 Blade 100gr	63.4	58.4	fixed
Speed Titanium 100gr	62.5	60.9	mech
Evolution Jekyll 100gr	62.1	60.5	fixed

Loud tier in the Forge = deer-weighted Lmax > 62 dB. Note the Iron Will Wide and Vented both show big A-weighting gaps — the head sounds dramatically louder to a deer than to you.

♥⚠ Vanes: the quietest and loudest tested

PCA tested ~30 vanes; the two extremes were the Flex Fletch FFP-360 (quietest) and Flex Fletch SK2 (loudest). The spread between them with a field point was about 10.5 dB deer-weighted — effectively double the perceived loudness.

Vane	Sound tier	Notes
Flex Fletch FFP-360	♥ Quietest tested	~51.7 dB deer w/ field point. Standard airfoil, designed for low spin-whistle.
AAE Max Stealth 2.7"	Mid	The Forge default / Bitzenburger 2° baseline. Mid-tier sound profile.
Flex Fletch SK2	⚠ Loudest tested	~62.2 dB deer w/ field point. Low-profile, high-RPS — the spin generates more high-frequency energy.

How the vane and broadhead combine

From PCA’s vane × broadhead module: broadhead noise stacks on top of vane noise. It doesn’t override it.

FFP-360 + field point = 51.7 dB. FFP-360 + Slick Trick = 66.3 dB. SK2 + Toulou = 62.4 dB. SK2 + Iron Will Vented = ~70 dB. Pick a quiet vane and you get ~10 dB of headroom; pair it with a quiet head and you stay in the 50s; pair it with a loud head and you’re in the 60s no matter what.

What the Forge does with this

In the Wind-Drift Visualizer and the Tune Wizard, when you pick a broadhead the Forge tags it inline:

• ♥ quiet (X dB) next to anything in the quiet tier (≤ 57.5 dB deer-weighted)
• ⚠ loud (X dB) next to anything in the loud tier (> 62 dB)
• Mid-tier shows the dB value without a flag
• Heads PCA didn’t test show no sound info — the Forge won’t fabricate one

You decide. Most setups don’t fail because of sound — they fail because of tune-quality or wind read. But if you’re hunting from a stand at 25 yards with a wired deer, the difference between 56 dB and 68 dB is the difference between “arrow lands” and “deer hears it leaving the bow.”