Even if you don't get a pass through with a rib shot, there's a better chance the arrow will get pulled out of the hole than if it's stuck in the bone and meat of the shoulder. Either the deer will pull it with it's mouth, or better yet get snapped off an the remaining piece will do some serious damage inside the soft body cavity from all the movement as the deer runs off. Both should provide better blood.
I've never taken a deer with a selfbow. Prior to my enlightenment in the traditional ways, all of my wheelie bow victims died from pass through shots in the rib cage. It was hard to tell if they were even slowed down by it, and still made it another foot into the dirt on the other side. The force that remained in the arrows even after hitting two sets of ribs leads me to believe my selfbow would do the same, within a much shorter effective range of course. I get almost the same penetration into my foam targets from either bow at close range, almost.
Now I'm wondering if there's any benefit to punching through all the nodes on the inside of a boo hunting shaft. A completely hollow tube stuck in the wound would bleed more than a solid one I would think, at least in theory.
