Huh? I've never broken a blade on a Havalon, where did you read that?
TRUE STORY: One thing I did have occur which I still can't figure out though... it was on the 2nd deer... don't remember which tendon it was but at some point my knifes blade had gotten stuck/caught in the area I was working in... and when I went to pull the knife back out of that area... the blade had popped off the knife... and somehow... and I still can't figure out how this happened... but... this remaining piece of STILL-CONNECTED Tendon... somehow magically was going thru the install slot on the blade!!!! And the tendon WAS NOT cut!!!?? Still connected... at both ends!!?
I musta sat there for 3 minutes trying to figure and envision how in the hell that was even possible for it to happen. I mean... it happened... it was right there in front of me... and I figure it was like some kinda flukey thing where a looping of the tendon must have somehow done something only magicians know how to do with ropes and practice. But.. it was hot, so I had to just go "Wow, What the??? How could it have??? Whoa... Meh... oh well." and take out another blade and keep going.
RE: don't pry... I watched countless example videos about how you're supposed to cut at the Atlas bone. But the blade was having a darn hard time getting down into and between the side notches on the vertebrae. I supposed It's possible I actually was getting into the right area?, and just didn't realize that you'll still have to use a bit of force and rotate the cranium quite a bit until it finally rips that joint maybe? Hopefully I can try again this year!
If you happen to come across a vid where someone is doing it with a Havalon and it's easy to see how they're doing it, by all means slide it my way. I'm sure there's just some minor trick to doing it I've not keyed in on yet is all.