First, I'll need to make some bamboo arrows to compare them to. I'll tell you this. They're a heckuva lot better than Port Orford Cedar. More work, but worth every second. I couldn't tell you about the weight as I don't have a grain scale. They fly fast and straight. As fast or faster than POC. And more rugged than POC. Those three group tight together. Like, at 10 feet, all three grouping together within an inch or less. Often, two almost touching and the third 1/2 inch from the other two. While the POC I had were ok, but not like that. Stepping back to about 25 feet, I could see that these arrows fly straight and fast and hitting right on target. They hit HARD. The POC would go "thwap, thwap" into the portable bale we use. While these shoot arrows go "POK! POK!" That's because I barreled and tapered these.
See, I kinda cheated on these. I used glue on 145 grain field points because these are for targets. So, the point ends were about 1/2" to 3/8" wide on the raw shaft after stripping bark and a quick sanding. I tapered the ends starting at 5 inches behind the point end; just enough to get the taper tool over the end and far enough to shave the taper on. I used a thumb plane and sandpaper to accomplish that. So, the shaft is barreled. It's naturally tapered at the nock and I took advantage of that. But what I did not do was create a parallel shaft. I made a barreled shaft, tapered at the end to accept an 11/32" field point. I used 5-1/2" banana fletching, offset.
I would not hesitate for a second to use sourwood shoots to make hunting arrows. I have a weird theory that most Native American bows ranged between 40 and 60 pounds on average and that the traditional shoots used for arrows---sourwood, red osier, etc.---are the perfect spine for these bows at the growing cycle where they're thick enough to make proper arrows.
