I've tried a lot of different things for making arrows, some work well, others don't. Off the top of my head some things I've used/tried: Split timber shafts from white ash, white pine, tulip poplar; ramin, poplar, and birch dowels; shoot shafts from river cane, switch cane, Japanese arrow bamboo, sourwood, arrowwood viburnum, black haw viburnum, witherod viburnum, hazlenut, sweetshrub, buffalo nut, silky dogwood, redosier dogwood, chinese privet, bush honeysuckle, horseweed, Heptacodium, serviceberry, red maple, black locust, white ash, hickory, autumn olive, fraser magnolia, multiflora rose, swamp rose, and probably a few other things that I can't think of at the moment. My favorites from those would be switch cane, sourwood, buffalo nut, white pine, and arrowwood viburnum.