Author Topic: What do you use as arrows?  (Read 15214 times)

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Offline Cromm

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What do you use as arrows?
« on: November 16, 2007, 10:02:25 am »
Hi, I'm writing an item for my club on what wood people use for their arrows. If you have the time can you put down what you use and why? IT would really help if you can say where you're from too! Thanks for your time.  ;D ;D
Great Britain.
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Offline DanaM

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2007, 11:27:46 am »
So far I have used Sitka spruce store bought, red osier shoots, white ash from lumber, tonkin cane that bob sent me, and a few wild rose shoots.
"Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things."

Manistique, MI

Offline Hillbilly

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2007, 11:32:40 am »
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.
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jamie

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2007, 11:38:54 am »
i prefer white ash split shafts over anything. also native to my area and easy to make under most conditions.

Offline stiknstring

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2007, 04:29:11 pm »
POC for me until recently...

finishing up some poplar shafts soon
collecting osier this weekend as well so that I have some projects for the winter

Offline Kegan

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2007, 06:57:14 pm »
Sourwood for me, though I have a few ideas I try every once in a while. Over here in SW Pennsylvania we have a decent stock of sourwood, and they usually last me until the new shoots grow big enough to replace them ;).

Offline mullet

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2007, 07:46:41 pm »
  It's Bamboo and Cane for me.That's about all I've been using.
Lakeland, Florida
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Offline Justin Snyder

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2007, 09:37:33 pm »
I can see I need to send Steve some salt cedar. He has tried everything else on the face of the earth.  ;) 
In shoots I have used salt cedar, buffalo nut, cane, sourwood, dogwood, and something else that I'm not even sure what it is.  ;D
I have bought a few sitka spruce shafts and made a few hickory, maple, and laminated shafts.  Justin
Everything happens for a reason, sometimes the reason is you made a bad decision.


SW Utah

Offline George Tsoukalas

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2007, 01:25:19 pm »
Hand planed white pine and poplar are my favorites. I also use hardwood shoots. Jawge
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CHUCKER

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2007, 01:55:51 pm »
White ash & maple, be tring some dog wood soon.

Offline billy

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #10 on: November 20, 2007, 02:06:06 pm »
I live In GA and I use rivercane exclusively for my hunting arrows.  I like it because it requires no reduction in thickness, it is hard, and it stays straight.  I prefer dogwood or oak shoots for my foreshafts.  I've also made arrows from Giant Reed (an introduced reed native to Europe), sourwood, dogwood, syringa (from Oregon), wild rose (from Oregon), and oceanspray (from Oregon).   But for my hunting arrows I use rivercane.
Marietta, Georgia

Glenn R.

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #11 on: November 20, 2007, 04:19:33 pm »
Hazel shoots. I am absolutely convinced the Native Americans in our area used it and Dogwood being it is the prominent species around here. I live in Macoupin County, Illinois. Lots of creek bottoms and 30 min. from both the Illinois River and Cahokia Mounds. I have found several stone tools in our creek, scrapers and shavers which appear to have been used for scraping down the shoots. Off the same ground here at home I found the tools, harvested the hazel (arrows), the osage (bow), and killed my first primitive deer in '05 all off the same land. It was an awesome feeling.

Offline lowell

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #12 on: November 20, 2007, 07:34:24 pm »
I have been making arrows from multi-flora rose for the last year.  Used them all summer for 3-d shoots and have been hunting them all deer season. Not every arrow I make is a shooter, but it's very nice when one goes where I'm looking!! ;)


 I'm from northern Il. and they are very plentiful.

  I would like to try river cane if I could get some. Would trade for rose shoots?? ;D
My son says I shoot a stick with a stick!!

Brokestick

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2007, 07:57:17 pm »
How dos the salt cedar work Justin?  There's plenty of it around here, but it seems like the most brittle wood I've ever checked out.

Offline Justin Snyder

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Re: What do you use as arrows?
« Reply #14 on: November 20, 2007, 09:24:14 pm »
How dos the salt cedar work Justin?  There's plenty of it around here, but it seems like the most brittle wood I've ever checked out.
It is the heaviest in weight that I have used.  Never heard of it being brittle.  You can usually bend it a long way before it breaks. Justin
Everything happens for a reason, sometimes the reason is you made a bad decision.


SW Utah