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advice on first time shaft buy

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mud duck:
 I'm really torn between cedar/sitka/larch/doug? I know cedar was king forever, but I hear tell new growth isn't what it used to be? What's left of the old growth (wild) is highly threatened now (root disease) and the cultivars seem to vary quite a bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaecyparis_lawsoniana

 my gut says try sitka larch or doug, first, but I'm not sure which one? opinions?


 

Pat B:
Sitks spruce makes a very good arrow.
 Most, if not all POC shafts are made from dead trees.

Lefty38-55:
For those bow weights I'd say 5/16" POC shafts is the way to go, plus I've seen some of the other shaft woods made in smaller than 11/32" diameter and spines below 40-pounds.

I will tell you I just bought a dozen 5/16" POC shafts from The Footed Shaft and they are THE best quality shafts I've ever seen. Each was weighed and spined individually and marked accordingly. For the dozen, all 12 were within a 3-pound range for spine and 10-grains total span for arrow weight. Superb!

Buck67:
For just getting back in the game, you could go to your local Lowes or other big box and pick over their 5/16" Poplar  dowel rods.  Out of a hundred I may find 6 or 7 that have grain that runs from one end to the other.  Most 5/16" Poplar dowels will spine at about 35#.  For feathers and points I have a lot of good luck with 3 Rivers in Fort Wayne, IN.  I really like their Fletching Tape, it's a 1/16" wide two sided sticky tape that really makes fletching without a jig possible.  No holding a feather in place until the glue dries.  My practice arrows of Poplar dowels have been shot hundreds of times with very few breakages.

I have played with buying bamboo tomato stakes from a landscaper.  I bought 300 once in a big bundle.  I'll bet I only managed to find 30 that were worth making into arrows.  The big problem with bamboo is that two shafts of exactly the same size can spine between 35 and 95 pounds. Good thing my wife is a gardener.

Welcome back to the Council Fire

mud duck:

 Thanks everybody for the tips. I can't seem to make up my mind between poc and sitka. Naturally I really want poc, but I have a feeling I should try sitka too, so I've decided to get a little of each and see what works best for me.

 I've never cut a self nock before so it makes good sense to experiment with that on poplar first. I'll grab a 5/16 next time I go to town. Actually I'm starting to second guess myself about the nocks. I started out thinking with such light DW, self nocks would last forever. Now I'm wondering if that's a mistake. It would be easy to replace a plastic overnock someday, but a busted self nock might not be fixable at all? I was kinda thinking bamboo when I said selfnocks, and now I'm not so sure about cedar/sitka selfnocks?

 anybody here use the bohning feather tower?

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