Bought 4 4 ft. 5/16 Ramin dowels at the local Ace hardware store...cut 2 of them to 30 1/4 in. and believe it or not both spin very true with a broadhead on the end of them...anyone know about what theyll spine, going to try them out of a 45# Mikuta recurve w/125 points/broadheads, can cut them a little shorter if needed. :help:
The ones I've tested were between 35-55# with the majority of the shafts being right around 45#. Same with the 5/16" birch dowels I've looked at.
Not trying to high jack...but hows the durability of ramin dowels?
I generally can't get the 5/16" to spine higher than 40# and they are pretty light in mass weight. I prefer a 3/8 and then barrel taper it. I have made 800 grain arrows with them and they spine as high as you want. Ramin is very durable.
Well they probably wont work out of the recurve then, might try them from a Northern Mist Superior longbow I just traded for, B-50 string, 51@27 drawing maybe 53#...have used the 3/8 dowels before but they always spine way high sometimes more like 80-90#, usuallyy wouldnt shoot out of anything but my 60-70# recurves when I was shooting that heavy a bow...sure not looking for 800 gr. arrows...I made/matched up 4 doz. 11/32 Ramin shafts that came from 3 Rivers when they used to sell them and they weighed within 16 gr.s of about 90 percent of them and the rest were 20-25 gr. off.They all weighed around 650 gr.
My experience is the same as jeremy's. Mostly in the 40's, with the high at 55#.
Don't give up on them yet, though. Shoot them and see how they fly. If they're too light, you can shorten them, decrease point weight, or build out your arrow plate. Some combination of those tricks will have them flying well for you.
I find them 35-50 spine mostly. Let them dry a good while before making arrows. Ramin soaks up moisture. Unlike John Scifres, I find Ramin to be heavy, compared to Cedar.
They are very durable. I think much more so than Cedar, or even yellow pine. I buy mine 50 at a pop from Midwest Dowel in Cincy.
Well made up 2 arrows, the bare shafts with nothing on them weighed 447/427 so they are in no way light, finished arrows weigh from 553 gr. to 573 gr. and they shoot great at 10 yds from my longbow and like darts from my 56 in. 52# Fedora 560 T/D, been pouring down rain so wont be able to test until tomorrow.If these work out good will order some in quantity..anyone hunt with theirs?