getting low on my many years stock pile supply of P.O. cedar shafts and shopping around noticed that there are alot of other woods now being used, what is the prefered wood nowadays? Thanx
They all work fine, but my favorite so far is Sitka spruce. It's a tad lighter in phyiscal weight than cedar, a good bit tougher, and plenty straight. It does okay with all the aesthetic considerations such as stain, paint, etc. Can't really go too far wrong though.
I've been shooting some Surewoods (Douglas Fir) and find it to be an excellent arrow wood.
Magnus (A Sponsor here) is selling Poplar that I've heard great reviews on and I plan to get hold of some to try.
Douglas Fir is good stuff.
Snag, a sponsor here, can hook you up.
I have been using doug. fir too. Good stuff x2.
Iswitched to Surewoods this year ,been using POC since 1972.Really liking the Douglas fir.Get mine from Snag
http://surewoodshafts.com/index.html
Their shafts are top notch..
Douglas Fir is good but if you use pencil-sharpener type taper tools you won't get smooth, even tapers. The fir tends to chip instead of cut smooth like cedar. Check out Chundoo shafting at Twig archery and read the reviews.
I can nock taper, cut to length and then tip taper is you don't have a way to do this....?
I just ordered a doz shafts from Kooteni river archery. Western larch which I believe is a sub species of Douglas for, but I have been wrong before. Jonathon was an absolute pleasure to deal with. He is worth looking into.
Snag is your man, awesome service great shafts. As long as your shafts are done after mine lol I just ordered two more dozen last week... Just playing snag will answer all the questions you have you loving wood arrows
Both Snag for doug fir and Magnus for Poplar are great to do business with. I love my doug fir from snag and the poplar from magnus is one tough arrow wood. Can't go wrong here. :thumbsup:
I was a huge fan of DF and still am but I got some poplars from Matt (Magnus) and they are some tough arrows for sure. The poplar is great if you like a tuff arrow with a little extra weight.
The "preferred" wood depends an awful lot on who you are talking to. Cedar is still very popular but as you can see there are other woods in use. I suggest you try more than one.
In my experience the hardest trait to quantify is straightness. POC is the easiest to straighten and keep straight but the others will work if you work at it. I've had some great experiences with chundoo. I bought a dozen hickory shafts a few years back and 6 of them turned out to be fantastic arrows.
Have fun exploring the options.
I am having great luck with Douglas Fir from Brave Heart (Surewood Shafts). Super K is correct about the tapers being rough, but they have no effect on building a perfect arrow.
(http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h227/rnorris/DSCF6058.jpg)
Im a big fan of chundoo.
Douglas Fir for me mostly, Surewood Shafts is a great source. I get the "Hunter Grade" for a good price, haven't had to straighten one yet.
I still do 90% of my shooting with cedar, and it's my preferred wood. However, the Doug fir, Sitka spruce and some other wood shafting being produced now is definitely good quality stuff.
If I am buying new shafting Doug Fir is the way to go; but mostly I use cedar that I have stashed away over the years.
Douglas fir shafts for me, surewood is an excellent source, raw shafts very affordable.I have used both hunter grade and premium grade, not any problems with either.They ship them out extremly fast also.
Anybody who makes arrows using surewood shafts gets two thumbs up from me. Dave Doran from archery past makes the best version IMHO --tapered.
I have POC and douglas fir from Surewoods. The Surewoods are great shafts, straight and tough but I still keep coming back to the POC. I have a few dozen stashed away and I pick up more when I can from old stashes people sell. Wapiti archery does an awesome tapered cedar shafts. I would recommend anyone looking for cedar to try them.