I've been entertaining the idea of trying to put together some woodies with self nocks. I currently have some tapered sitka spruce shafts (with plastic nocks) that shoot well and was thinking of ordering more, but wasn't sure about trying the self nocks on a tapered shaft. So for you guys that have some experience with self nocks...would it really make any difference parallel vs tapered?
It does make a difference in that you have much less wood to become the ear of the nock. If you're going to self nock them, I recommend that you reinforce them first with a piece of horn, plastic, etc set into the back of the shaft parallel with the grain.
That's kinda what I was thinking. Don't know if I'm ready to tackle reinforcing yet...think I'll just pick up some parallel shafts for my first set and work from there. After I get the basic process down, maybe I can move on to a set of reinforced tapered shafts. Thanks!
I do it a lot. I cut a groove, set a hardwood reinforcement, cut the nock, THEN taper. I feel like there isn't enough wood to work with if I taper first. You need to be careful that your taper doesn't get smaller than 5/16 or you may split some arrows. I try to err a bit larger than 5/16.
I reinforce my shafts with an 1/8" piece of cherry then cut the self nock. I also give the self nocks a couple of coats of super glue before I finish the whole shaft with wipe on poly.
Been shooting tapered sitka self nocks for years. If you are orienting the grain correctly and not cutting your nocks wider then .10" just give them a good tight thread wrap at the base then soak them down with very thin CA.
The only ones I've broken have been from taking hits from other arrows.