What wood shafts do you think makes a nice primitive arrow with stone heads, excluding bamboo, didn't like the way they split.

I use river cane and ash.

I made a few out of yellow burch and they came out real nice. I also made some out of bamboo but I footed the point and nock end.  They also came out nice.

Sourwood shoots make a great primitive arrow. They don't grow up here though. Got to get them from the folks down south.

I love sourwood for arrows...and honey! Most of my hunting arrows are sourwood. I also use cane, red osier dogwood and viburnum. All make excellent, tough, hard hitting arrows.
 I use self nocks with cane(all of my arrows now) but wrap below it with sinew and I haft stone and trade points directly in the cane with no inserts or foreshafts. Never had a cane arrow split even after hitting rocks or trees. I even taper cane and mount store bought points. Use a sander type taper tool though. Pencil sharperner type will split cane.

wild rose

Dogwood or wild rose.

Ahhh the master has spoken. Listen to Pat as he knows of what he speaks. I've learned a lot from him. Wild rose is one I'm going to be harvesting soon.  Ain't this fun!

Red Osier...Multaflora rose are my favorite. I always carry clippers when in woods. I will cut any shoot that is fairly straight to try. I just cut some Olive that grows in Strip land here in South Eastern Ohio. It seems super strong ! Will see ...!

Does sourwood grow in Texas?

Can any of you post pics of these woods before you have cut them?  I'm having a hard time visualizing what and where shoots grow.  

Funny thing, being a finish carpenter, you would think I would know my ash from a whole in the ground, but growing I can only tell the difference between a pine and an oak in the wild.

Mike.

I have sourwood. I'll try to bring you some shoot cuts to SC in March. Not sure sourwood grows in MI.

Here are a few pics I took a few weeks ago when the sourwood leaves wher in their full fall glory. You can see the shoots above the leaves. This is typical growth on small sourwood trees.






The 2 middle arrows here are sourwood. The 2 outside ones are hill cane.


This is a set of Plains Indian style red osier dogwood arrows I made a few years ago...

Thanks for the offer Bud, We are going to have a fantastic time down there.  

Heck, I have the red ones growing all over my swamp, and the dogwood ones I cut all the time and just throw in a pile for the rabbits to make a home.  How long do they need to dry before they are ready for shafting?  What kind of spine weight can I expect from them?

Hey Pat what spine can those woods get to, and what pound bow can they be shot from. is 70# to much for those type woods? curious.

I made one (sourwood) last year and shot it from my 50lb Bear. I don't have a spine tester but I tested it slowly from doing short draw shots and comparing it to other known spined arrows. When I got it to full draw and with an old Bear Razorhead it flew great. It was heavy too. Can't remember the weight exactly. I had a self nock on the string end. Bet you could get one to fire well from a 70#er.

stringstretcher shoots them if I remember correctly.

You could easily make arrows that spine 100# with sourwood, red osier or viburnum.
 The thing with hardwood shoots and cane arrows is because of the natural taper you can subtract 10# of spine weight. If you make your arrows long you can subtract 5# per inch for anything over 28" long. So if you have a 30" arrow that actually spines 70# the effective spine would be 50#(10# for taper and 10# for 2" over 28")...but the arrow would probably fly well from a 70# bow too.
I don't actually check spine on these arrows except to find the stiff side of the arrow. That side goes against the bow.
 My sourwood hunting arrows(cut to 30" for my 26" draw) weigh in at 600gr to 700gr with a 125gr head. My bows shoot between 55# to 60#@26"