I just fletched up some Doug Fir arrows and would appreciate opinions about their performance compared to cedar.

i love em. cedar aint what it used to be!!

doug fir is my favorite wood...first used it in 1993.  Have also used ash, hickory, sitka spruce...but doug fir is preferred followed by sitka spruce.

I've made and shot arrows made of POC, sitka spruce, and doug fir.  Surewood doug fir shafts are by far the best shafts being made today. Straight, durable, and the guys who own the company aren't too bad either....  

My Douglas fir's seem more durable than cedar. My new favorite shaft.
Magnus.

Douglas Fir will perform right up there with good cedar. I've done a lot of experimenting with quite a few different arrow woods and my favorites are Surewoods, Hildebrand Sitka Spruce, and POC from a few different sources. The Surewoods are generally the straightest out of the box and have been very consistent for me as well...not to mention the guys there are super great to deal with  

Craig

IMO, Fir is the best shooting of the arrow woods.  It's a "snappy" wood and seems to recover very fast.  I've been pretty pleased with the Surewoods, too, altho I find that I need to straighten every one.  I work with the bulk shafts and quite a few make it to the stumper box, but the good ones make GREAT arrows.

QuoteOriginally posted by Fletcher:
IMO, Fir is the best shooting of the arrow woods.  It's a "snappy" wood and seems to recover very fast.  I've been pretty pleased with the Surewoods, too, altho I find that I need to straighten every one.  I work with the bulk shafts and quite a few make it to the stumper box, but the good ones make GREAT arrows.

i agree completely!  these arrows are twice as tough as cedar shafts too. they are a bit heavier, but you cant beat the duability.

I've not yet had a raw wood shaft that required no straightening out of the box (except some tapered shafts I got from Rick   )...yet the Surewoods usually start closer than the others. One other thing with the Douglas Fir is that it has a more pronounced grain than the other woods and on some shafts it's tough to work around if you're cresting.

Craig

Thanks for the input.  i was a lifelong cedar shooter and recently switched to aluminum but, for reasons unrelated to performance I am wanting to go back to wood.  If it was all about performance and efficiency I wouldn't be into trad archery.  Thanks again,

I really like my Douglas Fir arrows.

QuoteOriginally posted by Arrow4Christ:
I've not yet had a raw wood shaft that required no straightening out of the box (except some tapered shafts I got from Rick    )...yet the Surewoods usually start closer than the others. One other thing with the Douglas Fir is that it has a more pronounced grain than the other woods and on some shafts it's tough to work around if you're cresting.

Craig

Craig, I have not experienced this "tough to work around" scenario.

Snag,
I've only had a few shafts like that, and I was able to crest them, but it was definitely more challenging (took more base coats to get a smooth surface, a bit more difficult to get straight lines).
Craig

Durability wise, the fir shafts are way tougher than cedar.  They are slightly harder to straighten, but make very good arrows.  They will come out heavier than cedar or spruce, but that is not always a bad thing.  You can definitely tell they are tougher when you start grinding the point and nock tapers.

When shooting woods I mostly use Douglas Fir when shooting woods.I had 2 With Judo Points and wore the points out and the shafts were still fine.Thats some tuff.

Have been thru them all. POC, Sitka Spruce, and the Doug Fir from Surewood beats them all...IMO. That's all I use now.. Love em!!

T.J. Conrads in his book The Traditional Bowhunter's handbook says what Pack says and "it makes an exceptionally fine arrow shaft.."
I had some bids in on a beautiful dozen during the St. Judes Auction, went to bed thinking they were mine, woke up to find them on their way to Australia. My first auction and a good learning experience. I'll be buying a dozen shortly from one of the sponsors here. I've only shot cedar and aluminium to date.

I've only made a few dozen arrows of Doug Fir so experience with it is limited, but based on that my impression is that it makes a very good, attractive, moderately heavy arrow.  The biggest problem I've found, and its not THAT big of a problem, is that it seems to be a bit more brittle than other woods.  Not sure if that's a function of moisture content variation (dries out faster?), and they are generally pretty durable,  but when they do break anywhere near midpoint the arrows just seem to shatter or snap like a pretzel rather than slow-crack along the grain.  Overall, they make a good shaft.

Snag, what Craig is talking about is an "out of round" shaft.  I don't see it much in the premium matched dozens, but you will find it in their bulk.  There is quite a difference in the hardness of the summer growth and winter dormant wood in fir.  When the shafts are sanded to size, the softer wood sands more leaving the shaft out of round.  The shafts will still make good arrows, but don't make the cut for my premium shafts or customer arrows.  They go in the stumper pile or get used for spine test arrows or for my arrows.

Yeah TSP, fir is tough, but when it breaks, it really breaks.  I like that, tho.  I've had POC and Spruce crush rather than break and that damage isn't always so noticeable.  My pig arrow was Sitka Spruce, and he boar rolled over on the arrow twice.  It didn't "break", but now has several permanent compression frets on one side.  It might as well be broken and would be very unsafe to shoot.

Tom...sorry mate they just looked to good to pass up !!!
I love Douglas fir ...easy to straighten , god weight and tough !!!