I used to shoot Microflite #12 fiberglass shafts back in the early 80's out of my heavy Howard Hill longbows. It was a very good shaft at the time.  Stronger than the Easton Autumn orange aluminum shafts which I use to use. I love good wood arrows--Acme Premium Cedar, if you can still find some or Rogue River Archery tapered cedar (offered by Wapiti Archery now I believe)--however, it's Easton Axis carbon arrows hands down when it comes to serious hunting. Here's why:

They're straight or broken, period.
A skinny carbon arrow is the best penetrating.
They recover quickly and don't flex as much on contact with game.
They are durable and with the use of arrow wraps can be refletched multiple times because they don't wear out (and are tough to break), so they are economical in the long run.

Carbon shafts are great.. for building model air planes! Tomato plant stakes?  

Great feedback. I got alot of laughs out of the responses    

Question:

I know with aluminum I can cut them very easily in the basement to manipulate spine to match a selected BH weight. With carbons I'm not sure you can, and I don't want to have to take em anywhere to get them cut after the 1st time.

With carbon do you pick a length and weight BH, then fiddle with insert weight to manipulate spine.

Thanks,

B

QuoteOriginally posted by Bow Bum:
Great feedback. I got alot of laughs out of the responses    

Question:

I know with aluminum I can cut them very easily in the basement to manipulate spine to match a selected BH weight. With carbons I'm not sure you can, and I don't want to have to take em anywhere to get them cut after the 1st time.

With carbon do you pick a length and weight BH, then fiddle with insert weight to manipulate spine.

Thanks,

B

In my case I was fortunate enough that a fello had come by my club with a longbow & a quiver of Gold Tip Trad 35/55's.
After drooling over his bow a bit he let me try a few of his arrows through my Zona & I was hooked.

All I had to do was keep em full length 35/55 & play around with the tip weight till I found what tuned best for me, I then played a little again so that I can have me a piece of 2117 shaft as a Footer & got her tuned right.

Cutting them, you can use a dremel tool if you have steady hands but I have a cheap Apple Arrow saw in my basement.

I may be wrong but I believe all arrow shafting is man made to some degree. The nocks, broadheads and fletching are mostly man made as well.

What it boils down to for me is what I feel shoots the best and what I am the most confident with. I feel I owe the animals I hunt the quickest kill. I use carbon for hunting.

If you look at "Stu's Spine Calculator", you're going to be able to get pretty close to the correct spine with that program worksheet. With my carbons, I cut them to the length I want and then manipulate with point wieght.  With Stu's program, you can play around with the variables and get close to the point wieght, length and arrow size combo for your bow weight before making a cut.

I cut 'em with a dremel.

Aluminum arrows work just fine, but I got tired of worrying about small bends and dents in the shafts.  

The other plus of carbon is that when you bonehead and knock a shaft up against the sight window of your bow, it goes 'thunk' instead of 'TING'.    

I like the thin carbon for it's penetration and durability.