Switching form wood to carbon/aluminum?

[onestab]

Ive been shooting wood arrows for a while now and was considering making a jump to either carbon of aluminum arrows. Any advice considering I have no idea how to read the spine weights written down the side of the arrows. Kinda old fashioned.
Any help appreciated. Thanks

[R H Clark]

Don't know anything about Aluminum but I can help you pick a carbon.

What bow,draw weight,draw length,,point weight,are you shooting?

What kind of arrow weight do you want?

I'm a big fan of carbons and get all mine from Sipsey River.

[twotimer]

i'v got ever aluminum from 1713 to 2018,so i might be able to come close on them.as r h said,need to know your bows draw weight,and your true draw length.

[bigcountry]

I had a hard time on a few lighter bows switching from wood to alum.  But thru cupcake on here, I got it sorta figured out.  

For one selfbow, I was shooting 43# shafts good and assumed 1916 would suffice, and found out I needed 1816's.  I found the hard way, there are two different methods for spines.  One AMO and one the other way at 28".

[onestab]

Im shootin a longbow at a 50# draw weight. My draw length is 29". Want to increase my draw weight to 60 #. Appreciate your guys help

[onestab]

Ps im shooting 125 grain field points thanks again

[twotimer]

with aluminum,i think a 2016 would work.at 29"s it spines at .531 and with 125 gr.point weight is around 470 grains.so cut to 30"s add another 10.5 gr.if you need a couple to try let me know.regards,robert

[bigcountry]

I have two different longbows at 52#@29" draw.  And both shoot 2018's with 125 gr head good.  One shoots 2018's with 145little better.  On both, I am shooting a 30" arrow.  

2016's worked but little weak for me.

[Rob DiStefano]

IMHO, alums will be easier to work with than carbons, but carbons are SO much better.

Your mileage may vary, Jonathon, but I've found that it's no easy chore to figure out what carbons will work for your bow(s) and you.  The only carbon shafting I know of that seems to work well for most shooters and bows 40-70# are the AD Trads, and there's basically only one size shaft to choose.

My bows are 40# thru 55# @ 29" draw, and I pretty much use those "cheap" Beman ICS Venture/Bowhunter carbons, always the weakest .500 spine.  For me, weaker spined arras work best, but I also strive for high FOC as I feel that's very important for arra flight and tunability.

No matter what ANYONE sez, yer gonna hafta do some amount of testing to see what brand/model/spine carbon will work best for ya.  If ya can borrow some shafts for testing from buds or at the local range, that's sure the way to go.  

IMO, bare shafting can help and I do that only to quickly get a feel for how a shaft reacts to a particular bow weight.  After that, the real tuning begins.

I've often thought it might be a good idea to have a Trad Gang Arrow Testing Quiver, where folks would donate bare shafts so that a decent range of unfletched arras could be passed around for testing for just the cost of postage.  Hmmm ......

Best of luck!    

[Daddy Bear]

I've used the same supply of wood shafts Jim Curlee gave me over a decade ago. My wood arrow combination has been unchanged all these years w/ little thought of switching to a fancy carbon. I considered giving various carbons a try several times recently but have chickened out from guilt. That was until I looked at one of the old AD woodgrain Trads that Gary of AD found in a back room and sent to Ted Fry.

Ted in my opinion has been a guy who has experimented, discovered, and used many things in archery years before other guys ran w/ the same idea w/out giving any credit to Ted. I'm new to this board and have noticed the talk about small feathers on heavy extreme FOC hunting arrows, and thought to myself..."does anyone even realise that Ted has made and been an advocate for heavy extreme 20%FOC footed shafts w/ little feathers out of his self bow for some time?".

Same goes for these carbon shafts. Ted has worked w/ these AD Trads and based on his recommendation, I gave them a shot. Everything that Ted has told me about these shafts have proven true out of my longbow. I've yet to see an arrow as forgiving and as easy to get shooting as these. They may prove the wrong route for a target archer, but for a heavy extreme FOC hunting arrow they seem most ideal. I no longer feel guilt for shooting a carbon arrow.

Daddy Bear