Tapered or Parallel?

[Buckhorn47]

I have used wood arrows extensively for many years. My recent trend is to shoot tapered arrows, however in 11/32", there does not appear to be a great difference, whether using softwoods or hardwoods, BUT, I guess you always learn something whatever stage in archery one progresses to. I recently obtained materials and built a set of matched arrows, 60-65 spine, 600 grain with 145 grain field point, cedar, tapered, 23/64 - 5/16. These should work great with 50-65 pound bow, Right!

No, couldn't get them to fly sensibly from any bow in that weight category until I picked up a 40-pound longbow. They shot beautifully and even added a 190 grain Grizzly which shot great, straight and with lots of penetration. Go figure!

[Don Stokes]

Before mass production, nearly all shafts were made with a taper. The majority I've seen were barreled. Mass production resulted in parallel shafts becoming more common, because it's easier and cheaper and only the serious archers can tell the difference.

[bentpole]

I agree with Bjorn 100%.