In my personal experience and whatever that's worth or not, here are some of my observations comparing carbon to aluminum. Now, I was late trying carbon and shot aluminum for the majority of my archery life to include the wheeled jobs that I abandoned for good, a couple decades ago now...... during that time, I never stopped with recurves, started with them at about 7 years old.
Pros of aluminum: straightness!, easy to work with, GPI for trad bows, they won't splinter or shatter, much more resilient than wood in most regards, reasonably priced.
Cons of aluminum: I never had an aluminum I could straighten even remotely close to my liking to being usable again when tweaked or bent out of straightness! That shaft would be trash! I always felt that if (when!) and aluminum shaft bumps into just about anything, there's that metallic ding that's like an air raid horn in the middle of the woods. The colder it was, the worse it sounded. Bumping off your riser, a piece of gear, however it may happen. Lastly, to get real good adhesion for fletch, I would dip my aluminum shafts. Mostly in clear for fast down and dirty, or a white cap dip and cresting and all that if I wanted to make them nice. Either way, still an extra step for ME.
As you can see, not many cons for aluminum and those are just MY experiences with the way I did things.
Pros for Carbon: Straight (enough haha, even the .006), very durable in my experience if you hit something solid and obviously, won't get bent. I would never neglect to flex check one after an undesirably hard hit, paying special attention at the nock end. I've never worried in the rare instance I've had to do this inspection and found no obvious issues.
Easy to work with......just different than aluminum (or wood for that matter). No metallic noise when you bump a shaft into anything. More options for narrow diameters, with most carbons being skinnier than aluminums to start with.
Cons for Carbon: Most average carbons are not as straight as aluminum, unless you spend $$$, which brings us to cost. They can shatter or splinter or however you want to describe the breakage if one where to be compromised/damaged/cracked and you then shot such shaft from your bow. Potentially not a good day.
Guess like most things, it comes down to preference and just what you are looking for or what details out weight this one or that one. What works for you, works for you! And that is what you need!
Depending on how hard you are on your arrows would determine how cost effective aluminum would be compared to carbon, seeing as though (in my experience) carbon takes more of a hit. Carbon is expensive out the gate. But I would argue that if you have a knack for sending them into the hard stuff, the carbon might ..... might .... suit you better, and mostly because as I stated from experiences I've had, a bent aluminum is garbage. That same hit with a carbon might have a better chance at surviving. This being said, I have aluminum arrow sets that are over 30 years old and many of those arrows have been shot more times than I could count. I never hit anything hard with those ones apparently. As I have not shot an aluminum arrow now in at least 15 years, I should go try some for the sake of fun ....... in the end, that's what it's all about really. I am not arguing for any type of arrow shafting here. I really like seeing that aluminum is very alive and well. I really like reading and learning what works for folks and why. I will declare, the camo XX75 aluminum shafting has got to be the best looking of any arrow shaft ever commercially produced!
Topic: Going back to aluminums and staying there (Read 7062 times)
