I started with barrel tapered, compressed POC shafts, love the smell but find the carbons much easier to work with at draw weights over a range of 55-70 pounds. It took me a while to figure out what I was doing since I went through over 20 different makes of bow before settling on what I shoot now. I shoot shrews, super shrews and classic hunters, and being cut the way they are, they are not too finicky about the arrows I make and shoot. I worked up an arrow that would bare shaft perfectly and the minor deviations I have made with weight and fletching do not seem to matter much. A different make of bow may not be as forgiving. I have been shooting the same carbon shafts from Cabela's (65-80 carbon hunters or extremes) for over 10 years. I changed fletching from 4 to 3 to 4, changed broadheads from magnus to grizzly to STOS (145-160 gr) added weights up front, switched to a three under draw, added internal footing etc. but still shooting the same shafts.