Kustom King German Mountain pine shafting

[Bud B.]

I just ordered a doz 5/16 30-35 shafts for my Dad's old HH longbow. It will be my first attempt at arrow making.

Train wreck soon to follow  

[Brad_Gentry]

Originally posted by Dave Bulla:

So what was the deal with the cedars being bad the first time and great the second?  Eventually I figured it out... I was simply hitting the target instead of trees, rocks etc. like I did my first year.  

Bingo...   :D   I had similar experiences with cedar. Although I shoot Doug Fir now (wanted to bump up in weight), I think cedars a great shaft, and don't really break any more of them than I do anything else.

[Ed Q]

Originally posted by Bud B.:
I just ordered a doz 5/16 30-35 shafts for my Dad's old HH longbow. It will be my first attempt at arrow making.

Train wreck soon to follow      

Lol. Yeah, I'm considerig them for my first attempt at arrow making also. Please let us know how it goes and how they shoot. And post pics when you finish makng them.

[kpete]

If you break cedars, you get to smell them!  I am finding that bargain shafts are not always cost efficient.  By the time you get the other components stuck on, you might as well pay the price for quality sticks.
Some great shafts out there-fir, cedar, etc.

[Bernd]

Hello everybody,

please just be cautious with bear-paw products of Mr. Bodnik. He hasn't got the best reputation in germany. His way of advertising is much better then the products behind.
If you want to know more, you can pm me, I won't say more in public.

Didn't want to insult anybody, just personal experience.

Shoot straight,


Bernd

[Bud B.]

My order arrived today. Of the twelve shafts two were roll straight. Upon inspecting one of the more warped ones I reached to put pressure on it and it snapped. It appears to have a check crack/split possibly from the kiln process. There's no way the pressure I put on it would have broken the shaft unless it was compromised prior to handling. It appears a check crack along the grain of the wood was present. I can possibly make a youth arrow.

Will post more when I have time to deal with my first arrow making attempt. Work and a chest cold have me whooped.

So far I have nothing to compare my experience to except I have old wooden arrow shafts I've straightened and didn't even have this type of thing happen.

[SuperK]

Thanks Bud....keep us posted.

[San Juan Slim]

I have a dozen German shafts in the garage that I ordered from KK earlier this summer.  After reading this thread, I decided to take a closer look at them.  They are 11/32" diameter.  I checked the spine on my Ace tester and they spined at about 75# (which is ok for me), but they were the heaviest advertised at 65-70#.  They are all very closely spined.  What KK doesn't metnion in their description is whether they are weight matched.  Apparently they are not because my full length (32-1/4") shafts have a large weight range, between 450 and 575 grains each.  I will be lucky to match them in 3 or 4 to a group based on weight.  I am not super picky with arrows but I definitely like to hunt with closely matched sets of a 1/2 dozen or so.  Otherwise the grain was very straight in all but a couple of the shafts and the shafts were very straight as I sighted down them.  

I will probably stain, seal, and fletch them on some cold day later this winter (although yesterday morning it was -13F) and try them out when the snow melts in the spring.

Mike

[Overspined]

weight matters little vs spine at the ranges we shoot

[sagebrush]

You're always better off paying a little extra for good shafts. Why put in all that work and then have an arrow that is sub-par. Gary

[Bud B.]

Grain seems OK for all the shafts. Good and straight. I just need to work on straightening them.

I made up a 27 3/4" arrow last night out of the broken shaft. I have one of those twist type taper tools. These shafts may be slightly under 5/16. I was able to get good straight tapers.

Got the nock on with the grain and fletched it last night. Roll test after the break was perfect. Eyeballing it was good also. After fletching it (not the prettiest first attempt) I let it set all night. I just stepped out into the frigid air and shot it from my 66" #40 longbow. My draw is 29" I had to shorten it a bit due to the short arrow.

From porchlight I saw a flight path that was a blurr of white (fletching is all white) with no wobble whatsoever. Neither up/down or left/right. You hear the " flew like a dart" comment, well, I'll say it too. As light as that arrow is it did fly like a dart. I was very pleasantly surprised.

More to come later....

[Bud B.]

I arrived home from work about 30 minutes ago. I was able to shoot the single arrow several more times under a floodlight. Still good reports.

When I make up the others I'll post back but it'll be a while.

Off shopping now with the wife....my debit card is squealing.......

[Ray Hammond]

When they were still cutting POC the shafts were great- heavier than the dead wood we get today- consistent, straight grained etc.

I still have and treasure many dozen 70-75 Acme Premium dozens I have in my basement- bundled in bakers' dozens, rubber banded, kept dry...and striaghtened once a year.

I'm like Gollum with my Acme premiums...my preciouses!!!!!

[Fletcher]

You are a blessed man, Ray.  Mine are pretty much gone, save a few.   :(

[Bud B.]

Working on them now....

Here's the one that broke and I made a shorter arrow out of it.

 


Cresting between the stain.

 


Stained, sprayed, and sealed

 

[Bud B.]

10 yard group with three plus the shorty arrow.

   

I don't have a scale to weight them. The shafts are full length at 32". They will be used in a 1950s vintage Howard Hill style bow that pulls around 30# or so.

I have no issues with these shafts. The one that snapped on me was just one of those things. After staining them and clearcoating them they straightened up some. Only a few touch up straightenings here and there. We'll see how they hold up.