Best Wood For Arrows

[Jason in Bama]

Curious to what the consensous was from the guys on here. What do you say makes the best overall wood for arrows?

[Bill Carlsen]

Jason: I voted assuming you were talking about hunting arrows. I said "tapered" and "chundoo". However, if you are assured that the POC you use is top grade it is hard to beat. Interestingly enough, before POC came along many big name bow hunting pioneers used white birch, which I think makes the best wood hunting arrow. It is moderate weight and very tought. Once it is straightened and sealed it stays very straight. I have some that are well over 15 years old and they are still as good as day one.

[Jason in Bama]

Yes Bill I was referring to hunting arrows. Sorry for the confusion. I listed all the woods I could think of right off hand. If you vote "other" please post the wood of your choice here.

[Jason in Bama]

ttt

[dino]

I've shot a lot of woods and poc is really hard to beat.  dino

[Jim now in Kentucky]

Just curious. Why n cha include sitka spruce?????

[Tree man]

I voted for Tapered Doug Fir....even though I have a great fondness for Ash. I also like POPLAR.(Popular is a nice condition.)

[danseitz]

Tapered sitka spruce comes in at about 600 grns for my 59 lb bow with 125 grn point.  My Griffin seems to like about 10 grns/lb.  POC are too light.

[aromakr]

I'll be honest with you, I did not vote because I don't believe there is a "Best" arrow wood. There are a lot of quality woods that make outstanding arrows. I perfer the soft woods as they tend to recover from paradox quicker and that is very important. Oh you will get a lot of opinoins from guys that have shot one or two different materials that doesn't make them the best material.
Bob

[Mechslasher]

i voted other for cane arrows.  one of the best arrow materials out there.

[nchunter]

I second river cane.  Toughest "wood" there is!

[Ron LaClair]

Tapered sitka spruce comes in at about 600 grns for my 59 lb bow with 125 grn point.  

Dan, I don't know where you're getting Sitka Spruce that heavy but Sitka is lighter in weight than cedar. My 70# spined tapered Sitka arrows are 575 to 580gr cut to 28" BOP with   205gr heads

I've used POC shafts since 1951 and have shot them out of bows up to 125# @28" and never had a problem with them being too light in weight. Shafts like that are hard to find nowadays but there are some good one's around if you know where to look.

I just recently talked to an old customer in his 80's that had a couple thousand old Acme Premium shafts that he wanted to sell, still in the box that he had purchsed over 20 years ago.

I told my arrow man Paul Jalon about them and he picked them up and will be sharing the wealth so to speak with arrow customers.

There's other fairly good arrow woods available but for the best of the best, you can't beat good POC IMHO.    

[SlowBowinMO]

I've never found a better flying arrow than a real good POC.  But there are others that are almost as good, and are heavier and stronger, like birch and Douglas fir.  I've been happier with real white birch over the laminated stuff.

[Ray Hammond]

I prefer compressed ramin. Used to buy mine from a guy named John Yakalavich (I hope I am not blaspheming him with that spelling) near Chicago.

They were so tough I would rate them on a par with carbons. John sorted them, compressed them with a die..which of course isn't real compression like Sweetlands but what it did was straighten them and burnish the outside 1/32 of an inch like a baseball bat is done so they were harder than all get out and stayed straight- two big problems with regular ramin from the hardware store.

And best of all, John would set me up with heavy ones.

[Stix]

I do purty well with my pinehex shafts.

[Bjorn]

POC

[Jim now in Kentucky]

sitka spruce has a specific  gravity of  0.42

POC has a specific  gravity of 0.43

Doubt the difference in  density could  be detected  on the scales we  use over an  average hundred shafts.

[poekoelan]

Although I have my preferences, I agree with aromakr. There is no definitive best one.

[Jason in Bama]

Should have included river cane and sitka spruce. Very popular shafts, just a slip of the mind. Maybe I should have titled this poll "Your preferred arrow woods", I was really not trying to determine the best arrow wood, just curious what the most preferred woods were. I know there is no definative best wood and everyone has there own preferances, as do I. I just thought there might be some surprises.

[poekoelan]

My last post aside, I did vote. I voted for my preferred wood.