I've always shot aluminum arrows. Three reasons why I shoot aluminum and not carbon or wood.
The first. Since I shoot low poundage bows and with my 30" draw length, I prefer to shoot 32" BOP arrows. I can get the correct spined full length aluminum shafts in 32 1/2" lengths. The properly spined carbon arrow (600 or 500) for me only come in 30"-31" full length shafts. It's kind of hard to make a 32" arrow out of a 30"-31" shaft.
I basically have to short draw a carbon arrow to be able to shoot it. :mad: That's totally unacceptable to me.
The second. I hate pencil thin carbon arrows.
It feels like I'm shooting a skinny soda straw. :eek:
The third. I basically like to shoot a heavy arrow because I shoot low poundage bows and want to get the maximum performance out of them and the correct spined carbon arrow is too light in overall weight in a finished arrow for me. Since I shoot low poundage bows, I'm interested in a GPP (grains per pound) arrow instead of an FOC (front of center) arrow.
As for wood. They're not straight enough to suit me and not even carbon can match the straightness of my Eclipse X7 2212s which are .001 in straightness. Wood is not uniform enough in weight within a dozen wood shafts to suit me either.
For arguments sake, if I could find a long enough carbon shaft in .001 straightness, it would cost more than my Eclipse X7 aluminums to the tune of an arm, a leg, three fingers and two toes.