RE: Cedars
Rec,
I hate to be the man to tell you this but dont opt out for cheap wood. If you do you will be dissappointed. You need MATCHED in spine and to a lesser degree weight. THe closer the better and you need to know that it's good. If not you might as well head to home depot, pick up some 3/8" dowels, flex them a few times to make sure they wont break on you immediatly, the ones that done take some time and straighten them, taper them, and fletch them.
There is no real easy way out on wood other then buying from known quality sources. Anyone who hand spines and hand weighs is going to be better then the majority of the rest. Raven is by far the tops there is these days on cedar hands down. I believe he is not building right now and is working on his machine still. His quality paralell cedars (and a bakers dozen at that), will run you 18 bucks plus shipping. Thats not including the new price jump. NO ONE matches his stuff. His 2nds are better then 95% of other buisness's first when it comes to POC.
For ash I've delt with Silent pond shafts. The barrel tapered ash he sells is premo!!! The only down fall to them is the point end is only 5/16th" diameter. I've put mine through abuse no cedar or aluminum would last through, no question they are tough. I've also never had warping problems people tend to associate with ash. The only thing I didnt like was I was using 11/32 diameter zwickey eskimos over the smaller diameter shaft but I'll tell you this. My moose didnt care and neither did my first Dall Sheep. I've yet to achieve the penetration I did with those arrows on my first moose. I have put cedar through a fairly large whitetail does shoulder, took out a rib in the process. That arrow immediately snapped. My Ram was hit high in the spine (a 10 foot almoststraight down shot, just a skosh higher then I wanted to hit to take out both lungs). That ram rolled a few times before breaking off the very end, the rest of the shaft looked more like an aluminum bent then a broken wood shaft. It preforms like nothing else I have hunted with hands down!
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