No, Frank. They tried dowels they bought at a hardware store and some plain Port Orford cedar shafts, but they didn't try any shafts where the grain ran true from nock to tip. Most dowels and wood arrow shafts these days are made by sawing out the doweling blanks and the grain runs out the side in practically all of them. If they'd used shafts made from shoots or split timber instead, the way arrow makers did it in the olden days, they likely could've gotten their nock-to-tip split.

I nearly sent them an e-mail to tell them they coulda just bought a Hooter Shooter instead of building the contraption they put together.