The strongest spine of the arrows is across the grain not along it. Those 3 arrows will probably shoot different from the rest.

The way I like to make up my arrows is to orient the shafts so that the edge grain is against the side plate of the bow and the points of the grain runout pointing forward along the top side of the shaft. That will make the points aiming back along the bottom of the shaft. Reasoning is that if an arrow breaks as it's released, hopefully it will break along the grain line and the pointed back half of the break will be forced to go UP, away from your bow hand.

Of course, in 48 years of shooting wood arrows, I've had exactly 3 break while being released and each time it was my fault for not checking to see if they were cracked after hitting something hard. But each time I was thankful that I make my arrows like I do.

<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>I gotta start typing faster. John must've posted the instant I hit the reply button.<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Edited by - Arthur P on 02/03/2003 15:10:18