I can' t quite buy the carbon is tougher than alum. theory yet. I don' t have 7-8 dozen alum. arrow lying around [:-] and am currently shooting carbon. I have some Beaman ICS hunter 400' s and Carbon express 200' s and also some Easton epic 400' s and 500' s which my boy shoots also. I have had several broken arrows in the last year. Luckly I haven' t hit anything but the target and arrows already shot. I have found if hit hard enough, all arrows mentioned will fracture and break when bent. I shot a Carbon express 200 2 days ago at 20 yards and when it got about 4 foot from the target, it took a hard left turn like when you hit a nock. I pulled the arrow out of the target(it was 8" to the left, stuck in at about a 30 degree angle) and the last 6" was missing and it was broke clean. I never found the last 6" of the arrow and none the arrows in the target showed being hit. At first I could hardly believe what happened but I think the arrow had fractured on an earlier shot and feel lucky it broke at the target and not coming out of the bow(could have been UGLY). I will continue to shoot carbon but they don' t seem to be as tough I have heard. Not trying to stir the pot, just stating my findings Don