The carbon manufacturers for the most part have done a good job of getting straightness worked out. However you almost always have to buy the premium grades to get the straight shafts.

The mid and low grade shafts often have serious runout at one or both ends which you may or may not be able to cut off at your arrow length. It's a crapshoot at best if you don't check them before you buy them.

Coincidentally, I was playing down at the shop today checking arrows for straightness and spine consistency with the shops new machine :rubs hands:

One brand had phenomenal straightness (their premium hunting shaft), but spine variance was horrible. One arrow that is factory rated at .340 spine varied from .appx .352 to .331...which is awful. But they were laser straight and weight tolerance was within one grain.Sad, because these shafts have been touted as much improved :yawn:

Another brand's mid grade shafts were very straight along the length they measure the variance over but had serious runout on a few shafts..about .010 to .013....spine variance was quite good though regardless, only 5 thousandths max variance. Their premium shafts did have slight runout (about. 003 was the worst), and the spine variance was basically the same as the mid grade shafts (.005 max). Overall the spine variance was damn good for an all carbon (about the best I've seen), and they were extremely consistent from shaft to shaft and dozen to dozen, and definitely improved since the last time I spine checked that brand. I was very surprised.

A currently VERY popular new shaft was very good for spine variance generally with about ..005 variance, but there were a few that dipped out too far in variance for spine and arrow straightness was all over the friggin map. Some wouldn't even make the needle wiggle and some had it dancing all over the place.

Todays testing definitely soured me for good on a couple different brand shafts I had been hopeful for or was starting to doubt, and gave me a new appreciation for another brand that I haven't tested in about a year and a half.

I was just grabbing arrows from various dozens..so it wasn't just one doz.of each type/brand. I was using raw shafts, cut arrows, prefletched and uncut, you name it.

Everytime I do this testing stuff , it makes me sad to see what companies pawn off on us for arrows.[:'(]

If all else fails. read my sig.