Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Foe we who prefer to make our own arrows, parts is a problem. consider how much 11/32" cedar shafts cost per dozen?
A brief internet search shows range about $37 or L28 per dozen. I buy mine from Sagittarius Archery for $30/doz because I like their service.

Once I tried Ali Express, the Chinese Amazon-dot-com.
I ordered 10 11/32" shafts of Ramin wood for $13 which is a very good price and I admit that they shot well. And the 11/32 triangular medieval broadheads were attractive and also shot well,
BUT....

Be careful here on one thing....
What you buy from China are 8 or 9 mm which are labeled as 11/32".
11/32" is actually 8.7313 mm.

8 mm is too small for a socket head. 9 mm is too large. Your socket arrowheads will NOT fit a Chinese shaft regardless of how they are listed. And you will have to sand your American shafts down to fit the Chinese heads.

Why is this?
consider that MSG is a 'salt' so the Asians find that changing the word 'MSG' to 'salt' on their food packages to be cheaper and easier than actually making food withOUT the MSG.
What they are doing is legal, just not moral.
Same with arrow shafts... you can legally round 8 mm up or down to 11/32" but is still is 8 mm.

So altthough I like the design of the heads and the flight of the shafts, I'll stick to American Cedar as I KNOW that the diameter and Spine is correct.

I order my shafts from Allegheny Mountain Arrow Woods. Good variety of hardwoods and softwoods. Prices aren't bad. I usually go the hundred so I have plenty of them. Mostly I use Ash over Cedar. Yeah, no online shopping, you have to call him, but he will ask you necessary draw length, weight, etc. I have gotten nothing but excellent product from him.

I have tried other shafts over the years, but I have settled on Allegheny Mountain Arrow Woods. Almost time for another order.

Eledhwen

I understand your exasperation, Rik.

But consider that if you harvested your own hazel (or whatever) by hand, then you'd have no idea of the measurements. If you were making the arrowheads by hand, or trading with a Middle Earth smith, of course, you wouldn't care about the specs, because you'd whittle everything down to fit.

I'm not trying to pick on you personally; it's a part of "Home Depot" reenactorisms, of which I am guilty as well.

I've thought about the 'dowel arrow' thing and whittling my own shafts etc....

then I began to over-engineer it. What about spine? How do I know that the dowels or sticks are spined for my bow?

So on Sunday I went to the Range with Robert who has a modern compound bow. I took my new horsebow and longbow (both at 45# though I think the horsebow is heavier) to first-fire them.

I also took this woman who was thinking of dating me and wanted to try archery.
Fortunatly, she was petite and new so I brought a couple lighter bows, one 15# I bought for my Amazon Project, and a 15# take-down survival bow for which I had recently made take-down arrows.

She was having trouble useing 30# spined arrows but had fun.
I tried my take-down arrows on my survival bow and found them to be over-spined and had to compensate for that. As all my take-down arrows were the same 35# spine, it wasn't difficult.
But I cannot help wonder what would have been if every arrow I had made was individual and probably spined different.