Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Heavy wood arrows?

Looking to keep things as traditional as possible. I have a recurve that is #58 @28” and I draw at 31”. So at my draw length it’s about #72. I would like to shoot heavier single bevel broadheads. Thinking 250-300 grain. Not because I need to but want to. Is there a heavy enough spine wood arrow to handle that heavy of a broad head at my draw weight in 31”? Carbon has always been the easy button but I would like to have wood arrows.

It all depends on how you hunt and your expectations.

The heavier you shoot , the more drop you get in trajectory.

When I hunted the Midwest and the average shot was 10 yards no big deal.

Out west the critters show up farther away

Make your own arrows from river cane like the Indians did. Usually had a hardwood insert to hold the arrowhead or broadhead. Turkey feather fletching. Plenty on YouTube or Tradational Bowyer books. The Southeastern Indians gave Desoto fits using these arrows with their 6 foot longbows. There were accounts of them killing their horses and penetrating the armor of the day. Sometimes they even used garfish scales as arrowheads. Dogwood is also a shaft material. Research it. There is a museum in Columbia Mo with the largest collection of Native American bows, arrows and quivers as stated in the Traditional Bowyer Books. Don’t know if it was 1 or II.

3 Rivers Archery has a spine calculator on their site which works well to get you close on spine for about any type of shaft/bow combo. With your setup, I'm coming up with a wood shaft spine of 140-150 lbs for a 32" arrow and 250 grain point.

All of the wood shaft suppliers I'm familiar with top out around 70-75 lbs which will be too weak at 72 lbs draw weight with a 32" arrow and 250 grain point. A quick search for heavier spine wood shafts turned up Forrester Wood Shafts. Never heard of them before and have no idea if they're legit or where they're located. Their site shows wood shaft spines over 100 lbs, so may be worth looking into:

https://forresterwoodshafts.com/col...rrow-shafts-23-64-diameter-spine-120-180

Thanks. I’ll give them a look. I think I read something about Ash shafts being fairly stout but after the emerald ash borer issues I’m not sure about availability anymore.

Angus. Most my bow hunting is close and even though I can hit effectively out to 40 yards or so I prefer 15 yards.

Carrollco. No River cane along Lake Superior. I’d be better off collecting maple whips. Plenty of turkey much to our chagrin as we see them as no good nest raiders on our ruffed grouse.

my son has a 72 lb. Black Widow long bow and we never seem to find wood arrow shafts to be very consistence so he now uses 2219 aluminum shafts with Zwickey Eskimo broadheads . son has a longer draw length too so finding good wood shafts is to hard to get so that is why he now uses 2219 aluminum shafts.

I started making my own longbows many years ago and went down the path of making my own wood shafts. Very labor intensive, but you're not limited to the common 11/32 or 23/64 diameters of commercial shafting. It's difficult to get spines over 70 lbs at 23/64 diameter, but by making your own, 3/8 or whatever diameter you need to get your spine is doable. I made mine from Fir and they were excellent shafts.

Just another option if you can't find what you need from suppliers...

I had good luck with hickory shafts from Pine Hollow Longbows. https://pinehollowlongbows.com/shop/ols/products/arrow-shafting-1132-hickory-by-the-dozen

Surewood shafts is the correct answer to any wood shaft questions…they had shafts up into the 100s last I looked.

I've used Surewood shafts - they're good. Checking their site, they currently show up to 100-105 lb spines. With a 32" arrow and a 135 gr point, 100 lb spine would be in the ball park. Wanting to use a 250 gr point on a 32" arrow at +70 lb draw weight is a real challenge.

I'm currently shooting a hybrid longbow of my own manufacture. It's a relatively high performance bow - 55 lb @ 28" and shoots 500 gr arrows over 190 fps (I draw 28"). I shoot 70-75 lbs spine wood arrows at 29" length and 125-135 gr points. If I wanted to shoot heavier points, 70-75 lb spine is too weak.

A significant bow spec that hasn't been discussed is the sight window on the bow. Is it cut to center, past center, etc. It makes a big difference on arrow spine. I assumed a sight window cut to the center of the bow for the OP's bow on the spine calculator.

I think if you’re set on 250-300 grain points you are going to have to look to carbon. If you can live with broadheads in the 125-145 range you can probably get wood to work.

Agreed, unless willing to make your own shafts at larger diameters...

The heavier the broad head the more it weakens the spine of the arrow. Usually you can shorten the arrow to gain back stiffness but at 31” draw there’s not much room to shorten standard shafts.
Google atlatl shafts and start there. 😆

When I googled for heavy spined shafts, I actually got hits for 1/2" diameter atlatl shafts

I've been rolling my own heavy wood shafts for more than 35 years. I use a router and a drill and homemade spine tester. Douglas fir is the best heavy arrow because it recovers from paradox faster than hardwoods. Maple is my favorite because it stays straight after using heat, is heavier than fir and doesn't chip out or splinter when straightening.

Things I learned about shooting homemade heavy arrows:
Heavy arrows fly better with heavy points.
Not many homemade arrows will spine out heavy enough for a 75-pound bow unless they are closer to 3/8" diameter or you find the unicorn of all boards.
Heavy weight bows are a bigger pain to tuning wooden arrows than lighter weight bows are.
Heavy weight bows are louder than lighter weight bows.
Shoot a heavy weight bow long enough you'll decide a lighter weight bow is just right following your second shoulder surgery.
If you're new to shooting tradition, then learn to shoot with aluminum or carbon first so you know it's not the arrow.
If you think you draw 28" then you probably only draw 27". In 45 years of shooting a bow I've seen a lot of 31" draw compound shooters but only a couple 31" trad shooters and they were 6'8" and could adjust the passenger mirror on their truck without leaning.
Be prepared to give up something if you start making your own arrow shafts because there is still only 24 hours in a day.
Successfully hunting with your own equipment makes it all worthwhile.

Great info! When I was making shafts, I used John Strunk's arrow plane, so all done by hand. If I was to make more, I'd do the router method you mentioned. The last batch of Fir shafts I made by hand planing, I ended up with 4 dozen matched spine and weight shafts. After much practice/trial and error, I had it down to 20 minutes per shaft to go from a square blank to a finished shaft. Hell of a lot of work, but the best arrow shafts I've ever used. I think I still have a couple dozen of them...

That's where it's at for me - I started making my own gear with Yew selfbows 30-some years ago, went to making laminated longbows, and am now getting the itch to go back to selfbows.

Well said and all true. Especially about the light bows working just fine after destroying your shoulders. 😆

Brinky, we may be in the same boat, my Toelke Montana Whip longbow draws around 70 lbs at 31 inches, our old dear departed friend here Ron LaClair set me up with a buddy of his that makes heavy wood arrows, that Gent sent me some test arrows at differing spines to shoot before he built.

The arrow i settled on mic's at .365" diameter, is 33 inches long at practice tip end and weighs 695 grains, they shoot great at 189 fps from my bow, i shoot 160gr ACE heads, leave me a ship too address and i'll send you those three arrows, hopefully one of the three will be what you're looking for, then you can have a couple dozen made.

Checkout stickbow.com forums some of those guys shoot 100# english longbows.
They can help forsure.

I had some surewoods that spined in 80/85. I’d check with Surewoods.

With that heavy of a broadhead you’re wanting to shoot and the long draw, finding wood shafts stiff enough is going to be a challenge but they’re out there. Good luck

Thanks for the advice and information. My bow was built by Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows. Yep a recurve built by a longbow guy. Begs the question and yeah he said it was a longbow-ish recurve. Birdseye maple and black walnut and it’s a center cut window. I’m going to do some research on all that everyone mentioned and if all else fails I’ll call Steve Turay. It dawned on me that he shoots heavy old English longbows with trad equipment and he has about the same draw length.

I called up Steve Turay of Northern Mist Longbows. Funny, he remembers building the bow and all the details from twenty years ago. Had a nice conversation about the bow, arrows and everything else in general. Great guy. He’s now down in Raemer Alabama for any of you guys down that way he builds beautiful longbows. At any rate he told me (like many of you) to go with surewood arrows and get some heavy spines Doug fir shafts. Avoid ash unless you know what you’re looking for and can hand sort them yourself. He shoots some pretty heavy stuff and his daily driver is an #86 longbow and he makes his own arrows using Doug fir shafts. I told him that I had picked up the bow again and was getting back into it after a little hiatus. I shot the heck out of it when I first bought it and hunted almost exclusively with it. Life got busy and as you all know, if you can’t dedicate the time shooting a trad bow or any bow you shouldn’t take it afield shooting animals. Currently I’m getting close to retirement and my time has become more available for shooting and relearning all the tuning and tweaking that goes along with it. I’ve always appreciated the traditional aspect of archery and as Steve said “carbon arrows are great from all angles but, they have no soul.” That’s pretty much where I’m at with them. So, now with a little extra time I’m going to get a Bitzenberger, and all the fun gear and start working on some arrows. Thanks for the input.

With that, I'd order up the heaviest spine shafts Surewood has and go from there. If they're too weak with the heavier points, you can always back off point weight until they shoot good for you. You can also use a thicker arrow plate to reduce the center shot which will accommodate a weaker spine.

That’s my plan. I’m going to contact them directly and see what they recommend. There’s people who shoot much heavier bows than I do with wood arrows. I’m certain that they will have a solution.

Its been years since I shot a bow due to my neck and back but back when I did I made a lot of european Flat bows as described By the Traditional Boyers Books.
Made them from Hickory treas I cut down on the farm.

I also used arrows thathat I made out of Hickory split from the same tree that I cut for the stave,split a piece about 30 inches long, basicaley got them into sorta square then I used Knife and a farriers rasp to work the 4 edges to 8 edges and then did the same procedure till I had 16 edges which is round for all practical purposes
Then Used sandpaper to get then real smooth.shaft ended up about 3/4 inch

Then I straightened them using crisco rubbed all over the shaft an held the shaft up to a propand 3 burner wall heater by using my knee to bend them till the were straight and remained straight.

Then I took a chainsaw file I filed a self notch into one end of the shaft for the bowstring(maded from Dacron B-50 flemish twisted). to fit into.

Then I used a sharp knife and some sandpaper to cut the taper on the other end of the shaft to a taper to accept the glue on broad head (either a 2 blade Zwickey Eskimo or Bear Broadhead with the inserts for a 4 blade)

Then I would use Turkey feathers and glue on 3 feathers in a slight Helical pattern and then put the broadhead on using glue.
Spin the arrow on a table to make sure there was no wobble ,if there was wobble I would heat the broadhead with a cigarette lighter and move it slightly and do the spin test again till I got it spinning straight with no wobble.

Rubbed on a little stain and after it dried I rubbed on some johnson paste wax for waterproofing and rubbed my bows with it as well for the same purpose.

Arrows ended up being a tad less than 3/4 inch and weighing about 750 grains complete with Broadhead and about 27 inches long as I release the arrow as soon as my middle finger touches my lip using a 2 fingers below and one finger above the arrow bare handed.

I experimented some and came to the conclusion thet a like a bow of 50 to 55 pound pull weight about 68 inches Long ,strung at about 6.5 to 7.5 brace height that works some in the handle and close to 2 inches wide at mid limb tapering gracefully to the ends.
Normally has 2.5 to 3 inches of string follow which for me makes for an easier shooting bow and a silent bow.


The Bowyers Bibles are some wonderfull Book's for anyone that is interested in making Traditional bow's, arrows
strings,horn bow's etc

Good stuff! I started my bow making with selfbows from Yew in the early '90's but also did some sinew backed Osage flatbows. I then turned to laminated bows which have been my focus since. I've been getting the bug to simplify things and do another selfbow and have a pair of Yew billets ready to go.

This is the last one I made over 30 years ago. I haven't shot it for years because I can no longer pull it. I need to work it down to a lower draw weight and refinish it. I climbed a mountain, cut the tree, packed it out, split it into billets and aged it for several years before starting on it. I ended up with one good bow for the effort. It's 67" and over 60 lbs now. I need to get it in the 50-55 lb range...

I would recommend that you contact someone who makes wood arrows. Give them the bow specs and see what they say. There was a time when I shot compressed and tapered cedars but they are long gone. Ash and hickory are tough and heavy but need a bit more straightening.

RMS comes to mind more so than someone like 3Rivers.
Check out Tradgang.com as well. Those guys will be more likely to have that knowledge base.

I'm confused how 58#@28" = 72#@31". I'm certainly not casting any shade, but typically one gains +/- 2.5# per inch. It should be about 65.5#. Have you put your bow on a scale? Unless your bow has some serious stacking. How short is it?