What is the most durable stumping/roving arrow you've used? I'm thinking hickory shaft.

Chundoo/Lodgepole Pine, haven't tried hickory but I'm sure it's good!

Something footed.

A solid fiberglass fish arrow or section of driveway reflector pole.

Ash,, but nothing stands up to a cleverly disguised rock in the midst of moss covered stumps.

Are 2512’s good for footings or to big?

The walls are too thin Don.

Carbons

I stump shoot with junk aluminum and have my best luck with homemade blunts.

Take an 1 1/2” piece of fuel line (5/16” or 3/8” with the cloth braid), slip a 1/4”piece of poly tube that fits into one end, and crimp with a hog ring.

The arrows usually survive until I lose them!

Nothing will beat straight grained hickory. My brother hit a steel angle frame from about 30 yards. The hickory arrow bounced straight back about 15 yards. Nock, gone, tip flattened, funniest thing the feathers were against their grain pointing to the nock end of the arrow. Hickory shaft, pristine.

Hickory or ash.

Footed skinny carbon.

Hickory for me, all day every day. They're the perfect combination of toughness and weight for me, my bows, and my shooting endeavors.

Stumps and roving, pfff, no concern at all. I've shot the same hickory arrows numerous times into oak and hickory tree trunks with a 65 lb bow while squirrel hunting and they bounce off without damage. This is with Magnus small game heads, selfbows, and bamboo backed d/r bows that aren't quite as efficient as some of today's composite recurves, but still. Hickory shafts have proven their toughness to me over and over. Tough enough that no other shaft material has interested me as a serious hunting/roving arrow for 25 years.

Hickory is very tough, but also heavy. Though I no longer use it, I found bamboo to be very tough. Carbon with collars and inserts epoxied are just about indestructible.

Thanks Frank!

Orion, hickory can be had in a wide range of weights that generally follow its spine. I've made hickories from 400 to 900 grains. It's easy enough to get them at 8 to 10 grains per pound. That's what I always roll with and I don't consider that heavy, relative to bow weight.

Yep, bamboo is tough, and I enjoy crafting them, but too light for me.

I have shot several arrows into solid concrete, the toughest are the skinny thick walled carbons. Unfooted Beman MFX or Black Max shafts bounce off concrete from #55 bows without damage if the HIT insert was epoxyed in place. If footed with a thick walled aluminum shaft they would be very tough indeed.

*I haven’t tried this with hickory, I would love to though.

Who is a good source for hickory shafts? Might give them a try!

I've never been able to find hickory that light, Jeff. In spines of 60#, give or take 5#, my 29-inch bop, 11/32 hickory arrows were in the 600-700 grain range with a 125 grain poinst, which for me yielded 12 -14 gpp arrows. Still very workable, but heavy.

I would love to try hickory but find it a challenge to find them not too heavy for my 49# longbow. I'd like not to exceed 600 grains for a finished arrow if possible. Can any one help me?

Orion, my 'regular' hickory shafts are 640 to 650 grains which includes a 125 grain point, at 63-65 spine.

And I'll throw this out there for others' consideration.. I've regularly found the lighter spined/weight hickories/ash etc to be more finicky, less stable, and more difficult to keep straight. I suspect, perhaps, some of them have those attributes because the wood wasn't seasoned the way it should have been. Mainly because to various degrees, I've seen mis-seasoned hickory and ash degrade it's way toward the likes of rubber... and ultimately useless for bow or arrow wood.

But if this poorly seasoned wood is brought to board form, looks adequate on its surface, as boards tend to do, and is chosen and used for bows or arrows because of its superficial qualities, the user may be disappointed, and may end up with a false-negative view toward the wood itself... not true... not the wood's fault. For our dynamic uses, white woods like hickory MUST be seasoned properly, quickly, and with purpose, and extreme prejudice. The vast majority doesn't satisfy our requirements. This is why I cut and season my own. I'm a bit of a control freak anyway :^)

have shot carbon,aluminum and wood.

All hold up just fine on soft targets and all can be and will be broken at some point if you stump shoot enough.

Day in and day out most carbons are going last longer.

However by paying attention to what you are shooting, all of them work just fine.

I no longer give a preference based solely on the arrow material itself.

Ash has been good to me. Had one I shot for about five years, no fletch left, and finally center punched a good solid piece of granite.

Laminated birch followed by ash

Toughest arrow shaft I ever used was Barrel Tapered Ash from the old Silent Pond. I never 3D shoot, been stumping and roving since the late 60's. I use 2117's now with Judos.

Bamboo

I don't know what the toughest is but I use what ever shaft I am hunting with. Right now I am using Surewood shafts I also have a arrows fig jig that works awesome on repairing broken wood arrows.

I certainly haven't tried all of the different species of wood shafts, but I still have not broken a single doug fir shaft (Surewoods) while stumping since I switched to them three plus years ago.

bamboo x 2 they are really tough.

I stump shoot with what I hunt with, and nowdays that’s Doug fir mostly. The rate of breaking them decreased greatly from POC, chundoo, spruce, and a few others, but I still break/split/damage some every year, but a lot less. The biggest loss of arrows is from significant nicks in the shafts from shooting target butts in the winter from multiple group shots using blunts.

Most of the finished shafts weigh in about 650 to 680 with 145/160 grain heads and range from 60 to 80 lb. spin groups. As I drop down in bow weight, my lighter 45-52ish pound longbows tend to like them all, except a couple of them that need to be very spine specific on the lower weight end. I do like the heavier grain shafts for hunting, and that’s what is “practiced” with.

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