Who do you guys buy from and why?

I bought some stained and sealed shafts from a well know supplier but had problems with the sealer staying on. I had to paint the nock end in order to get the feathers to stay on and the sealer would rub off. I have since resealed the shafts.

So again who do you get your shafts from and why?

I'm guessing that the stain under the sealer rejected the sealer. In other words they may have been incompatible.

You might be better off to buy your shafts raw and apply your own sealer and finish. I'll tell you how I do it, but it's only one way. There are other ways of doing it that will also give good results.

If I stain it's with water or alcohol based only. Or they can be colored with acrylic paints wiped on straight or dilute with water for a stained look that allows the grain to show through. Crowns and cresting are done with water based acrylics also.

The top coat is water based poly wiped on in three to ?? Coats just depends on your choice. Fletching goes on with Duco as do the nocks. Points with hot melt.

Clean, oderless and easy clean up.

Surewood Shafts (for fir) and Wapiti Archery (for cedar).

Excellent shafts and service. True to stated spine and weight.

Wapiti, Surewood, Rose City, Whispering Winds, several good suppliers out there.

Did you talk to the supplier that you bought the shafts from? And what did they say? I've never seen a sealer rub off.

Wapiti,for ceder and douglas fir Twig archery for chandoo,,or raw ceder/chandoo

Forgot to add that the only shafts that I buy are the POC's. Poplar, pine and Doug fir shafts I make myself.

The POC is purchased from Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear.

I did speak to the supplier and they said they would replace the shafts but have not as of yet. Does not look like they will. Been a while.

Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear. Last month I called and ordered two dozen POC shafts spined 52# and that is what they sent me. Twenty-four shafts that were hand-spined at 52#. Not a range of say, 50-55, but each one at 52#.

Last week they sent me an email with Black Friday special of 20% off and free shipping for $50 orders. On Friday I ordered online and it arrived the next day! Granted, I live about 60 miles away and your delivery will probably take a bit longer, but great product and great service is what they provide at Rocky Mountain Specialty Gear.

I think their sale may still be on.

Kevin Forrester of Forrester Wood Shafts. I only shoot hardwood shafts and Kevin makes the best there is! He also has great customer service.

Darren

Surewood

Check out TSA.

surewood and whispering winds hex pine

Surewood.

Hildebrand

Recently the distributor in canada I deal with hasn't been able to get shafts from them which is dissapointing.

Back to carbon I guess

RMSG-excellent quality shafts.

Wapiti for cedar, Surewood for fir and Hildebrand for spruce(not currently accepting orders). All of these suppliers have sent me nothing but first rate, high quality raw shafts so I'll keep buying from them.

Agree with thin man! Wapiti cedar, surewood doug fir.

I gave a friend a Robertson and a dozen arrows, Wapitis. He stated that he would only use aluminums. They flew so perfect that he swears by them. With Surewoods and Wapitis, I would spend the money and have them do the tapering. I find that using wood arrows within an inch or less of the draw length is much more predictable than letting them be way too long. The most I have ever had to adjust for anyone is a 15 and 20 grain change in point weight for tuning. 20 grains up for a Hill shooter and 15 grains up for an R/D shooter. In both cases the draw they had when showing me their draw, shooting at a blank target at close range was more than their actual shooting draw, when they were shooting at a deer target testing broadheads. With wood arrows, the first thing to tune is the shooter, most often. The next most important thing is the person that is selecting your shafts, having them do all of the tapering, gets some real critical inspection. Considering how good Surewood and Wapiti are, I am baffled why anyone would want to use carbons for Hill style longbows.

Did you test the 52# shafts on a spine tester to see whether they were right on the nose with their numbers? Or is someone just good with a sharpie? I only had one dealing with RMS, and was well pleased with it, it was on a bow. But the ability to deliver shafts with zero range, on any number you spec. that would require a warehouse the size of costco, heated with all the shafts in sizes that are less popular.

I recently did nearly 100 shafts off of a single board of poplar, very nice quality, top of the line shaftmaker. I'm not sure I would have gotten 5 shafts in any one weight and spine range out of the exercise. One can build them into serviceable arrows, but getting any 5 that mike out to say a 2018 accuracy spec on weight and spine is tough. If you have a million shafts you will cover a broad spectrum, but it must get expensive given that some sizes would not be popular. tough gig.

Pretty much like other folks are saying: Surewood or Wapiti for Doug Fir, Hildebrand for spruce, while they were supplying. I'd put the customer service in the same order.

I don't shoot cedar, since I stump shoot a lot and the other woods hold up better, but I'd go to Wapiti first, RMS second for those ( RMS's customer service is great, but I like Wapiti as the mfgr. for the raw shafts.

Oh, and as for finish - I always make up my own, from bare shafts. Pretty simple and inexpensive if you go with a wipe-on finish, as many coats as you like.

Bowlim, back when I was in the business there could have been many times I'd have available same spine weight shafts in fairly large quantities. When one is doing 1000 shafts of the same spine group there is bound to be lots with the same spine. Not uncommon at all. Vast difference between buying boxes of 1000 from manufacturer than individual making them from boards.

"Did you test the 52# shafts on a spine tester to see whether they were right on the nose with their numbers?"

I did that in their shop when I bought a set of 57# spined. Each one right on the money. The physical weight was marked very tight too, but after seeing the spine matches I was taking their word for it.

Bowlim - I think you are referring to my post about 52# spine. Good question. Yes, they are spined that close because I double- checked them with my Don Adams spine tester. I've bought several sets of shafts from rmsg and they were all accurately spined.

My understanding is that they buy large quantities of the best shafts they can and then hand-spine them in-house. The orders I bought earlier were odd lots of 11, 13 or 14. This time they had at least 24 @52#, so that is what they sent me. I probably should have asked for a few more if they had them.

Grain weight is also very close, but the final spine and grain weight and balance point is measured after the arrows are completed. Then I can match groups of arrows very close.

Now, if only I could learn to shoot......

When I was using Acmes and Rose City Premiums years back, I found that often the slightly heavier shafts were also the slightly stiffer shafts of the dozen. A bit of delicate sanding decreased both if the best shaft would fall towards the bottom of the spine group. However, I think sometimes people make too much out of weight variances. Even when I shot target bows, it took quite a bit of weight change to show up, for the 70 meter stuff maybe, but not for the 20 yards indoor stuff.

Rocky Mountain Specialty

The Footed Shaft. Terry occasionally runs across old shafts in bulk and has some fantastic buys as well.

I used to buy all my shafts from Allegheny Mountain arrow woods, mostly because they were a vendor at the Denton Hilll shoot and I would look through the many bundles of Ash shafts, that they had available to pick out the grain weight I use. They were great shafts. Allegheny sold their equipment to someone and I am always looking for quality ash shafts, since I am down to my last half dozen. I only see them available at 3rivers and some on flea bay, but have not tried them yet. I guess that Surewood and Wapiti don't have access to good mountain ash like Allegeheny did from the mountains of Pennsylvania. I would buy from them with their reputations, I wish they offered ash. TLM

You would think I would have learned a good lesson when my favorite tapered Douglas fir arrow shaft supplier in Oregonn no longer offered shafts. I wish I had advance warning when Allegheny was moving on. Now I could kick myself for not ordering 100 shafts from them when they were in business! TLM

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