Shot shoots

[Pat B]

I use the natural taper of the shoot and reduce the butt end if necessary. Your best bet would be to collect different sizes and experiment to find what works best for you. Hillbilly and I both use sourwood but we work them differently. Steve(Hillbilly) likes to make his shafts look like machined dowels(all with hand tools) and I like mine to be as crude as possible but still effective. Art Butner, who got me started with sourwood and taught me lots about making arrows makes sourwood(or any other material) arrows that will rival any arrow from any material by any arrowsmith. Art's arrows are truly arrow Art!   So, take all that you can read about making hardwood shoot or cane arrows and experiment to see what works best for you. There is no right or wrong way if they make arrows.
  Privet is excellent arrow material. It is hard and heavy!

[aero86]

its all i can recognize.  im still trying to find a book about local species of plants and trying to find time to go out and identify plants!  haha.  but ive heard its good, and its all around here so i will probably stick with it.  ill have to see if sourwood even grows around here.

[Pat B]

Audubon Field Guide to Trees.     Where do you live?

[aero86]

i live in northeast texas.  greenville, tx.  about 45 minutes ne of dallas.  i looked it up, it looks like sourwood grows mostly east of me.  in the App. mountains..

[Pat B]

There are lots of arrow making shrubs in your area. Some native and some exotic like the privet. Try any tree shoots or multi-stemmed shrubs. Wild rose for instance.
   In a few of the very first PA Magazines that came out there was a series of articles, "Arrow Making 101" or something like that by Ken Wee there is a list of natural arrow making trees and shrubs. Excellent series of articles on making primitive arrows if you can get them.

[Hillbilly]

Like Pat said, I like to cut my shoots bigger and plane them down to size-they seem to stay straight better than using smaller ones. I've often had to take sourwood down to 5/16" to get a fifty-poundish spine. These sourwoods were 5/16" diameter, 29" long, spined at 50# and weighed close to 600 grains finished weight:

[aero86]

ok, cool, thanks guys!  one of these days ill find some time to finish my bow and straighten the shafts ive left to dry!