Of all that I've tried, Sourwood is my favourite. I've showed a Sourwood arrow to Navajo and Hopi people and they are very fascinated by this arrowwood and always ask where to get it. They were hoping it grew here in Arizona. Port Orford Cedar makes a nice arrow, of course, but they are pretty fragile to say the least.
A Navajo here who would know told me they used Mountain Mahogany but I have not yet tried this. He showed me some arrows he made with it that had flared nocks and I must admit, his arrows were great. But a lot of Navajo here are getting dowels and bamboo from Home Depot and making arrows with it and say it works well for them. The Hopi are getting a type of arrowwood that grows near the mesas, so they say, and they use it. But they said this is getting hard to find in decent shaft size. But when they saw the Sourwood arrow I showed them, they said they'd use it exclusively if they could get it. The Hopi make arrows for certain dances as well as for shooting.
As a sidenote, arrow grooving was traditionally done with Navajo arrows.
