I started bow hunting in 1961, using cedar arrow shafts.  Went to aluminum when they came out in the early 1970; terrible not straight and too soft.  one shot bent the arrow.

then started shooting comp with fiberglass arrows very good but heavy and slow for hunting.  In '80 I went back to the new Easton aluminum and have generally been happy with them for hunting and informal target.

This year I thought about going to the carbon graphite.  WOW $6-12 apiece when you buy a dozen shafts without inserts, fletching or point.  punt!

anyone using these expensive rascals?   are they worth it?

I use them Bear, very fast and fly very well, pretty good backbone to them also. I like mine.

Rick

I had three of them 34 years ago. they started to crack axially from the head down.  I used them for raccoon shooting as the full penetration in trees means no arrow recovery.

Still have enough aluminum arrows for the next 6 weeks of archery hunting, but I'm thinking of changing at the start of next year.

The brand of arrow heads (mechanicals) I've been using for 10 years are no longer made.  So I thought I might change everything next year.

BEAR

The set-up I used this year for hunting: Carbon Express shaft, special fletching, lumma noc, and 2" Rage broadhead cost just over $30 a shot. I launched three of them and recovered them all. They all hit deer (some not in the right place). I credit that to the lumma noc's. Wasn't looking anywhere near where I saw that orange glow. I lost one during practice this year but that didn't have the noc or the broad head. I've  never shot a deer with wooden arrows and only one with aluminum but I see no reason to shoot anything other than carbon. In the last six years I've lost maybe 6 and broke about three. The carbon just shoot so much flatter. If I where using a recurve, aluminum would work just fine, maybe for fishing also?

DD

Seems the only advantage of carbon is thinner/lighter and therefore shoot flatter.  I'm already faster than I need to be, and always shoot thru.  I hunt ground blinds  and tree stands.  the ground blinds are for portable one day hunts and the tree stands are on areas I hunt two or three times a week.  My shoots are always close 5-23 yards for the last 15 whitetails.

BEAR

I mostly hunt elk in the timber. When you take a shot in the timber at elk for the most part you can write off the arrow and broadhead. If you miss there is usually only two outcomes. One you hit a tree dead on. In that case your broadhead is toast and you have a 50/50 chance of the arrow being any good. The second and more likley outcome is you hit the tree at a glancing blow. In this case the broadhead and arrow usually are both toast and zing off in some other direction.   If you hit the elk and the arrow stays in the animal it is toast. If you get a pass thru and you don't hit a tree on the other side you can sometime get the arrrow and broadhead back in a usable form.

I have shot high tech bows and light carbon arrow that went well over 300 FPS. I have found that with higher speed equipment things tend to get very querky.  I found that I had more things go wrong and the setup was not very forgiving in shooting form.  The same bow with hearier aluminum arrow was much easier to shoot and did not have as many problems.

I currently have a recurve and a high teck compound and shoot aluminum in the recurve becasue I have found them to be more consistant than wood arrows. In the compound I tried a compromise. I found and shoot some heavier carbon arrows. The carbons are almost as heavy as aluminum and so far have been doing pretty well.

Russ

I've got a Browning Nomad  42#; I bought new in 1967.  beautiful and light weight.  I was shooting comp then and had a sight made for it; when hunting back then other archers had never seen a string peep or a movable sight.

I had shot some cedar shafts with it but they didn't have the penetration that the glass arrows did.  I used Bear razorheads for close to 30 years, never had a failure with those blades.  I met Fred Bear and he was a great guy.  He really "made" archery deer hunting as a sport.