One of the things that always surprises me is that people spend upwards of £800 on a traditional bow or longbow then just pick twelve random shafts from the boxes, wooden shafts are no different from aluminium or carbon shafts in the sense that you want them all the same. I got three random shafts out of the box and weighed them and below is the results.

As you can see the first shaft was weighing in at 365 whilst the last one was 417,that's a difference of 52 grains just bare in mind if you are using an 80 grain point that is nearly an extra point weight on top.A side note I have seen the shafts weigh upwards of over 100 grains more!

If you're doing everything correct stance, posture, anchor, loose and your arrows are all at different weights they are going to have different elevation results with some being high and some low.

How I start this process is by getting as many as a hundred shafts out of the box and start weighing them on the grain scales then set them aside in categories of 10 grains, for example 340-350, 350-360 and so on. In an ideal world we would like the shafts to be the exact same weight but you could go through a box of a thousand and not get that.

Now that we have all of our shafts weighing in the same we now need to check that they are all straight, we have to remember that these shafts are only wood after all.

The easiest way to do this is to roll the shafts on a nice flat surface, if the shafts are straight then you will hear a nice flat noise if the shaft is bent then you will hear a rather loud noise that sounds like a loud rattle.

The other option that you can do is to straighten the arrows yourself, this is a little tricky and you have to be very careful. You will need to simmer a saucepan of water and hold the wooden shaft above it so that the shaft is pliable, the next step then is to bend the shaft on the ends against the bend in the wood, after that is done put the shaft to one side and do the same to the next one. After all of your shafts are done repeat the process again and then wax the shafts.

The spine of the shafts is consistent but you can then use the spine tester to fine tune, just make sure that when you place the shaft on the tester the grain is facing up so that the shaft is at its stiffest.

If you have any questions at all please feel free to comment below and i will answer you as soon as possible.

The spine of the arrow is consistent