About 15 years ago I stained 5 dog wood arrows useing bricks. Not real dark but ok. I also once used bricks and add red clay also looked good. The clay made it to light for what I wanted. I did'nt like it so I add some charo, to darken it up. This looked good.
Crooketarrow use to use red root also yellow root (golden sell) . All kinds of berrie's ,rasberrys, purple,red and black berrys all look good on a bow.
What ever you use you won't get the rich color of store bought stains.
Depends on the person ,what they want as to what I do.