I prefer spruce shafts over cedar. They're a bit beefier and seems to hold up much better. Cedar breaks much easier than spruce if you hit something hard, breaking right behind the tip. But every now and then I get cedar shafts simply because my shop doesn't store spruce shafts in a great many different spines.
I moved recently and noticed that there is a bunch of hazel (common hazel, this is Europe) close by with lots of shoots. Anyone knows how those are for shafts? Do they stay straight?
George, in this case I think it was the combination of dry firing and an underbuilt, very fast bow. Hadn't chronographed it, but it shot about 25-30 paces farther than it "should have" for that length and weight. I don't know if knots and other character stuff on a bow make the bow less equipped to handle the forces of a dry fire. Maybe. My bow broke just next to a large knot on the lower limb. Maybe knots and twists and whatnot make the bow more sensitive to the shock of dry fire?