best shaft material

[Floridaarcher]

Natural shoots and cane make amazing and durable arrow shafts. They are also easier in my opinion for a beginner than planning your own from a peice of square wood.
Find what kind of natural materials grow in your area and live them a try.
Arrow wood viburnum, red oseir dogwood and native canes and reeds can be found all over the country.

[George Tsoukalas]

All of the above. I've never used sitka spruce. These days I've settled on white pine forward stock. The advantage is that it hand planes easily. Jawge

[Woodely]

Doug fir has given me nothing but headaches,  I found that it splits easy skimming off the edge of the traget frames like the 2x4's and skimming off rocks and hitting metal.  I wont use DF again using hemlock or maybe yellow cedar.  Spruce seems to be the in wood now,  it was not that popular 6 years ago it was all about Port orford.

[Rjg]

I’m partial to hickory but ya gotta like heavy and really need a heat gun for straightening.

[bassman]

If you are making them from scratch Spice Bush,and wild Choke Cherry,Willow, Bamboo will make a good arrow.

[Mafort]

I use poplar a lot for shafts and it works really well. I’d get as many straight grained and straight prices you can. I have an arrowshaft board and plane by John shrunk And the square stock usually has better grain then the ones that are already dowels. Douglas fir is a good shaft material. It’s heavy but i noticed some consistency issues when I cut it and plane it down and spine them. Sitika spruce is tough stuff as far as I’ve heard but I’ve never used it. I’ve used white pine a lot considering I’ve hit this sinew backed bow making patch. The light weight works well and with a foreshaft of dog wood or Osage it’s a good wood to use with sinew backed bows.