I love bamboo :)

[aznboi3644]

I've made only a few bamboo arrows but man are they the toughest shafts I've used.  After they are heat straightened and set they are nearly indestructible.  I've made two from home grown bamboo and one from Lowes garden stake material.  Home grown shafts are a touch lighter and more pronounced nodes but durability is the same.

I usually sit my target in front of a tree in the front yard and I'll miss every now and then.  But my woodies will only last four maybe five head on shots to the tree trunk before splitting...dowel arrows last even less maybe one or two impacts.  But these bamboo shafts will take it like its nothing leaving only holes in the bark from the impact.  None have points only nails for blunts.

My friends break quite of my shoot arrows but I'm thinking I need to make some sets of bamboo arrows for them to beat the crap out of lol.  So far so good and no restraightening.
 
I love my shoot arrows but for durability bamboo gets it hands down.

[mullet]

 If I'm not shooting 'Boo it's carbons, there, I admitted it. And there doesn't seem to be much difference.

[sailordad]

If I'm not shooting 'Boo it's carbons, there, I admitted it. And there doesn't seem to be much difference.

except the cost 

ive always been told that cane/boo arrows are natures carbon
i havent broken one yet missing my target and hitting the fence

[aznboi3644]

I'll admit there are a few holes in the fence dividing my yard and the neighbors...arrows off target sometimes just blow clean holes through

[Pappy]

I have broke a few,but it takes some doing. They are defiantly the toughest thing I have used.
   Pappy

[hillbilly61]

Cane is all I use. Had a dzn POC arrows when I started but I find building cane, from harvesting to completion more satisfying And tthey last alot lomger from being tougher

[aero86]

ive broken a few, but the last one i broke, wasnt the shafts fault.  i was seeing if i could split a small chunk of wood by shooting it with a nail head field point.  got pretty close to doing it.  still gotta watch out with bamboo, its pretty tough even when broken..  someone mentioned that it was used in the past with it just split for mail targets..  i can believe it. just take a piece of bamboo and shot something, like a board with it, and see what it does..

[Pat B]

A friend of ours made a few cane(probably hill or river cane) arrows for a 3D shoot at Hickory NC a few years ago. Very primitive with tied on feathers in tangential style. For a point he cut a slash at the big end of the cane about 4" above a node and fire hardened it. He filled the void with sand and dripped pitch to seal it. Barry shot the entire course with one or two of these arrows, hitting trees, rocks, etc and both survived the test.

[aznboi3644]

Hmm...I never knew cane was so tough.  I guess I had this predetermined view of it in my mind that cane was brittle and would break from hard hits.

I'd love to try some.  Anyone know if cane grows in southern Indiana?

[Pat B]

I think it does along the very southern border. Look up Arundaneria (genus for native cane/bamboo) in a Ill State horticulture  or plant site