30 year old POC Arrows - OK to shoot? advice sought

[Ian Turner]

Hi all,
30 years ago i made up some 23/64 POC arrows that were fletched and sealed with estapol and some with good old Johnsons floor wax.
I am after opinions from those in the know as you opinions as to if they would be safe to shoot out of 45-50# recurves.
Cheers Ian

[Dennis La Varenne]

If they are in good condition on external examination and have a reasonable amount of recoil from bending, ie they don't stay bent when bent, they will be fine.

I shoot some of my old target arrows from my collection which predate yours by another 30 years and they are as good as the day they were made before the invention of estapol with its far better sealant qualities.

[Ian Turner]

Hi Dennis,
Thanks for the reply.
They are in good nick some barely shot and really nice and straight - i was quite surprised when i checked them.
Personal opinion the POC shafts were a better quality then but IMO.
Cheers
Ian

[Dennis La Varenne]

Ian,

Yes, they were better then. My old arrows are 5/16" and 9/32" and they are amazingly stiff. In those days they also made 1/4" arrows too. They even barrel tapered and bobbed them too even at those small diameters. A lot has been lost since those days.

Perhaps there were more big very old and dense trees back then. I believe they did not cut the trees, but used naturally fallen trees. Apparently the stuff doesn't rot down and remains usable for ages.

Perhaps the stuff these days is much younger and less dense.

I don't use any arrows from my matched sets of 12 or 6 arrow sets, but you can often pick up remnant sets of very fine arrows from those days on eBay and I grab them when I can. A lot of them are footed too - 4 points, rarely two. My old Ben Pearson and York Archery catalogues had them spined in sets to within 2 ounces of each other - not within 5 lbs like today. I am not talking about mass here. I am talking about the spine weight from the spine jig which registered to within 2 ounces of spine. Amazing really - as good as any alloy shaft.