Well, I had to get some more arrows lined up for a soon-to-be hog hunt I am anticipating. I had a dozen Gold Tip CAA's bought and started to get a half dozen of those ready for the trip. I was gonna have them set up strictly for hunting, with weights in front for added FOC and total arrow weight. Needless to say, the company I ordered the shafts from sent the wrong weights. So that leads me to my next point.... I also decided to buy a set of Gold Tip Pro Hunters as more ammo as I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and I figured another dozen arrows wouldn't hurt to have on hand. Plus, I figured I still wanted the added benefits of the insert weights, so I could use the ones I had already purchased in the Pro Hunter shafts. Well, needless to say, as much as I am disappointed in myself, I am disappointed in the straightness of these "PRO" grade shafts. Though I didn't cut the arrow both front and back, I never would have thought these arrows would spin so terribly. Out of the dozen CAA's I only had one that wasn't up to snuff on the arrow inspector. Out of the dozen Pro Hunters, I am gonna be lucky to get 7-8 "decent" shafts. Only about 4 spin without a hint of wobble. At this point, I really don't know what to do. I cut them to 28" and I still have about an inch or so hanging off the front of the rest at full draw. Any takers on what I should do next? I was thinking since I plan on putting some insert weights up front (therefore I can cut down on the stiffening of the spine effect) to cut 1/2" off the back of the arrow and hopefully end up getting another few arrows to spin a little better. Any suggestions would be helpful at this point?????? Guess I will carry forward with fletching up all 11 of the CAA's and use the Pro Hunters I do have as reserves. Pretty disappointed right now and I have been pretty pleased with Gold Tip up to this point.
Is it the shaft, or have you installed points/inserts? Do you need to square the ends? If it's truly the shaft, I'd call Tim G. at Gold Tip (801-437-8800) and let him know of the problem. I'm pretty darn sure that he will take care of you. I've sent back bad arrows from them in the past and they took care of it. I'm also surprised. It's typical to cull 1-2 arrows per dozen from any premium arrow that I've seen personally, but I've never seen that many out of a batch of Pro Hunters.
My question... When you were cutting the shafts.... Why did you not take off an inch or two off the back? If you want premium results, you need to do premium work Like RJ said one or an occasion two shafts may not spin just right out of a dozen. Rarely do I have any that I scrap though. They usually group close enough to use as a practice shaft with a field tip. I just wont screw a broadhead onto these wobblers.
Thanks for the replies gents. These were raw shafts. I really think if I would have cut an inch off the back first I could have limited the number I had to cull. Went back last night, took my time, and really sat down and spun them again. I got 8-9 shafts I would consider shootable. Maybe my standards were set a little higher than they should have been. And like Scott said, if I would have just cut an inch or two off the back first, I might have only one bad shaft (I know one wouldn't have passed, it is just BAAAAD). The ends are pretty square when they were cut but when I go to build them up I am going to re-square both ends with an ASD. Lesson learned about premium cutting jobs. I will probably end up calling about sending back that extremely bad shaft to get a replacement. If you guys are only finding one-two shafts out of a dozen that are bad, then it was pretty much my fault by not cutting both ends of the shaft.
I would take RJ's advice and call Tim Gillingham at Gold Tip, I have only had one problem with any of the Gold tips I have used (I shoot them exclusively) and he took care of it straight away.
I had heard that it was Gold Tips that had a shop in Mexico, they closed the factory, but some how, the employees there kept the shop going and put out some really bad arrows. I believe this was last yr.
