I think I enjoy building arrows as much as shooting them. I’m a tinkerer in general, but building arrows comes with the satisfaction of a finished product that is functional and visually appealing. I’ve been shooting Gold Tip Traditional carbon arrows for the most part this year and I have a few Easton Traditional carbon arrows fletched as well from before I knew what I was doing. This time I opted for aluminum and in particular, Easton Gamegetter II shafts in a really cool black finish with silver lettering. To be honest, I picked them primarily for the color because I wanted to build IUP themed target arrows.
The first thing I had to do was replace the hideous bright yellow nocks that came with the shafts. I opted for Easton Super Nocks in smoke color, which look sharp in conjunction with the other colors. I then found some really cool looking feathers from Gateway that very closely match IUP’s colors with a cool black design incorporated. I’m really pleased with the outcome as they look pretty much as I envisioned them. They might be too pretty to shoot.
In all seriousness, I plan to use these arrows for target shooting but if I love how the build performs I’ll put together a set for hunting using more field friendly feathers. As much as I love the look of these, they wouldn’t be ideal for determining how good of a hit you made on an animal, and they’d be pretty difficult to find after the shot. Adding a white arrow wrap and using brighter colored feathers would solve that problem.