X10 – Which end Pointy?
The Easton X10 shaft has a fantastic record. Its considered by many to be the ultimate shaft for competitive recurve. It has won more World and Olympic titles than any other arrow since it debuted at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. However, you don’t see that many on club lines mainly because they are brutally expensive. A side effect of this is you don’t get to make many X10’s and there a few things to be wary of when taking an arrow saw to such an outrageously expensive shaft.
The first thing is you only cut from the front of the shaft and secondly, the amount you can safely cut off has an upper limit**. We assume this is due to the shafts barreled shape and where it flexes when shot. However, it begs the question … which is the front of the shaft? Normally with a parallel shaft, you assume the decals go nearer the back, rev up the saw and have at it as its not going to matter. When you are going all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a couple of weeks salary, you need to be a little more certain of which end the makers consider the front.
Fortunately, Easton gives you a clue in the decals on the shaft. The three white boxes shown above are for your initials. They are rarely used but are intended to be towards the nock end of the shaft. Would be nice if Easton actually told anyone but hey, its archery .. no-one tells you anything!
The first cut is the deepest …
The fact we have this knowledge must be especially comforting to someone in the club because GA’s equipment gnu is about to put together a set of X10’s. These are for a rival GA archer and will involve some precise cutting to match current arrow lengths. Our gnu promised to take “special, personalized care” of the shafts. Which, knowing who our equipment gnu is, probably fills the shafts owner with considerable fear and dread!
We’re not implying anything nefarious or unsavoury but this photo popped up recently in committee chat. We’re hoping its just banter, not a threat and not indicative of how the shafts are being cut because GA does have a rather nice arrow saw. No doubt we’ll hear more of the arrow build and subsequent tuning in the coming days. Heads up, there may be some weeping.
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Important: Please do not cut arrow shafts with a hacksaw other than wooden shafts. Its not precise or a clean enough cut for carbon or aluminium shafts and will make a horrible mess of them. See our equipment gnu for advice … he probably wont wynde you up as much as he is doing above. That’s a special case! ;o)
** Easton X10 shaft information including a video on how the shafts are created.
