The name is Pro ... Parallel Pro.
Some months ago, we recommended (potentially) your first carbon arrow – Merlin Archery’s Alimax. This entry level Aluminium Carbon (A/C) arrow shaft was, we felt, a good replacement for the sadly discontinued Easton ACC. Easton appeared to have gotten out of the A/C market, preferring to standardize their recurve range on carbon only arrows. This is something that is a nightmare on multi use facilities like GA’s fields at Norwood and Craigholme. The reason being 100% carbon arrows are murder to find if they get lost in the grass as there’s little for our metal detectors to detect! It’s quite a serious issue if we can’t find an arrow and one that could cost us our field and make us homeless. So, sadly we had to turn away from Easton and look at entry level arrows from other companies still emphasising A/C.
Our Vice Chair has written to Easton 3 times trying to get clarification on a supposed “compound only” arrow shaft – the A/C Procomp – to see if this was useable on recurve bows. Easton treated him like a judge treats your impassioned plea for that critical, competition winning line cutter ….. and ignored him totally. At least so we thought!**
New onto the arrow market from Easton, is a new shaft …. The X10 Parallel Pro. We’re so up to date with this news that the shafts aren’t quite in the stores yet. This is not a replacement for the original X10 which is one of Easton's most cherished products. This shaft has the feel of being a replacement for the wildly popular ACG. We suspect that Eason realized they had effectively shut themselves off from a huge slice of the world market (intermediate recurve archers requiring A/C shafts shooting on mixed use fields) and had taken steps in the last year to tailor a product to that market. So, what are they like?
This new X10 has a parallel shaft unlike the original X10 which is barrelled. This eases the production process meaning its going to be a quite a bit cheaper than the “mortgage the house if you want a set of barrelled X10’s”! The shaft uses 4mm components from Easton’s standardized range of accessories which is helpful when ordering since you no longer need to wade through multiple ranges for appropriate point or nock pins. They have the usual range of available spines but the odds are not all of them will be available for a while as stocks slowly make their way over the Atlantic. Weight tolerances and straightness are in line with X10 quality meaning an improvement over the old ACG shaft. However, quite frankly the tolerances of the ACGs were nothing to laugh at so these shafts are more than sufficient to get the 10-10-10’s we all love even at 70m. The biggest change from the ACG to the Parallel Pro is the price. The old ACG’s could be picked up for around £210 for a dozen. However, the Parallel Pro’s are not un-adjacent to £250! That’s a bit of a jump simply to allow Easton to standardize their range and naming conventions! However, they are pretty good pieces of kit and a definite step up in quality from the Alimax or the Cartel Neo Triples while not exposing yourself to buying higher performance kit from, as yet, less well proven companies like Pandarus.
The X10 Parallel Pro is not the most cost effective carbon arrow to start your outdoor career on but wouldn’t be a bad choice. They would make for a pretty fine upgrade if you decided your Alimax’s or old school ACC’s were needing upgraded, were too damaged or too few. Going full Vice Chair and spending on top of the range kit like ACE’s or barrelled X10’s? …….. Well, those are pretty steep. The Parallel Pro’s aren’t as expensive as either while retaining Easton quality so making them a good choice for that sensible upgrade. As usual buyer beware but at least with Easton, you can be pretty sure you are on solid ground.
Update: ANOTHER Parallel Pro has been released ... the 3.2mm. The above is reviewing the 4.0mm and we compare the two shafts in this article.
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** We’re not saying that Easton created this arrow purely to shut our Vice Chair up … but if you’ve experienced him in full on whiny mode, you’ll understand why this is not that big a stretch!
Easton Archery's page on the X10 Parallel Pro
Merlin's X10 Parallel Pro
Alternative Sports X10 Parallel Pro
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Re "Our Vice Chair has written to Easton 3 times trying to get clarification on a supposed “compound only” arrow shaft – the A/C Procomp – to see if this was useable on recurve bows."
That arrows are "compound" or "recurve" specific is ridiculous. An arrow is an arrow. As a compound archer, I shot ACCs for decades. I also knew Recurve archers who swore by ACCs. Barreled shafts can be problematic for compound archers, but not necessarily so.
Compound bows are less sensitive to spine matches, but other than that, both kinds of bows can shoot any kind of arrow (aluminum, carbon, fiberglass, wood, etc.). I once heard a guy claim that compound bows could not safely shoot wood arrows and one of our traditional authors submitted an article showing and explaining why that was nonsensical. (Part of the proof was a 25/25 5X IFAA target shot with wood arrows from a compound bow.) The argument is that because of let-off, the string exerts less force on the back of an arrow coming out of a compound bow at the start than from a longbow or recurve bow of the same poundage.
Manufacturers feed into these nonsensical beliefs by marketing "compound specific" arrows, as just one example.