The following question came in recently from a “non-beginner:” “If an aluminum arrow has a dent in it, is it still usable?”

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Coaches need to be aware of how much our students do not know about archery equipment. It is easy for grizzled veterans of archery to forget how much there is to learn.

As all-carbon arrows become more prevalent, archers get less and less experience with aluminum arrows, even though the pathway up from a “beginner” usually is paved with aluminum arrows. There seems to be a growing opinion that aluminum arrows are “obsolete,” but this is incorrect. Marketing forces are always on the side of “new and improved” (an oxymoronic claim, by the way) and seem to denigrate the prior models as “old” or “inferior.” So, an impression is created that older designs are less capable, limiting performance somehow. This is not true.

There is…