Archer Traces Full Process of Hand-Building Arrows and Stone Points

For traditional archers, there's a special kind of satisfaction that comes from shooting an arrow you built yourself — and an even deeper one from hunting with an arrowhead you knapped by hand. That journey, from childhood curiosity to true craftsmanship, is at the heart of a recent piece by Wesley Littlefield, published on Athlon Outdoors, which traces his path from shooting beaver-stick bows as a kid to learning the full process of building hunting arrows and arrowheads from two experienced mentors.

Littlefield's account starts with the shaft work: selecting natural materials like river cane, dogwood, Douglas fir, ash, or cedar, then straightening, sanding, and tapering them for nocks and points. He describes staining and sealing each shaft with polyurethane before carefully gluing on nocks — making sure the bowstring sits perpendicular to the wood grain — and then fletching with turkey feathers, using a jig to keep every feather's curve consistent for true, predictable flight.

Once the practice arrows were complete, Littlefield turned to the attachment of points using hot-melt adhesive, a method that allows hunters to reheat and swap points as needed. For his first season, he relied on metal broadheads for practical reasons, but his real interest lay in learning to make stone arrowheads the way his ancestors once did.

That led him to flintknapper Clint Kissee, who walked him through the process of turning raw stone into a functional hunting point. According to the source, good knapping material — flint, chert, or obsidian — must be free of internal fractures to flake predictably. Using hammer stones and antler tools, Littlefield learned to thin and shape the stone through percussion flaking, then refine it with pressure flaking to reach a final point. Kissee reportedly favors Kahokia-style points: long, narrow, side-notched designs that avoid the barbed shapes many states restrict for hunting use.

That detail is worth underlining for any traditional archer inspired to try this themselves: regulations on stone points and broadhead types vary significantly by state, and hunters should always verify what's legal in their area before heading afield with a handmade point.

Beyond the technical steps, what stands out in Littlefield's account is the sense of connection the process creates — between modern archers and the generations who relied on these same skills out of necessity. For ArcheryWinner readers interested in the full step-by-step process, tools list, and Littlefield's complete reflections, the original article is well worth reading in full at Athlon Outdoors.