Chested Arrow: Traditional Shaft Profile Explained

A chested arrow is a wooden arrow shaft whose thickest point sits toward the nock end, tapering from there toward both the pile (point) and the nock. It is a shaft profile — a description of the shaft's cross-sectional geometry along its length — and has nothing to do with arrowhead shape.

The Four Traditional Shaft Profiles

Traditional wooden arrows are grouped into four profiles based on where the shaft is widest:

• Parallel — the shaft is the same diameter from nock to pile; the simplest and most common modern form.
• Barrelled — thickest near the center, tapering toward both ends.
• Bob-tailed — thickest at the pile end, tapering toward the nock; the opposite of chested.
• Chested (or breasted) — thickest toward the nock, tapering to the pile and nock.

Understanding where a shaft profile sits in this family helps when selecting or building traditional wooden arrows. If you are also thinking about shooting in windy conditions, shaft balance and profile both play a role in how an arrow holds its line downrange.

Terminology: Chested vs. Breasted

The terms chested and breasted are used interchangeably in many archery texts. However, historical writers did not always agree. Thomas Roberts, writing at the turn of the 19th century, used breasted to mean thickest in the middle — what we now call barrelled — and referred to that form as high chested. Because terminology shifted between sources and centuries, modern archers should rely on the technical definition rather than any single historical writer's usage.