Wood vs. aluminum vs. carbon, compared honestly — with the weight row first. Every number here has a source. Every test we run gets its full method published, so anyone can repeat it.
less sting than aluminum alloy. Wood's damping ratio is 3.4–6.7%; alloy's is 0.5–1.3%.
SEE THE TABLE ↓less heat pulled from your bare hands than aluminum. Wood conducts 0.16 W/m·K; alloy, 130–167.
SEE THE TABLE ↓No two shafts share a grain. Every one is serial-stamped and held to our Grain Spec.
THE GRAIN SPEC ↓| Property | Hickory (First Grain) | Hard maple | Aluminum alloy | Carbon composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight, 30″ attack | ~250–285 g | ~220–250 g (est.) | 135–195 g | 130–165 g |
| Vibration damping | 3.4–6.7% | wood class | 0.5–1.3% — up to ~10× worse | 4.0–6.4% (with engineered inserts) |
| Thermal conductivity | 0.16 W/m·K | wood class | 130–167 W/m·K | ~0.35 W/m·K |
| Stiffness (MOE) | 2.16M psi | 1.83M psi | high, uniform | tunable by layup |
| Break strength (MOR) | 20,200 psi | 15,800 psi | dents before breaking | strong until it isn't |
| Janka hardness | 1,880 lbf | 1,450 lbf | n/a | n/a |
| Core | Solid wood | Solid wood | Hollow tube | Hollow tube |
| How it fails | Progressively — cracks and flakes you can see coming | Can shatter if grain isn't controlled — why our Grain Spec exists | Dents, bends | Can crack suddenly under extreme impact |
| Character | Grain is a fingerprint | Grain is a fingerprint | Extruded, identical | Molded, identical |
Sources: Wood Database — hickory · hard maple · Russell, Penn State — damping measurements · Engineering Toolbox — thermal conductivity · alloy and carbon weights from published manufacturer and review specs. Maple weight is estimated from density.
A First Grain hickory attack shaft weighs about twice what a premium carbon shaft does. If your whole game is a 135-gram stick, we're not your shaft.
If you throw checks for a living, the mass is the feature. Momentum is mass times velocity: a 280 g shaft at the same stick speed carries roughly twice the momentum of a 140 g one. That's why a wood check lands and a featherweight check taps.
Want lighter wood? Walnut is 24% lighter than hickory. Maple and red oak sit in between.
We buy competitor shafts at retail, test them the same way we test ours, and publish everything — including where wood loses.
Hickory's published break strength. We load full shafts to failure on camera — wood's progressive failure next to carbon's snap.
Three-point bend of full shafts (ASTM D790 concept; D143 for wood specimens), loaded to failure and filmed. Stiffness curve and break load reported against named competitor shafts bought at retail.
Strike a suspended shaft, measure how fast the vibration dies. The alloy gap is dramatic — and anyone can repeat it.
Accelerometer ring-down and log-decrement, following Russell's published bat-damping method. Damping ratio reported for First Grain, alloy and carbon shafts.
An IR thermometer on bare-hand grip surfaces at a 7am fall-ball temperature. Physics doesn't care about your gloves.
Grip-surface temperature curves outdoors at 35°F after equal exposure, plus a cold-soak impact comparison.
Repeated, standardized impacts until something gives. Durability evidence instead of "wood breaks" folklore.
Cyclic flexural loading (ASTM D7774 concept) and a standardized repeated-impact rig, filmed. Failures published.
Slope of grain on every blank — the same grain control that cut MLB's shattered-bat rate by more than half.
Slope-of-grain and density checks on every blank before profiling. Pieces that fail are rejected, not sold. See the spec sheet below.
The same bend, sting, weight and balance tests on all five species — hickory strongest, walnut lightest, in our own numbers.
T1 and T2 protocols plus measured weight and balance point, run identically on every species. Results become the Choose Your Wood chart.
Balance point and swing weight per species and length — the real buyer question, answered with numbers instead of vibes.
Knife-edge balance point and pendulum moment-of-inertia measurements, filmed.
The crosse “shall be made of wood, laminated wood or synthetic material.”
High school rules carry the same material language.
The Canadian Lacrosse Association has approved wooden ash and hickory shafts.
The rulebook is silent on shaft material. No league bans wood.
Every step down the ladder buys flex, swing speed and lighter carry. That's why we mill five species instead of one.
Choose your wood →Janka hardness in lbf · Wood Database
When Major League Baseball and the U.S. Forest Service tightened slope-of-grain and density controls on bats, the rate of shattered bats fell by more than half. We hold every blank to the same idea.
Past hickory, you're not buying performance. You're carrying furniture.
No ironwood, no ipe, no imported ultra-hards. At 65+ lb/ft³, ipe is about 30% denser than hickory — dead weight past the point of usefulness in a shaft, and an imported tropical in an American-hardwood brand. Hickory is the hardest wood that still plays like a lacrosse stick.
30-day check guarantee. Play with it — if you don't feel the difference, send it back.
