Your thoughts on different strikers

[Crghss]

I have ceramic, green slate and glass pots. I want too get some customer strikers. My questions:

Do you find certain wood strikers work better with certain surfaces?
If so what combination?
Whats your favorite wood for strikers?
Do you use a non-wood tip striker? Who makes it?
Recommend a striker maker?

[raven105]

For versatility, a good Tulipwood striker is hard to beat.  Dymondwood is a great all purpose striker as well. Get you a snakewood striker to make your calls come alive. There are some great custom makers on this board that can help you out.


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[yelpy]

It's not only about the the kind of wood a striker is made from. There are a lot of variables involved. One makers striker might not run well on your pots when another's will in the same wood. It's more a trial and error thing IMO.

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[va longbeard]

It's not only about the the kind of wood a striker is made from. There are a lot of variables involved. One makers striker might not run well on your pots when another's will in the same wood. It's more a trial and error thing IMO.

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Well said even two strikers from the same maker will not play the same!

[Turkeytider]

For versatility, a good Tulipwood striker is hard to beat.  Dymondwood is a great all purpose striker as well. Get you a snakewood striker to make your calls come alive. There are some great custom makers on this board that can help you out.


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Completely concur on those three. Anybody that doesn`t have one of each is probably in the extreme minority. Dymondwood and snakewood are extremely hard woods and lend themselves to sharp clucks and yelps. For soft calling, cedar is known for that. SOFT clucks and purrs are not hard with cedar, but when I try fit in a soft yelp, I can`t get a consistent sound. Jeff Harrison ( JLH on this board ) is getting rave reviews. I`m in hopes that his weighted cedar will be able to do it all on the soft side. There are too many great striker makers to list them all. Can only comment on the ones I`ve dealt with. Mr. Harold Fowler is turkey hunting royalty. Everyone who turkey hunts should do two things. One is to simply talk to Mr. Harold. I`ve been on the planet 70 years and he`s one of the nicest gentlemen it`s ever been my pleasure to encounter. The second thing is to own and use at least one of his strikers. If they`re not the best, I`d hazard a guess they`re well within the top five or so. I have a snakewood, tulipwood and red oak that can make my Crystal Mistress and aluminum Enticer sing. I`d read a lot about Darrel Stuckey`s strikers in general and his Macassar Ebony in particular. Just got one and now I know why just about everyone includes them in their vests when they hit the woods. If my calls sound half as good to the turkeys with that striker as they do to me,,, at least one will come home with me!

[Sir-diealot]

I am found of my Stuckey Tulipwood striker that seems to play well on everything I play it on. I also got a used David Halloron 1 piece Ipe that sounds fantastic on everything I have run it on except maybe my Titanium pot that I just got. I have two waterproof strikers that I think are either Sinclair's or Halloron's and they play very well when wet on my Mad Super Crystal. I have 2 diamond woods from Neal that play wonderfully, I got a black anodized aluminum pot that I was having a hard time getting to roll over but when I put Neal's diamond wood to it it just played like a charm. All strikers are flared with the exception of the waterproof strikers which are not flared but not straight either, kinda rounded I guess.

[mmclain]

Black locust
Rutland Dymondwood the new Dymalux stuff has more resin in it a tends to load up glass
Ironwood
Bubinga
Snakewood is nice but not the end all of strikers.  Honestly if you were blind and can't sit there and be enamored by the pattern in the wood you probably not give a crap for spending all those dimes on it. 
Beaman carbon arrow shaft strikers
Purple Heart
Ipe
Macassar ebony
My FMJ strikers with all these mentioned  wood tips 
Gobbler yelps. A fat dogwood striker

[mastevt]

If you have never tried an acrylic striker on ceramic, you should.  Ceramic can be difficult to play, and acrylic makes playing it easily. You also get the ability to play it wet. That said, it plays well on metal and glass, also giving you the ability to play wet.  I usually provide an acrylic and a hardwood striker to my customers who order ceramic, and metal Surfaces, just because of its ease of playing.

[Sir-diealot]

If you have never tried an acrylic striker on ceramic, you should.  Ceramic can be difficult to play, and acrylic makes playing it easily. You also get the ability to play it wet. That said, it plays well on metal and glass, also giving you the ability to play wet.  I usually provide an acrylic and a hardwood striker to my customers who order ceramic, and metal Surfaces, just because of its ease of playing.

Thanks for the tip.

[Turkeytider]

If you have never tried an acrylic striker on ceramic, you should.  Ceramic can be difficult to play, and acrylic makes playing it easily. You also get the ability to play it wet. That said, it plays well on metal and glass, also giving you the ability to play wet.  I usually provide an acrylic and a hardwood striker to my customers who order ceramic, and metal Surfaces, just because of its ease of playing.

I have a Quaker Boy acrylic striker that I bought specifically to play on an Enticer aluminum pot in wet weather. The thing will play under water I do believe! Sounds pretty darn close to my custom wood strikers to boot.

[Tattoo Dave]

I use river cane from time to time. Also known as bamboo. It's hollow though, so typically have to add a dowel in the center. Looks cool though, and seems to work great on pretty much every surface. I used it to experiment with once, simply because I had tons of scrap pieces laying around, cutoffs from making cane arrows.

Tattoo Dave

[Techn9cian02]

Stuckey and Lyman make my favorite strikers, I've had a Padauk from both and it's incredible plays so easy on everything. Tulipwood plays very well on every surface as well. Snakewood is great for slate


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[tha bugman]

Really all depends on the call and what your ear is wanting to hear.  Get a bunch of different types (single and two piece) made from different woods and just have fun with it!   

[M,Yingling]

normally if i cant get it done with a
2 piece rutland dymond wood (raspy nasty sound )   
,,,a black locust  ( little clearer sound )
or one my fiber rods  (all round )
Personally its better to play a surface in a different spot to achive a sound instead of carrying 10 different strikers       

[BTH]

I have gone through buying and selling A LOT of strikers the past couple years. I like having more strikers vs. having a bunch of pot calls. Different pressure put to each striker as it plays on each surface can be another variable to the sound being produced as well.

My favorites that overlap on different surfaces are Hickory, black locust, dymondwood, ipe, jatoba, canarywood, cumaru, bloodwood, mac ebony and tulipwood in no particular order. These are a mix of 1 and 2 piece.