First attempt to make a homemade bolt

I tried my hand at making a bolt from a fiberglass rod, had cut a slit in the front and in the back of the rod. I used a modified utility Knife blade for arrow head and a plastic lid for feathers. Was a failed attempted do to the fact I could not get the cut straight in the rod. Shot out of my 50lb and it was wild crazy.
I have some other ideas to try once I get time.

Has anyone tried to make your own bolts?

Splitting the rear of bolt to add fletching is just gonna cause it to shatter when the string impacts that slot wrong. Fletching is best glued on, the way it's normally glued on regular arrows, but with two vanes, not three.

Utility knife blades are far too brittle to make good general purpose, they'll shatter if they hit something hard, or hit something at the wrong angle. There is a lot of conventional archery arrow making supplies out there to be had relatively inexpensively. Buy conventional aluminum/fiberglass arrows and cut them in half, add the inserts at the ends for crossbow nocks (not arrow nocks) and screw-in arrowheads. You can often find a good deal on mismatched handsfuls of arrows through Ebay for dirt cheap. Likewise inserts, vanes, and crossbow nocks. Or try your local archery shop for help, bits etc.

The metal or poly crossbow bolts available through Ebay are cheap enough (I just got a dozen for $4 including shipping) that it's not worth the hassle to make bolts, to me, except for four or so slightly longer bolts I intend to make from a couple old carbon-fiber arrows I've got. I'll cut them in half, like I said, and add crossbow nocks and broadhead tips. The broadheads, of course, for use in my self-defense application.

I agree about the bolts being cheap, and I plan to stock up. I was just being creative with junk I had around the house. I also wanted to see how hard it was to produce a bolt say there was no more e-bay or local store due to ……
AGAIN FOR .36 TO .46 A BOLT GUYS JUST BUY THEM, I JUST LIKE TO TINKER AND I DON’T WANT ANY ONE STEPPING OUTSIDE THEIR REALM OF SKILLS.
ALWAYS WARE SAFETY GLASSES AND TARGET PRACTICE SHOOTING IN A SAFE DIRECTION.

For 50# or 80# prods you could make wooden bolts from hardware store dowel. Harden the butt ends with epoxy or superglue, and use sheet metal for points. You could use feather vans, or plastic vanes for fletching; or even a double layer of plastic tape (I think duct tape would have too much drag).

I recently went to a local shop and got bamboo rods to try and cut down. Used scissor snips at first but kept cracking the wood so I sawed from then on. I cut at the joints so each section of bamboo is straight as possible. I reused the tips from the plastic arrows which worked fine. Had to sand down so the bamboo would fit but a little glue and its pretty sturdy. All I have to do is glue feathers and I'm almost done. I also tried making bolts out of fiberglass rods people use to mark their driveway for the snowplow but, it didn't go very well. The rod is too thick but if you wanted something that hit hard it would work. I tried a not sharpened pencil and it worked surprisingly well. I ordered steal throwing darts from amazon and they look promising. 6 inches in length and decent size of rod compared to plastic arrows it came with. Will try them when I get home