American Hickory dowels have to meet very strict quality characteristics to become a Vater drum stick. Vater only uses dowels that have a specific moisture content straightness and grain structure to produce a higher quality drum stick. These Vater 5B drum sticks are formed from hickory—the most popular drum stick material. Hickory is dense and strong so it is resistant to chipping and breaking. Stronger than maple it also absorbs a lot of shock. As a result these sticks lessen wrist and hand fatigue while playing. Vater guarantees their drum sticks to be straighter more consistent and of higher quality than all other leading drum stick manufacturers. 100% of Vater’s drum sticks are manufactured in the USA. All Vater Drum sticks are tone and weight matched by computer analysis.