Our small dojo uses the cheap rattan bos for kumite amd reserves our hardwood bos for kata. Does anyone out there use their hardwood bos regularly for kumite?

"Kumite" exactly how?

Ratten would be very dangerous to spar with--hardwood even more so.

"Kumite" - in various modes, pretty much any way you can think of:

Bo/bo and bo sai kata.

Canned medium to heavy contact line drills - up and down the floor with set techniques (e.g. chudan horizontal strike/wall block or head strike/high block or lunges/j-blocks, etc, etc).

Three or five step light free sparring (I attck while you defend 3 or 5 times, then you transition your last defense into your set of attacks, repeat continuously).

Light free sparring with no gear.

Heavier free sparring with fencing masks and hockey gloves.

Since we all supply our own weapons, there are a variety of materials used in our dojos for bo contact work. All Rattan or hardwood. Unnatural materials such as plastic are not allowed.

I've found rattan bruises vs hardwood but still works ok. Hardwood will work fine for a while then split or shatter as it gets fatigued.

Pretty much the same with us, Reiki.

The thing I like about rattan "kumi" bos is that their quality, sight unseen (as in an internet purchase), seems to be more trustable than the hard wood bos. Seems like the "worst" with rattan is maybe you get a skinny or "light" one, but not too often.

With hardwood though, it is always a question about the grain and 2 out of 3 (in the $25-$40 price range) seem to be crap. You can do kata but that's it.

for the limited fixed Bo kumite that i practise i use an ash bo, the same that i use for my kata and excersises.

obviously if i was looking at contact training i would have a rethink, but I really dont see why i would need to 'spar' with bo, of course if others do thats fine.