Acrylic vs Wood Duck Calls

A note on terms: some calls on this site, including several in our best duck calls and best goose calls roundups, use polycarbonate instead of acrylic or wood. Polycarbonate is a separate lightweight plastic; this page compares acrylic and wood specifically, using RNT's Daisy Cutter, which is sold in both.

Tone and weather consistency

Acrylic is a dense, non-porous plastic that doesn't absorb moisture, so its tone stays consistent whether the blind is dry or soaked. Wood is a natural material, and Buck Gardner's own call-buying guide notes that wood barrels are affected by temperature, humidity and moisture more than acrylic or polycarbonate. That doesn't make wood a bad choice; it just means the call can sound slightly different from a bone-dry September morning to a freezing, wet December hunt.

Barrel material at a glance

The same call, two materials

RNT sells its Daisy Cutter design in both acrylic and Bocote wood, which makes it the cleanest way to isolate material from design: the reed set, bore and tuning are the same call either way. RNT describes the Daisy Cutter as louder and more powerful than its own Short Barrel, regardless of which barrel material you choose.

Faulk's takes a different approach with its DR-66, a double reed hand made from walnut with no acrylic counterpart. It's a useful contrast: where the Daisy Cutter lets you pick material independent of reed system, the DR-66 is a case where the wood barrel and the double reed design are sold as one package.

Warranty by material

RNT's warranty policy explicitly lists broken wood barrels as a covered repair, alongside free tuning for the life of the call regardless of material. Faulk's publishes no warranty or tuning service for the DR-66 on the page we checked, so a cracked walnut barrel there is on you to repair or replace.

Caring for a wood call

Since wood reacts to moisture and temperature more than acrylic, per Buck Gardner's own call-buying guidance, wiping a wood call dry after a wet hunt and letting it air out before it goes back in a blind bag or lanyard pouch is worth the habit. Acrylic and polycarbonate calls don't need that step; they're the lower-maintenance choice if you'd rather not think about it.

Don't confuse material with reed system

Barrel material and reed system are two separate decisions that happen to show up together on this page. RNT's Short Barrel Acrylic and Daisy Cutter Acrylic are both single reeds; the Daisy Cutter Bocote Wood is also a single reed, just in a different material. Faulk's DR-66 is the one call here that bundles the decision: it is a double reed and a walnut barrel together, with no acrylic version to isolate the material question. If you want to weigh single vs double reed on its own, see single reed vs double reed duck calls instead of reading reed system off the barrel material.

Warranty support tells a similar story: RNT's single reeds carry the same free-tuning, lifetime-warranty policy regardless of whether you pick acrylic or Bocote wood, while Faulk's DR-66 publishes no warranty or tuning service at all, a gap that has nothing to do with the wood barrel and everything to do with the maker.

Undecided on reed system too? Pair this with single reed vs double reed duck calls. For the full ranked field across every material, see best duck calls.