another thing, if your sticks are cracking/splitting then you're hitting the cymbals wrong
or atleast that's what I've figured out. My sticks are shredded from my cymbals but they still take a while to crack/shatter. I play with 2b's right now but today at a friends I played ith the most skinniest sticks I've ever used, skinnier than 5A's which I think have to be the skinniest stick ever besides a timbale stick lol. But yea, I was hitting everything perty hard or atleast I thought I was and yea, next to no damage to the sticks
But yea, don't hit crashes with the tip of the stick, hit with the body more or less and don't use you arm a whole lot when hitting the ride cause you'll toque the stick and split it. And also it's probably not the case here, but get sticks that the grain isn't gonna be the cause of the shatter, I think it's supposed to be nearly straight up and down.