I was just down shooting 4's & 5's. What I saw was the difference in speed and trajectory was not even perceptible. Nor was the noise from where I stood. The 1/10 inch difference in profile was not a factor in shelf clearance with my equipment and a 3.5% loss in kinetic energy is negligible. So for me, it seems 5" is the way to go even though they stabilize only slightly sooner.

Funny thing, sometimes when I go to my range there is a doe or 3 down there. If I'm not acting sneaky I can usually get a half dozen shots in before they wander off. From 30 feet away!

I've tried 2, 3, 4, and 5" feathers.  I've found I got the best stabilization from four 4" shield cut feathers.  I got the second best stabilization from four 3" parabolic feathers, and found I had the least noise with that setup until I put a broadhead on.  

Once I did that, it was a wash.  So as of now I've got a few of each ready to go.

5 inch shield cut helical. They stabilize faster, yes I too bare shaft tune but hunting conditions are never as perfect as target conditions, the imparted spin starts more quickly and they don't look like those damn plastic vanes! In heavy brush or small game arrows I'll sometimes use 5.5 inch shield cuts, they stabilize even faster and what do I care if they are slower at 20 yards when I can only see 10 and I'm shooting 5?

There were ACTUAL, very well designed scientific tests done on all on this and printed in Bowhunter magazines years ago. It wasn't done by somebody making calculations or what someone thought should be happening. They set up bowshooting machines, to eliminate that variation and shot lots of bows and lots of different arrow and feather combinations and what they found was that EVERYTIME, EVERYTIME the bigger or more feathers or helical, vs straight or angled got out to past 40 yards FASTER than the smaller less, feathers and that it was near to 50 yards where the smaller feathers, straight, angled actually passed the bigger or helical feathers.

Skinny shafts, 2 inch feathers, 3 fletch, forward pinstripe airfoil and a heavy front end out of a 52lb longbow makes for an extremely quiet, fast, and stable arrow flight.

i now shoot very low profile 4" feathers. i find that if i get my arrows tuned properly i don't need 5" or 5.5" feathers on the back of them. i find they stabilize as efficiently if i make a poor release, defiantly are quieter and a bit quicker than the high profile 5" feathers i used to use.

noise - have someone shoot at a target near you..you'll hear those big profile 5 1/2's coming a long way off..and they'll sound like a HUEY helicopter.

Rick,

I'm pretty sure I read that article myself.

One other thing I didnt mention as a reason to shoot smaller fletchings is I like them bright, but the big big feathers on my bowquiver sure make a big HIGH PROFILE in the woods blob of bright color moving around...especially when you raise your bow up, or move it as you walk.

I just like to reduce that as much aspossible.

Lastly, the wind. I hunted several years in a row for goats and mulies in Wyoming. I've never seen the wind like I saw out there. You'd shoot an arrow and danged if it wouldnt end up 8 feet off to one side, with the wind pushing it. I tried some lower profile fletching and it really helped vs the big feathers. Something else to consider in your choice.

we all like what we like....kind of like guys with over/under shotguns vs side by side, and we know why we like it..but if one thing was perfect everybody would use that...isnt it nice that we can all get to where we want to go using different methods of getting there????

Rick, You believe everything thing you read?..Lots of prim rose paths in print. I can see where they could "see" those results...With poorly tuned equipment....O.L.

I shoot great big broadheads. I like great big feathers to control them.I also think they look cool    

 

O.L. I can't argue with you on this one.  I do perfer my feathers 5 3/4 inch med/high profile. I get them that way because I burn them in. I also use crowns that are a min. of 11 inches long.  

    I am into traditional bows not just for the shooting, but for the way they look, same with the arrows. I have some old BEAR and BEN PEARSON arrows that have 11 1/4 inch crowns, and high profile six inch parabolic feathers, pretty typical of the time.  

    I hate to see seven inch crowns, and  small feathers on traditional hunting arrows. The only thing more offensive to me is traditional arrows with mechanical heads, yuck! I am not saying that small feather won't work, and I understand that some people do it because they can get two feathers out of one full length feather. I guess it's just something related to my age. I am 53 pushing 54, been shooting since I was 10 or 11 in Michigan, Fred Bear country. It was the way it was done, and I just ain't ready to fix something that isn't broken.  

    Just like the way they look, and with my Widows, they do the job just fine.

    Oh! by the way, with my burner I can trim them down to the point that they are very silent in flight.  

Scott

"Killy, 4.5"? I don't think I've seen any - you must be burnin' em, yes?"

You betcher fur! The smoke detector gets turned of regularly, for the broiler, and for the feather burner.  :D  

Killdeer    It's GOOD to be the woman!  :D

5.75" 'nanners 'cause I stink, and need as much help as I can.  Day by day it gets better though.....

Actually I don't BELIEVE anything I read, especially on the internet, but I worked in an R&D engineering facility and testing lab for years and I can tell when someone details their testing procedures whether they knew what they were doing or not and whether to believe their results or not. I am much more likely to believe numbers when they come from bows that are TUNED and from machines and accurate chronographs at 45 yards than when they come from assumptions and calculators. My bows and arrows are as well tuned as anyones and I can shoot them at 30 yards with no feathers perfectly well, but still sloppy releases happen and paradox is there even with the best tuned bow in the world.

I use 5" feathers because I find them a bit more forgiving in correcting arrow flight problems caused by minor form errors and my sloppy release. Never really noticed enough difference in trajectory at the distances I shoot to see much benefit of switching to smaller fletching.

Rick, I know what you and they were trying to say but if we're compareing resumes, much of my background is aviation with aerodynamics with lots of testing involved also. The red flag goes up when folks draw conclusions that go against what little I know...

Just because they were using a machine doesn't mean their tuning was as good as it should/could have been.

The old story about the school teacher dropping a worm into a glass of whiskey and the worm dies. She asks the class what they could conclude from that? Little boy stands up and says "drink enough whiskey and you won't get worms!"

Testing requires changing only 1 factor at a time to draw conclusions from.

I know for a fact the arrow with the least drag will be faster at any point in the trajectory. Does the arrow with 4" feathers have less drag then the identical one with 5" feathers?? You bet it does..The ONLY way they could have seen the results they did was if the arrows were coming out of the bow sideways...Poor tuning....Now the arrow with the best stability will have the least drag until they both stablize. That would be the one with 5" fletch. So they had 2 variables going on, fletching size and stability that clouded the conclusions.

We need fletching to correct for our mistakes and for when it gets bumped around in flight. The "faster" an arrow stabilizes, the less energy it'll bleed off in the process of corecting itself, carrying more down range. Many/most do that with fletching size, the bigger, the more stable. The other way to do it is with FOC. The farther forward the balance point is the more stable it'll be. 2 arrows with say 5" fletch, one 10% foc and the other 20%, the 20% will shoot flatter then the 10% if disturbed. An arrow with 4" or fletch can be just as stable or more so as another with 5" if it's FOC is further forward. So just because fletching is bigger doesn't mean it's more "stable". Again, 2 variables instead of 1 as good testing dictates

They should have concluded that with poor tuning 5" fletch will stabilize faster then 4" which I think we'd all agree with. But the 5" isn't going to be faster or flatter at any range without some disturbance in arrow flight to start with or enroute....O.L.

Dang O.L., now ya got me wanting to strip off my big'uns for the little'uns. After all I did switch to Fast Flight to gain a little speed, now ya got me really thinking!LOL.

I really appreciate all your tuning info. Finally got my bare shafts hitting with my fletched ones. So the journey continues.....      

Naw...Don't do that unless you intend on shooting 40 yards!    Next week I'll be trying to shoot a 40# bow about 800!    ....O.L.

Yeah but can you hit anything that far out OL other than the ground?    

It will not matter if he hits it or not.Too far to see anyway.