Feathers more accurate than vanes?
Equipment
Contributors to this thread:
I was shooting the other day and on a whim I switched from some arrows that had vanes on them to some that had feathers. Lo and behold, the ones with the feathers shot much tighter groups. -The ones with vanes were some FMJ's with 2" Blazers. The more accurate ones were some Gold Tips with 4" feathers. I know that I have two factors in play, different shafts and different fletching, and without tearing arrows apart to do a side by side test, I was wondering if other people found feathers more accurate than vanes.
TMBB
I go back & forth just for a change & I build all my own. I can't say one is better than the other. Feathers a little more forgiving when I make a mistake.
Apples to apples they should be as they cause more drag. That’s why they are also slower and noisier. But I don’t believe if you have a noticeable difference that your setup is tuned properly. Chances are the feathers are correcting either a form or tuning flaw.
i wonder what kind of vanes professional shooters use?
Theoretically with a perfect tune and perfect form no. Tune/ form that is slightly off with fixed blades maybe.
I’ve always heard feathers stabilize an arrow better. I’ve tried them, not worth the added stability. They suck in weather.
You've changed much more than the two variables. FOC, spine (both static and dynamic), weight, nock fit....
They create more drag so they stabilize an arrow faster. if there is a flaw with your shooting form or the tune of your bow, they should provide a bit more forgiveness which could translate to accuracy.
Not sure if they’re more accurate, but they sure look a helluva lot cooler.
I shoot 4 - 2in blazers but also have one 4 - 4in feather fletched. Shoot both all year long. Both shoot the same, but the feathers are more forgiving of a slight form issue. Love feathers for hunting due to visibility since I don’t like lighted knocks, but can see the blazers good also. Try both for a period of time and decide for yourself. Part of the fun of archery is figuring out what works for YOU.
I’m in the “more forgiving” camp.
But if your sample size is just a few groups, it could all be in your head. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
I’m just kinda glad that shooting off the shelf gives me a bomb- proof excuse for using feathers, ‘cuz that’s what I like. And of course I shot 4” parabolics out of the compound, too....
My best groups were consistently slightly better with feathers, back in my competitive days, and I never had much trouble with them in any rain that I was willing to hunt in.
I also liked them when I shot 3D often, because they were pretty much immune to being holed by my competitors' shots when I occasionally left them a tempting "aiming point" in an eleven ring.
But the plastic imitations cost much less and lasted longer in normal use, and after I went to superglue as my fletching glue of choice, my preference shifted to the vanes.
I Think It’s more forgiving not accurate.
Vanes from my compound and feathers from my self bows and trad gear.
Feathers are a pretty amazing natural item. It would be hard to manufacture something that folds out of the way at the shot
Then rebounds and corrects the arrow after the paradox and slamming into the back of the bow.
More forgiving equals more accurate for me. Never been a great target shooter. Been shooting feathers most of my life. Tried going back to various vanes on more than one occasion. Always come back to 4" helical feathers.
The science behind it simply states that a feather by nature has more drag than a vane of the same surface area.
More drag can be good if you need it, bad if you don't.
Feathers are WAY more forgiving with regard to fletch contact with a cable or rest prong. Which is why you'll see mostly feathers on the large diameter indoor target arrows.
Weather conditions are obvious set-backs for feathers. There are waterproofing agents out there though.
"Not sure if they’re more accurate, but they sure look a helluva lot cooler." This I can agree with. I spent many hours chopping, grinding and dying turkey feathers a multitute of colors and then splicing them onto the vanes for multicolored vanes. Not much cooler or satisfying than having your own homemade custom arrow fletchings ;)
Well...maybe someone should design some 2" feathers and make everyone happy....
3 Rivers has 2" feathers.
TMBB
“ Then rebounds and corrects the arrow after the paradox and slamming into the back of the bow.”
If your tune is good, there should be no contact... let alone any “slamming”....
And FWIW.... any duck will tell you that feathers are waterproof enough.
I shoot 2" batwings from Gateway feathers from my Ridge 34 and love them. I've never been a fan of vanes, and the batwings are awesome. Properly tuned, you don't need much vane or feather to stabilizer your arrow with broad heads.
And like GF said, if your tune is good, there should be no contact...
I especially love the musical sound they make when they rub on a stick when you're 10 yards off a bedded buck.... awesome....
What they said above. You changed a bunch of stuff but likely doubled the drag over those blazers. It's drag that does the dirty work stabilizing flight. It's why they put em on the back.....
Also a good number of "store bought" arras with blazers are straight fletched and not helical like what I would guess the majority of feathers are. That really helps a great deal shooting fixed blade heads, adds even more drag and "stabilizes" flight by limiting, or equalizing really, any planing.
If only we used duck feathers instead of turkey wing feathers....
GF, I shoot Osage self bows with the arrow rested on my hand
No center shot
The string is in the middle of the handle.
The arrow tip is pointing far to the right since I shoot left handed.
When the string is dropped the back of the arrow is driven into the back of the bow
Then it flex’s “Paradox”
The arrow 2nd from the left is what happens on a bow with no shelf cut in.
GF,
Shoot your recurve on the opposite side with no shelf and see what the arrow wants to do.
The arrow 2nd from the left is what happens on a bow with no shelf cut in.
GF,
Shoot your recurve on the opposite side with no shelf and see what the arrow wants to do.
I don’t own a single arrow weak enough to flex around the wrong side of my riser. I could maybe force the issue with one of my boys’ arrows, but I don’t think I’m gonna risk it.
But if your illustrations are correct, I still don’t see any reason why you would have to have contact as the nock clears the riser.
@X-Man - next year you can ask Paul for some of those yardhopper feathers and you’ll be good to go. Nice, high oil lines on dem honkers. Or dry- fly spray/powder/dope. It’s all good.
Of course, I do have a bunch of arrows made up with vanes for wet conditions; they shoot just fine off of a weatherest.... They’re just not my favorites....
I shoot feathers almost 100%. Went on a couple Alaska hunts and did use vanes then. I like the look of feathers and I do use feathers from turkeys that i arrow. Generally, I shoot three four inch feathers. But recently I tried four three inch. Can’t really say one is better.
I don’t think I’ve ever shot an arrow with vanes but I can certainly say I’ve never shot an arrow with vanes at an animal.
Weather proofing feathers and keeping them covered in bad weather works fine.
What I like about feathers is that if one gets damaged I can cut it back and keep shooting that arrow. Try that with a vane. I'll gran that vanes are probably harder to damage to begin with. I shoot in competition with recurve, rules require 3x4" fletch. Don't think I could get vanes that size to do well off the shelf.
Dana, before blazers were a thing having damaged vanes was also a thing. Since moving to blazers or the AAE equivalent (thick vanes) I have never damaged a vane. Short of having it cut off on a rib but that would happen with feathers as well.
If your bow is tuned properly, other than look, I so literally no advantage to using feathers. But that’s because I see “more drag” as a disadvantage. If in your mind you equate “more drag” with “forgiveness” than you’d disagree. But if that was your thinking why not just start with a cheaper, slower bow? ;)
"forgiveness" in this context is referring to stabilizing the arrow quicker by increasing the amount of drag. Going to a slower bow is not going to solve that issue. It may be beneficial to more, than just a less than perfectly tuned bow, It could be just the occasional bad release or anything else that happens during a shot that influences the arrow. Contrary to what I often read on these type of threads, Fletching...no matter how much drag they create will not change the track of an arrow. all it does is keep the back end following the front end, it's basically along for the ride. It has no ability to steer the arrow, if it is then there is bigger problems at hand.
On the other hand, you don't necessarily need feathers to increase the drag, (It's just an easy way to do that) you can increase drag effectively enough by increasing the surface area of the vane, increasing the number of vanes, (4 vs 3). Where feathers really shine is when shooting big broad heads from a self bow with no shelf or shooting a bow with a shelf and shooting off the shelf or anything similar where you will have fletching contact with something. You can't really do that effectively with vanes.
And don’t forget there are Turbulators....
In addition to stabilizing the arrow with drag, helical fletching can help to reduce the steering of arrow irregularities by rotation. Feathers with a good helical are very effective in rotating arrows very quickly. No two arrows are exactly the same although they may be so close that the differences can not be perceived. The same with each shot although I am sure that some of you are near prefect but I sure am not. IMO feather are going to be more accurate because they can stabilize an arrow more quickly with drag and rotation. The poorer the arrows and the shooter the bigger the improvement will be. If the arrows and shooter are prefect very little fletching is needed. They also collapse if they hit a branch or something in flight.
I try to shoot feathers for whitetail hunting at home where I can easily change to vanes if rain is predicted. I shot vanes on western hunts. I practice with vanes because they are less forgiving and make me strive for perfection which I never obtain.
I do not like super fast arrows because they are harder to stabilize. However, I would rather shoot a more efficient bow and control the arrow speed by bow poundage and arrow weight.
Think about it this way... what did God put on birds for flying? God knows what He’s doing.
What's the best waterproofing for feathers?
Bighorn, Gateway and Bohning make a powder I assume they are the same... It’s a white powder that you put in a plastic zip loc bag they put the back end of the arrow in zin the bad closed and shake it around.
Feather shooters,
What inch feather do you recommend? Three or four fletch ?
I shot four, four inch back in the 80s. Then went to three four inch. Recently, I went to four three inch. They all fly fine in a tuned bow.
Just a guess, but I bet there’s been more game killed with feather fletched arrows than plastic fletched arrows. :)
Cnelk, probably true, but feathers had more than a thousand years head start.??
If I did not have over 500 4 inch. I would be using the 3.5” batwing from gateway.
I believe that they cause more rotation of the arrow. I have not tried them. They may be even more noisey in the air. Gate way has a video on the batwing feathers on YouTube. I believe the concept is sound.
OK, I just want to be the first to say it: From the comments we can conclude that more feathers, longer feathers, more helical and more helical on more and longer feathers is just a band aid for shooters that don't know how to tune a bow. Hahaha!
They be like .......... mechanicals!!
I shoot trad and always with feathers. I used to waterproof them with the powder or spray with Scotchguard but haven't for many years and they are fine. When you shoot them wet they still have enough drag and they don't stay laying down. I use 3, 5" shield cut left wing with a big helical. They work great and help make sure a big non-vented 2 blade behaves when I screw up my form or release.
cnelk - I'd also bet you that more game is killed on a yearly basis with vanes ;)
^^ For sure. And I contribute to that every year
Also... I don’t think feathers are inherently more accurate.. I just think guys who shoot feathers are just better shots :)
Don't forget.... if shooting in the southern hemisphere you should be using left hand, er, wing feathers.......
riddle me this.
if feathers have more drag than vanes why not just use shorter, lower profile or fewer feathers and get the same guidance as vanes? less weight, more FOC, more forgiving of contact w rest or brush etc? ADHD mind at work + i just like working with feathers.
Batwing feathers...... sounds like a Chi-knees lab experiment......
If the same exact size AND fletching pattern/style feathers still have more drag due to their texture. And less weight for better FOC. With a decent rest,contact not an issue, shouldn't be any.
Another advantage over vanes is on pass thoughs. Pretty common for vanes to hang up in the animal and not fully exit, where a feather lays down and much less resistance on pass though. Can be a mess after, but with some care they can make a full comeback.
Feathers have advantages. And also disadvantages, with weather, durability, noise. I chose vanes over feathers several years ago as for me the field performance advantage over feathers is more than any disadvantage. I want to just grab my bow with it's bow mounted quiver full of arrows and go drag it through the bushes and weather all day and hang it up to repeat the next day.
The other end of the spectrum are those who can and do make an arrow a work of art with fletching styles and custom dipping, cresting and all. I can appreciate that, pretty cool really. But that's not why I carry a bow nor how I use it.
“ if feathers have more drag than vanes why not just use shorter, lower profile or fewer feathers and get the same guidance as vanes? ”
Many folks do, but it does get to a point where... what’s the point?
And FWIW, a lot of guys who are confident in their tuning will shoot 2 feathers mounted at 180, rather than 3 or 4. I simply cannot understand a 4-fletch, unless you really want that flu-flu factor. Completely unnecessary and 33% added cost for no demonstrable benefit...
I do think it’s funny, though, that guys will go with tiny vanes that have been modified to make them perform as if they were larger; you can’t get X amount of spin on your arrow without a corresponding amount of drag, can you?
Personally, though... I’m glad that most users of modern equipment prefer the vanes.... because if they all switched over to feathers, the price of them would go through the roof.
If one product I have to care for to make work, and one I don't...guess which I will choose. I don't want to be on a rainy moose hunt and discover these are feathers I forgot to treat. I was plinking geese and shot 3 geese with the same arrow/broadead one time. Just pulled it out and kept going. If the arrow had had feathers they would have been bloodsoaked and not worked right. That's not the first time I've needed to reuse arrows in the field. And the noise. I personally hate the hiss. Doesn't bother some but it bothers me. I'd rather my arrow was as quiet as possible.
Just finished these. They move so much air it blows any small branches I didnt see out of the arrows path.
I have arrows with both. There are definitely some disadvantages with feathers. To me it's mainly noise, rain and cost. But they have some advantages also. Forgiveness, easier pass through, higher FOC, more drag, stick to shaft better, way cooler. And, I think it is my last attachment to archery tradition. LOL. Everything else I have is pretty modern. Except for me of course. I'm almost an antique.