No, this is not a political tip. It’s all about your arrow fletching!
Fletching your own arrows lets you add a personal touch to your setup, and it saves money. It also eliminates a lot of the frustration that comes from shooting arrows with nicked, torn or missing fletchings.
Fletching is easy, especially if you purchase one of the many fine tools available today. One common area of confusion when it comes to fletching is in the degree of helical, or amount of twist, in which the various fletching tools can be purchased (or adjusted to).
Whether you shoot feathers or vanes, higher twist (helical) gives your arrow more spin, which helps it stabilize faster, making it more accurate. The drawbacks to using a high degree of helical are they slow the arrow down considerably, and they make a lot more noise than arrows fletched with straighter vanes. Some expert bowhunters say they’re convinced whitetails react to the sound of an approaching arrow.
Another difficulty with higher degree helical twist is they’re almost impossible to apply to micro-diameter shafts. The smaller the shaft or the stronger the helical degree, the less surface area is available to make contact with the base of the fletching.
Also note offset is not the same as helical. Most straight-fletch configurations include a degree of offset. In other words, the vane is straight, but it is not installed directly in line with the arrow shaft, angling slightly left or right in relation to the arrow point. This small offset, usually 2 or 3 degrees, helps impart spin.
Now you might be asking if you should you shoot a left or right offset.
The short answer is it’s not a critical choice. Most hunters can dial in and hunt and never have to think about their fletching again. The longer answer for those who really want to tune their bows is you should choose the offset that matches your bow’s natural arrow spin.
When you shoot a bare arrow shaft, your bow imparts a natural clockwise or counter-clockwise spin on the arrow. That spin is not enough to stabilize the arrow, but it makes sense to have your fletching work in concert with your bow’s natural spin. Lancaster Archery has a great video showing slow motion footage of a bow shooting arrows with both right and left offset.
It seems clear in the video that the arrow fletched to match the natural spin starts rotating and stabilizing faster than the arrow fletched against the natural spin.
To see which way your bow spins arrows, put a dot on a bare shaft and shoot it from a few feet from the target. Before you pull the arrow out of the target, look to see which way the dot moved. Repeat the shot a few times to be sure, and then fletch to that direction.
How much detail you want to worry over is entirely up to you. If you’re getting good results with what you’re doing, why worry about it? If you enjoy tinkering and tuning, have at it and make your arrows the best they can be. It’s all up to you.
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