that isn’t a huge amount of helical

you are fine

that looks less than an Arizona ez fletch

what jig?

 

 

There’s no specific amount. It will vary between setups. Many factors contribute: Helical, offset, fletch height, fletch length, arrow diameter, arrow weight, FOC, number of fletchings.

Shoot through paper at 5 and 7 yards and evaluate the amount of tear. If it’s clean, you’ll have some indication that you have stable flight. At that distance your arrow is affected more by the fletchings and less by the bows tune, or arrows spine.

If at 20 yards your fletched shafts are lower than your bare shafts, it could be an indication you have too much helical and it’s causing excessive drag. Could also be a tuning issue- you would have to know the bare shaft comparison to a “standard” fletching configuration. If broadheads and fletched shafts hit together, I’d lean more towards drag, then.

With 4 fletchings i wouldn’t think much helical is needed.

I tried 3 fletchings at 4* helical on some 400 Airstrikes weighing 375gr and they impact lower at higher speeds. If I back off the draw weight, they impact higher. Too much drag.

I have yet to see any benefit of adding a fourth fletch to an arrow. Three are adequate. If you need a fourth go with a longer or larger vane.


Semper Fi,
Mike

 

There’s no specific amount. It will vary between setups. Many factors contribute: Helical, offset, fletch height, fletch length, arrow diameter, arrow weight, FOC, number of fletchings.

Shoot through paper at 5 and 7 yards and evaluate the amount of tear. If it’s clean, you’ll have some indication that you have stable flight. At that distance your arrow is affected more by the fletchings and less by the bows tune, or arrows spine.

If at 20 yards your fletched shafts are lower than your bare shafts, it could be an indication you have too much helical and it’s causing excessive drag. Could also be a tuning issue- you would have to know the bare shaft comparison to a “standard” fletching configuration. If broadheads and fletched shafts hit together, I’d lean more towards drag, then.

With 4 fletchings i wouldn’t think much helical is needed.

I tried 3 fletchings at 4* helical on some 400 Airstrikes weighing 375gr and they impact lower at higher speeds. If I back off the draw weight, they impact higher. Too much drag.

I have yet to see any benefit of adding a fourth fletch to an arrow. Three are adequate. If you need a fourth go with a longer or larger vane.


Semper Fi,
Mike

thank you for the great response.According to bohning they say use 4 heat vanes with fixed blades. Ijust figured the helical would help but I’ll definitely compare to some none non helical 4’s and some helical 3’s and let you know
What happens.

 

If it works for you, that's great. Personally, all 4 fletching ever did for me was add 6-7 grains to the rear of the arrow and look "kinda cool". I get the same accuracy with 3 helical Blazers, with fixed broadheads hitting same POIs as target points, out to 80 yards. For the past 4 years, I've been fletching only with AZ EZ-FLETCH Mini/Mini Max. It's so simple and fast, with perfect, consistent results.

 

 

You do the “true” helical? Was thinking about getting one of those to try it out. Definitely going to do some testing.

 

Yes. True helical, probably about 6°, with 2" Blazers. Works great for big, 3 and 4 blade broadheads--125 & 150 grains. I fletch VAPs and VAP TKO 300s. Target points and broadheads have same POIs out to 80 yards, when I'm fully in practice--like before I go elk hunting.

 

I know the Vane Master Pro is expensive for a fletching tool, but one of the things I like so much about it is, I have the ability to adjust the offset and helical infinitely, as well as the forward and back position of the vane on the arrow shaft.

For my Airstrike 400’s I’m going to build some with 2* helical and compare them to the ones i built with 4*. Once I find the sweet spot for this arrow setup I’ll write down the numbers from the jig and can easily reset it again whenever I need to do so.


Semper Fi,
Mike

 

I know the Vane Master Pro is expensive for a fletching tool, but one of the things I like so much about it is, I have the ability to adjust the offset and helical infinitely, as well as the forward and back position of the vane on the arrow shaft.

For my Airstrike 400’s I’m going to build some with 2* helical and compare them to the ones i built with 4*. Once I find the sweet spot for this arrow setup I’ll write down the numbers from the jig and can easily reset it again whenever I need to do so.

Well they fly great out to 100! Apparently not too much drag. Bare shafts we’re hitting same at 20 until I messed with my rest too much. They still hit with them just tail left and a little high. Need to spend another session getting it back to where it was lol
Semper Fi,
Mike

 

I'll show you a boat prop..

EZ-fletch mini-max-mag. Bit of overkill tbh but now that I have it. I tested these head to head with Blazer with 2 deg offset out to 50m and there was no difference in elevation whatsoever. Don't care if there's minuscule drop out to 100 because these should stabilize faster out of the bow.

 

Some really solid advice thus far. When it comes to fletching brand, style and orientation....it frankly boils down to what flies the best with your BH and setup. I've tried a bunch of combos over the years, keep coming back to Blazers fletched on a Bitz gig with their RH helical clamp. The longer the vane, the more the spiral is evident. During my trad days I shot 5" feathers with the same Bitz jig/clamp.....that was quite impressive looking. But from a recurve 35 yards was a bit of a poke unless stump shooting to air one out. Conversely, I shoot out to 60 with my compound and three-fletched Blazers steer my arrows just fine.

 

I have the same experience. I keep going back to blazers. They just shoot.

 

For long long distance I would say you dont want too much helical. Or if youre shooting absolute rockets (300+ fps). In the same way too much spin+speed could cause a bullet to drift or "wobble out", I feel this is the same concept with arrows. Especially with 4 fletch, you already have plenty of spin/"steering". No need to wrap the vane around the shaft with a ton of helical. 4 fletch I hear is good for high FOC arrows as well, but ive never seen actual hard data to support that (just seems to work).

Over all, your set up is hardly "excessive" compared to what other guys are running. If the arrows are accurate with your particular broadhead (mainly fixed blade, because mechanicals can fly without vanes at all lol) then run with it.

my set up is a
27 3/4" RIP TKO
175gr up front including insert and broad head ( should work out to 10-13% FOC...ish)
475 or 480 total weight, cant remember exactly
4 fletch AAE Max stealth vanes helical+offset, but not propeller helical. (close to yours)
270fps out of a Prime Nexus @70lbs

Itll send an Iron Will Wide 100gr (which is about as wide as you can get with a fixed blade) out to 60 yards no problem with a soft breeze.

I spend hours tuning my bow, however. So technically with no wind, The broadheads should fly straight with hardly any vanes, if my shooting is consistent enough.

 

I have shot straight, long vanes, feathers, short vanes, stiff and flexible and never really saw anything I could really say was better. What I did notice was not having enough vane.....that's why I don't understand the trend to keep going with less and less.

The better the tune the less you need as well. So it varies. I did see broad heads shoot better with a bow that had more fletching because I broad head tune. IOW if the bow is a little out of tune still a 5 inch feather with get the field tips closer to the broad heads than a 3 in vane will.

So I think people do see changes when they change fletching but most of that is tuning issues or form issues they are correcting with more vane.

Ranch Fairy did some downrange speed testing with heavy arrows (of course) but they also showed the changes in helical vs straight as well. It really didn't add up to much IMO. Shoot what you like and gives you the proper POI.

 

I only use a 2 vane fletch with my broad heads & field tips , 4 fletch is way over kill !!

 

I tried 3 4" real feather fletchings with as much helical as I could get. They shot great out to about 40 yards but after that they dropped like lead balloons.
Like in everything there is a tradeoff. How long of shots do you take, how accurate do you want to be, you gotta make the tradeoff's to achieve your goal.

 

I just shot them at 20 in my back yard and they seem to be hitting the exact same spot as my last arrows that weighed 70 grains more. So possibly too much drag. Gonna take them
Out to the the range tomorrow and see if they can still reach out to 100 for 3D but really my whole idea behind this is to have the most forgiving arrow for hunting which I doubt will go past 40 yards with my current amount of skill and experience. I recently went turkey hunting and got multiple good shots throughout the season but I always missed. Always standing in a weird spot and definitely rushing my shot like an idiot. First time hunting and trying to teach myself. Definitely need to slow down and make sure to execute instead of just lobbing an arrow down range. I missed a Tom completely from 25 yds glad I did because when I pulled it out of the hillside it would have been low on him anyways but I dunno, not sure any amount of vane can correct that bad of shooting.

 

I would think they would make more noise with that much helical and the extra vane

 

So... I'm sure a lot of folks have more experience with this than I do, but I thought I'd throw out what happened to me over the course of the last two seasons, and what (I think) it means.

Last year I built a set of BE Carnivores with Ethics outserts and factory fletching. Bow is a Vertix, 75 lb mods, last year 30" draw, 75 lb mods. The arrows were 566 gr with 150 gr heads, and 541 with 125s. They were all going low 280s IIRC.

I tried these arrows with five different heads last year; Magnus Stingers and Black Hornets, IW solids and wides, and Cutthroats. The three narrows heads (Cutthroats, IW solids and Stingers) all flew right with FPs to 60 yards, and would produce the same kind of group size. The wider heads were fine at shorter distances, but beyond 30 yards or so, their flight was just not as consistent/the group sized opened up significantly at longer ranges. I couldn't figure it out last year, but resolved to try something else in the future.

So I bought a different kind of shaft initially this year, and bought a fletching jig. Heard good things about Heat vanes, so I tried them initially in a four fletch configuration. After a couple months of shooting these things, I was flummoxed because I was just not shooting as well as I had been last year, even with field points. So I bought another set of Carnivore shafts, and out of an abundance of caution, bought Blazer vanes for them as well. Turned out that the shafts were the problem, which became evident when nock tuning the Carnivores took less than a quarter of the time that the other shafts did, and turned out better.

My new Carnivore build came out at 554 gr with 125s/579 with 150s, in part because of the fourth fletching and in part because I cut the shafts a bit longer because I also switched the bow to 30.5" mods. Speed this year was 285 with 125 heads, and 282 with 150s. I also made four each in 3* right, 1* right and 3* left just to see if that made any difference.

I didn't get around to trying the IW wides (long story), but the Hornets became the best flying heads I had after switching to a four fletch. All the other heads that worked well last year still worked well this year. The only new head I tried was a Kudu 150... which is as wide as the IW wide and also isn't vented. It's a bit inconsistent past 30 yards as well, even with the four fletch, although not quite as bad as the Hornets and wides were last year.

If there's any benefit to fletching direction, I'm not a good enough shot to discern it. I read somewhere that arrows can't spin fast enough to really get stabilization from any angular velocity that fletching can impart, and I could not disprove that. At one point, I shot two of each fletching configuration with Black Hornets into a total 6" group at 70 yards.

I also read somewhere that any fixed blade head going faster than the 280s is going to be hard to get to fly right. My setup is right on that limit, if there's any truth to that, and the reason I built these arrows this way was to keep them in that speed range.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that once you get an arrow going so fast and have so much broadhead surface area... you probably need a certain amount of fletching surface area if you hope to get consistent flight, particularly at long range.

 

So... I'm sure a lot of folks have more experience with this than I do, but I thought I'd throw out what happened to me over the course of the last two seasons, and what (I think) it means.

Last year I built a set of BE Carnivores with Ethics outserts and factory fletching. Bow is a Vertix, 75 lb mods, last year 30" draw, 75 lb mods. The arrows were 566 gr with 150 gr heads, and 541 with 125s. They were all going low 280s IIRC.

I tried these arrows with five different heads last year; Magnus Stingers and Black Hornets, IW solids and wides, and Cutthroats. The three narrows heads (Cutthroats, IW solids and Stingers) all flew right with FPs to 60 yards, and would produce the same kind of group size. The wider heads were fine at shorter distances, but beyond 30 yards or so, their flight was just not as consistent/the group sized opened up significantly at longer ranges. I couldn't figure it out last year, but resolved to try something else in the future.

So I bought a different kind of shaft initially this year, and bought a fletching jig. Heard good things about Heat vanes, so I tried them initially in a four fletch configuration. After a couple months of shooting these things, I was flummoxed because I was just not shooting as well as I had been last year, even with field points. So I bought another set of Carnivore shafts, and out of an abundance of caution, bought Blazer vanes for them as well. Turned out that the shafts were the problem, which became evident when nock tuning the Carnivores took less than a quarter of the time that the other shafts did, and turned out better.

My new Carnivore build came out at 554 gr with 125s/579 with 150s, in part because of the fourth fletching and in part because I cut the shafts a bit longer because I also switched the bow to 30.5" mods. Speed this year was 285 with 125 heads, and 282 with 150s. I also made four each in 3* right, 1* right and 3* left just to see if that made any difference.

I didn't get around to trying the IW wides (long story), but the Hornets became the best flying heads I had after switching to a four fletch. All the other heads that worked well last year still worked well this year. The only new head I tried was a Kudu 150... which is as wide as the IW wide and also isn't vented. It's a bit inconsistent past 30 yards as well, even with the four fletch, although not quite as bad as the Hornets and wides were last year.

If there's any benefit to fletching direction, I'm not a good enough shot to discern it. I read somewhere that arrows can't spin fast enough to really get stabilization from any angular velocity that fletching can impart, and I could not disprove that. At one point, I shot two of each fletching configuration with Black Hornets into a total 6" group at 70 yards.

I also read somewhere that any fixed blade head going faster than the 280s is going to be hard to get to fly right. My setup is right on that limit, if there's any truth to that, and the reason I built these arrows this way was to keep them in that speed range.

My guess, and it's only a guess, is that once you get an arrow going so fast and have so much broadhead surface area... you probably need a certain amount of fletching surface area if you hope to get consistent flight, particularly at long range.

There’s no specific amount. It will vary between setups. Many factors contribute: Helical, offset, fletch height, fletch length, arrow diameter, arrow weight, FOC, number of fletchings.

Shoot through paper at 5 and 7 yards and evaluate the amount of tear. If it’s clean, you’ll have some indication that you have stable flight. At that distance your arrow is affected more by the fletchings and less by the bows tune, or arrows spine.

If at 20 yards your fletched shafts are lower than your bare shafts, it could be an indication you have too much helical and it’s causing excessive drag. Could also be a tuning issue- you would have to know the bare shaft comparison to a “standard” fletching configuration. If broadheads and fletched shafts hit together, I’d lean more towards drag, then.

With 4 fletchings i wouldn’t think much helical is needed.

I tried 3 fletchings at 4* helical on some 400 Airstrikes weighing 375gr and they impact lower at higher speeds. If I back off the draw weight, they impact higher. Too much drag.

I have yet to see any benefit of adding a fourth fletch to an arrow. Three are adequate. If you need a fourth go with a longer or larger vane.


Semper Fi,
Mike

haven’t shot them through paper yet but that’s my plan for tomorrow. I did shoot bareshaft and fletched at 20 and the bareshafts were hitting about 1” left of the fletched. And maybe slightly lower. Which is weird right? You said if the fletched hit lower it was too much drag what if they hit slightly higher?

 

what spine are the BE arrows and the "other" brand?

 

The Carnivores are 250. The other arrows say they're 240.

Putting the bareshafts through paper, it took less time and shots to get the Carnivores to a bullet hole at ten yards than it took to get these other shafts to a consistent tear at eight feet.

 

4 helical 4" feathers here. I haven't found a fletch configuration that stabilizes fixed blades better.

 

Not sure what my helical is at but it works good. Haven’t shot it with bh’s on yet but they fly great out 100. Might try some feathers through as I have some kicking around. What’s the advantage of feathers vs vanes?

 

I shoot the least offset/vane I can while maintaining good broadhead flight. 3” parabolic feathers x 4 right now with minimal offset on heli clamp are proving as forgiving as anything else I shoot out of my longbow and are quiter than 4” feathers.
I generally set folks up with sk300 or ff360s when building arrows for compound shooters. 3 fletch I put a bit more offset with the heli clamp and have zero complaints.