Feather fletching size?

[little_john]

What size of feather fletchings would you recommend for field archery? I was thinking of using some 5" shields I have already?

[Macbow]

Use whatever works best for you. If 5" shields give you good arrow flight then great. Personally I prefer 4" parabolics with as much helical as possible. Bigger higher profile feathers offer more stabilisation (at the expense of a few fps) and can go someway to offset a less than perfect release but if you tune your bow/arrows properly smaller feathers will do the job just as well but with less drag. Anything that gives you a slightly flatter trajectory is a good thing IMO especially when it comes to the 70 & 80 yarders. Try bareshaft tuning so you know you are getting good flight out to 30 yards, fletch four with 5", four with smaller feathers and see if there is any difference at every range.

[Swaledale]

Just a quick point, you may find interference issues with the larger (5") fletching.
The forgiveness that macbow mentions on poor release i.e. quicker straightening out may be offset by the increased interference and therefore a fair old loss of down range velocity.
I would agree that 4" parabolic is a better option.

[Windknot]

On the whole I prefer 4" parabolics for target work. I fletch them straight with offset- I find this a bit more forgiving on longer shots where 5" helical fletches can drop a bit faster than I like. The 4" feathers still straighten arrows out plenty quick for hole shots.

I did play with 4x3" feathers for a while, and it worked well enough, but I'm back to 3 fletch. The 4 fletch worked as well as 3 fletch, but with the added hassle of an extra feather.

Depending on the distance shot I see no advantage shooting fletches any bigger than 4". Go smaller if you can get away with it.

[greydog]

If it's for your Hoyt, then I'd say some 1.75" quickspins, they stabalise the arrow fast and are very light. If it's for you traditional bows, then feathers would work better as they are very forgiving to contact with the bow and will straighten your arrows out fast as well as soak up some of the arrow vibration/flex. I would imaging 4" would be more than enough though, not sure you'd see much more benefit from 5", guess you'd have to experiment there I used 5" feathers once on my indoor arrows, but I cut the profile down with a template and scissors, so they had about the same surface area as 4" feathers, so there was less chance of contact with the rest.

[provins]

I use 4" shields
For some reason they seem to work better for me than para's and they look a whole lot nicer with trad equipment

[little_john]

Thanks guys. I went for 4" shields in the end. I got some wild red and yellow ones from Quicks. It was my first field shoot. 28 3D precision targets. Ranging from a caribou to a stegosaurus. I managed to hit most of them and only broke one of my new arrows. Oh well they make very nice garden canes!