4 fletching, arrow flight and mechanicals

[Sniff]

I am wondering on peoples experience with 4 fletch arrows. I shoot hunter xt 300 spine with a stock 3 fletch. They group and shoot just fine for me what is the advantages to going to a 4 fletch setup? Also would adding helical to them help with arrow flight? If adding helical to the flight does that take away from the kinetic energy if using a mechanical broadhead. I'm shooting 28.5 in. draw at 64lbs. with arrows right around 400TAW. Trying to understand more about my whole setup and arrows. Thanks for any advice or experience.

 

[Btaylor]

Never shot 4 fletch so cant help with that but would encourage you to spend some time on this forum reading through the various tuning threads. Regardless of head choice, getting the maximum terminal performance out of a rig starts with tune.

Some anecdotal info related to your post. I never had consistently great performance with expandables and a 400 grain arrow if the head was greater than 1.5" cutting diameter and heads with steeper blade angles. That is on whitetails. I have found that if I stay north of 450 TAW, I can about shoot any head I want too and expect solid performance. My compound rig is 66# at 29" so real similar to yours.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

Drag force acting on the fletching is what enables the fletching to steer the arrow and compensate for imperfect shot execution, an out-of-tune bow, and the planing tendencies of broadheads. Drag force is proportional to surface area, so more vanes and/or longer/taller vanes will generate more drag and have greater steering ability. A greater degree of offset or helical will also increase fletching drag.

The downside is that fletching drag also slows the arrow down. But still being able to hit close to where you’re aiming when you accidentally torque the grip, drop your bow arm, etc. is much more important than a little extra speed.

Because mechanical broadheads have less surface area than fixed heads, they’re less prone to planing and throwing the arrow off course. For the arrow setup you described, I doubt that 4-fletch would be beneficial, but there’s no harm in trying a few and seeing if they group any better than your 3-fletch.

 

[Blockcaver]

Assuming 3-fletch controls your broadheads well now, all four will do is allow you to nock your arrows without worrying about a cock feather. It also adds more weight to the rear of the arrow, decreasing FOC a bit. If your arrows are marginal for spine, flipping them up
and down randomly might give you a bit larger groups than with nock-tuned arrows that are only shot in their optimal position. Anyway, I shoot 3-fletch today but successfully shot 4 feathers with fingers for many years.

Idaho Springs was part of my old stomping grounds from ‘73 until ‘07. I had some good archery sheep hunts around there. Know a few of your local excellent bowhunters as well. Good luck!

 

[5MilesBack]

IMO the only reason to go to a 4-fletch is if you are trying smaller vanes. To get the same drag and steering characteristics of your current vanes in a 3-fletch, you might need a 4-fletch to compensate for the smaller vanes. I use both 3-fletch and 4-fletch with different vanes.

 

[Wrench]

You can run less helix which can offer clearance some times. I run 4x2" feathers with big zwickey and vpa heads....if they tune, and I do my part it works awesome.

 

[ndbuck09]

I'm running 4 Q2i griff x2.3" vanes this year and they're .43" high. Compare that to blazers that are .568" high and it shows that you'll get better clearance; potentially better wind drift resistance on paper, though I haven't tested that necessarily. That just gives me peace of mind. I've been able to have 1.5" fixed heads flying well out to 80-100 with the griffs 4 fletched at a 3 degree helical.

 

[Beendare]

3 fletch Blazer size vanes will control even fairly large fixed heads...the key is always bow tuning and getting your bow to shoot BH's to the same POI as FP's.

The advantage to 4 fletch is you don't have to look to make sure your arrow is oriented right.

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