Why Shoot Right Fletching if Your Arrow Rotates CCW?

[Billy Goat]

A left spinning arrow with rh fletch will come out of the bow spinning left until the fletch counter acts the natural spin and takes over. That's about 10 from my bow when I checked it; 2.25 FF with roughly 2-3 deg of offset.

So that's when it starts rotating the other direction, but the increased drag should be pretty immediate.



Or that's what I assume you are saying.

10 feet from the bow is where the rotation goes from CCW to CW?

 

[wapitibob]

10 feet from the bow is where the rotation goes from CCW to CW?

yes
You can check it; mark the 12:00 fletch, shoot your target from maybe 2', then back up 1' at a time and you'll see it spin ccw then reverse.

 

[Billy Goat]

yes
You can check it; mark the 12:00 fletch, shoot your target from maybe 2', then back up 1' at a time and you'll see it spin ccw then reverse.

Right.


My point is just that it's drag that we want initially when the arrow launches, to bring the back of the shaft quickly behind the point.

We all know you can shoot bareshafts, but they aren’t forgiving.

If you have a little bobble at launch, you need the arrow straightened out quickly. I think in theory, fletching going counter to the arrows rotation will bring the back of the shaft in line faster than fletching that goes with rotation. Because it's resistance on the fletching that makes it work, more resistance on fletching that's counter to direction.


Now, it's possible too that fletching in the same direction has enough effect (in fact, I think that's kinda the point of why it doesn't matter), but it's hard to test that. Like you are saying, it's pretty easy to shoot in increasing distances and check the shafts and how they are clocking. However, doing that it's hard to know when it's Natural rotation versus the fletching drag rotating the shaft.


Bigger things to worry about. I mostly shoot left helical because I have a Bitz with a left helical clamp because a RH shooter is supposed to shoot Left Helical on a stick bow, for some old reason.

 

[Bergy-Bowsmith]

heres a video i did and in the discription is a link to a article i wrote on the topic. everything in the article is proven and repeatable. take it for what its worth.

it doesnt really matter overall what direction you fletch because the arrow is not coming off the bow with force to the left( CCW) it is just naturally spinning that way due to many other factors at play. also if you were to clock an entire dozen of arrows almost always 1-2 of the shafts are going to clock to the right. its not coming off with force so it doesnt matter. enjoy.

 

[tdoublev]

This is what sealed the topic for me. I’ll never shoot this good anyways. You can start at 6:35, but he shows the groups from shooting both LH and RH at 70 yards (if I remember correctly - he definitely says in the video). Makes no difference - your time would be better spent elsewhere

 

[Maverick1]

To offset the Coriolis effect.

 

[sndmn11]

To screw your points in...
That's why I bought a rw jig 20+ years ago and it was great logic in my mind at the time. No clue if it's a reality.

 

[doc holiday13]

I think you misspelled masturbating.

He's just putting out bait for all the masters?

 

[mod-it]

I have always fletched with right offset. I had never clocked an arrow or worried about it. I have used fixed BH solely, as Idaho didn't allow mechanicals until just two years ago. Never had a problem getting fixed to hit with field points in all that time, assuming cams are timed and arrow spine is close.

I shoot indoor and 3d a lot too, but field points aren't hard to steer and I think fixed BH's are what would show any kind of clocking results the most.

My very last set of arrows I put together, I decided to clock them and fletch accordingly. They clocked left, so for the first time ever I fletched with some left offset.
Can't tell a single bit of difference. Bow tuning went the same, nock indexing went the same, groups are the same.

To me, clocking is like having faith in whatever religion you may practice. You believe in it or you don't, but there is no showing someone something they can "see".

I love to geek out on archery stuff, but clocking just isn't one of them. There's just no noticeable "reward" for spending time on it.

 

[MallardSX2]

I nock tune all of my arrows them determine the natural turn, then I sort them L or R and then I helical fletch them with different colors and keep the L turn in one pile and the R turn in another pile.

Randy Ulmer advises this method and it works great for me.

 

[Tilzbow]

Because most turkeys only have right wings….

On a more serious note, I remember checking this on my set up years ago after Randy Ulmer brought it up. It made sense and it was Randy Ulmer speaking.… My arrows were clocking to the left and all my jigs were right so I decided then it didn’t matter enough to replace jigs. That and the fact most store bought arrows are fletched right is probably why most don’t change to left.

Right wing is the prevailing style and that likely came from traditional shooters, before compounds, since right wing is prevalent due to most shooters being right handed and it simply carried over.

 

[roosiebull]

So I've wrapped my brain into a bit of a pretzel on this one. Here's what I know (or think I know)...

Most arrows clock CCW off the string which theoretically means most people should be using a left fletching. However, my guess is that most archers shoot a right fletching. I called Iron Will to inquire about this because I'll be shooting a single bevel and don't want to pull the trigger until I decide on RH or LH bevel. Their customer service stated that their engineering team has evaluated this and determined that the initial rotation of the arrow is very low force and is easily overcome by the fletching. Iron Will customer service stated that everyone there shoots a right fletching while acknowledging that most arrows clock CCW off the string.

At the same time, I think most people would tend to agree that if the arrow naturally wants to spin left then it theoretically makes sense to not fight that. Every little bit helps, right?

So who knows all of this and still chooses to use right fletching, and why? Honestly Iron Will's feedback is good enough for me, but I'm genuinely curious to get some feedback. Is it the threat of loose field tips from the CCW rotation? Societal norms and the fear of being ostracized at your local range for defying the mainstream? Fletching jig isn't setup for left fletching and don't want to spend the money on yet another thing that likely has no bearing on accuracy for the average shooter (this is where I am...)?

I have tried left/right, side by side (knowing my arrow clocks ccw as well, but I couldn’t see any difference even looking for it… I’m firmly in the camp of not caring

It got me on a tinker fest for a minute, but there was nothing there. Not more accurate, forgiving, or anything and I don’t think there is anything there

 

[BoilerBowHunter]

I’ll be moving forward with right fletch/right bevel despite the CCW rotation off the string. Not worth the $ to buy a new set of arms for the Bohning fletching jig I use based on all of the inputs. Thanks all!

Would love to hear more about the findings of the Iron Will team at some point (@Bill V ) just for Ss & Gs.

 

[JF_Idaho]

Does it spin clockwise if you're below the equator?

 

[10ringer]

Here is the best slow motion video on this subject.

The video shows it takes 14 feet for the right fletched arrow to overcome the natural left clock and reverse rotation.

Like others have mentioned, there are a dozen other factors to consider over clocking arrows. But when we are talking about arrows tipped with fixed broadheads in high pressure hunting situations, mixed weather conditions, i think we can all agree, we want every advantage stacked in our corner. So if clocking arrows potentially has a small benefit, I’m doing it every time. Far from over thinking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mn_bowhunter]

Shoot what makes you happy. Some people don't want to have left offset or helical vanes to deal with heads unthreading - I get that. I run left helical vanes on my arrows - I add a dab of string wax to the threads of field tips or broadheads and it keeps them secure without issue.

 

[danwattsmessick]

Does anyone have a link that clearly shows an average shooter becoming better at archery after switching from right to left helical fletched arrows?

Honestly curious after shooting right helical fletched arrows for almost 30 years.

 

[BoilerBowHunter]

I think you’d be hard pressed to find that. I think there are people on the thread that have to tested this with a hooter shooter and saw no difference. If it doesn’t show up there, then I’m not sure it’s going to impact a normal shooter. And even if it appeared to, it would be hard to discern what’s form related vs not.

The only thing I have taken away from this thread is that if you shoot an animal under 4 yards the arrow may not have self corrected yet. However…1) That’s fairly uncommon and 2) with modern compound bows I would think the force involved would render it a moot point.

Just my fairly uneducated synopsis!

 

[MattB]

Does anyone have a link that clearly shows an average shooter becoming better at archery after switching from right to left helical fletched arrows?

Honestly curious after shooting right helical fletched arrows for almost 30 years.

No, but I can show you internet threads of average shooters becoming more confident after switching from right to left helical fletched arrows.

Should they be? 220, 221, whatever it takes.

 

[sndmn11]

Here is the best slow motion video on this subject.

The video shows it takes 14 feet for the right fletched arrow to overcome the natural left clock and reverse rotation.

Like others have mentioned, there are a dozen other factors to consider over clocking arrows. But when we are talking about arrows tipped with fixed broadheads in high pressure hunting situations, mixed weather conditions, i think we can all agree, we want every advantage stacked in our corner. So if clocking arrows potentially has a small benefit, I’m doing it every time. Far from over thinking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The straight on videos look like there is less oscillation with the right fletch. I think @Billy Goat brought up here or a different thread about wanting the flex thing to control rather than go with the flow. Maybe there's something to that.