Home › Forums › Bows and Equipment › Fletching length, old vs new?

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    • Kees
      Member
        March 26, 2018 at 9:14 pm
        Post count: 129
        #131244

        The cover photo of this month’s TBM has an old wood arrow with what to me looks like 3″ fletching, if not shorter.  Other photos I have seen from way back also show comparatively short fletching.  Then I look at the 4″ or 5″ feathers on arrows in more recent photos and it seems like there has been a shift to using larger feathers.  Am I correct in this, and why would this have happened?  If the shorter fletching stabilized arrows back then, why not now?

        -Kees-

      • Stephen Graf
        Moderator
          March 27, 2018 at 5:12 am
          Post count: 2429
          #131246

          Those arrows equipped with short fletching were likely for target shooting.

          Flight shooting involves even shorter fletching than target shooting.  And some, back in the day, advocated for the center of mass to be located toward the nock instead of toward the point.  Their reasoning based on the assumption that a heavy tail would cause the point to ride up and the arrow to plane (like a boat I suppose) through the air just a little farther.

          None of that would be good for hunting.

        • grumpy
          Member
            March 31, 2018 at 6:34 pm
            Post count: 962
            #131291

            I use 3 1/2 inch  With shorter fletches you can have a smaller brace height.

            Actually I take a banana fletch and cut 3/4″ off the front and 3/4″ off the back.  I’m shortening by 1 1/2″ but not taking much off the surface area.  With a closer string the string pushes the arrow longer, and the cast is improved.

            Grumpy

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