right wing vs left wing ?

[richieew]

#3691

i’ve been shooting trad gear for 20+ years using left wing feathers..but have built up a stock of right wing feathers from wild turkeys-(shotgun..sorry) but is their any advantage of using right vs left..I shoot right handed and am looking into using single bevel heads……thanks

[Ray_G]

#22774

There is no difference in shooting right or left wing as a right or left hander. Just be sure to use all the same wing fletch on the arrow. You could have some left wing and right wing fletched arrows in your quiver and I bet you will not see any difference in your shots at trad distances.

The only difference in which wing fletches to use is when you use single bevel broadheads. If it is a right bevel, grind is on the right side if looking down on the head, use right wing fletching. Left wing for left bevel.

Hunt hard and have fun!

Ray

[Tj Craig]

#24728

Guys,
I’ve just always shot LW for some reason, hmmm, I never really thought about it.
Tj

[Frenchy]

#27006

Do you fellas think the right or left wing will affect the rotation? Should the arrow be spinning into the shelf or away from the shelf upon release, ya know what I mean? The helical will take care of this perhaps.

[Buckhorn73]

#32604

It is generally written that a “leftie” uses the arrow on the right side of the bow, hence, right wing. A “rightie” places the arrow on the left side, hence, left wing. As has been stated there does not appear to be any difference in flight characteristics unless the wing feathers get mixed.

[JDinCO]

#40022

I have noticed that most places sell complete arrows with left wing feathers witch is forcing me to buy a left hand clamp for my Jo Jan.

[shosier]

#43507

Is it true that birds have more feathers on their left wing? I heard that for years but don’t know if its true, I never counted.

[MontanaFord]

#25915

I shoot right handed, and shoot right wing feathers. My understanding is that unless you are shooting a single-bevel broadhead, it doesn’t matter what side of feather you use, as long as they all match on the arrow. With a single-bevel broadhead, the direction of the arrow rotation should match the bevel. With 3 or 4 bladed broadheads, I don’t think it matters. This is just what makes sense in my mind, please don’t regard it as gospel or scientific truth.

MontanaFord

[Frank V]

#26019

I shoot right & left wing withouot paying attention to which one I’m using at the time. I can’t see any difference in flight between the two. I shoot right handed. Frank

[JDinCO]

#26303

The main point to remember is do not mix both LW and RW on the same arrow, also use the coresponding clamp, Left helical with a LW feather when fletching. Rotation of the arrow should not matter because the arrow will be in paradox at that point so if everything is tuned correctly there should be no issue with the feather hitting the shelf. Plus the feather would collapse not affecting the arrow flight.

[MontanaFord]

#28011

JD, paradox is a good point to bring up, as well. i have a friend that shoots olympic recurve (sites, stabilizer, etc), and i’ve gotten to watch some of his high-speed videos that his trainer in california has taken of his shooting, and that is some really cool stuff to be able to watch. it gives a whole new understanding of how the physics of archery works.

MontanaFord

[JDinCO]

#28184

There are some great paradox videos on you tube. Very neet stuff.

[MontanaFord]

#29096

cool…will hafta look into it and see what i can find..thanks..montanaford

[T. J. Conrads]

#31316

For years, turkey farmers clipped the right wing of the birds to keep them from flying the coop. For this reason, the only feathers available to archers was left wing. Today, because of the selective breeding and new practices, wing clipping is almost unheard of.

This topic of which wing to shoot seems to crop up all the time. Personally, I have never seen a difference in my shooting. I shoot left wing only because when I started making arrows that was all there were; right wing fletching was extremely scarce. So, I acquired a dozen left wing Bitzenburgers and have no inclination to switch.

That being said, I have a report by Graham Bradford of England, which was in the Arrowhead Newsletter January 2005 (Society of Archery Antiquities)in which he tested both left and right wing fletched arrows with a variety of spined shafts. His results were that right handed archers should shoot right wing, and left handed archers should shoot left wing. His findings showed an accuracy increase up to 140 yards when using matched wing to archer. In his words, when discussing a right handed archer using right wing fletching, “I believe they help overcome the archers’ paradox by pulling the arrow back on target more quickly than a left wing fletched arrow will do, thus enabling a right handed archer to use a greater selection of spines, i.e. a selection of stiffer spined arrows than one would normally use for a specific bow weight.“ Emphasis his.

Just food for thought….

T.J. Conrads

[JDinCO]

#31361

I can see how that would work. It would be like the drift of a spinning bullet or artilery round.

[sethino]

#31614

I have always heard stick with the same type of fletching-left or right- through your whole hunting career so you stay used to 1 type.

[crash87]

#32595

At one time the thinking was that right handed shooter should shoot left wing, something to do with the way the arrow “spun off” the rest, away as opposed to into. Many times things that are repeated time and time again. somehow become the rule, until, someone asks “Why?
If you look into this matter by those who have experimented and weed out the phallacies and advertizing hype you will find that it really doesn’t matter. Don’t believe me? All you have to do is try it. Because I succumb to the L.W. R.H. theory all those years ago that is what I use. A dozen R.W. feathers and a friends clamp alowed me to come to the conclusion that, for me anyway, it doesn’t matter. I will say though I’m talking at game taking ranges, (you decide what that means to you.)
But, there is an advantage to R.W. for R.handed shooters and it has nothing to do with arrow flight. If you use screw in tips the arrow tip will never loosen, as it is being tightened as it hit’s the target. Left wing will loosen the tip. Give it a try and good shoot’n, crash87

[MontanaFord]

#33170

crash87….that’s a good point to make, about the tip becoming unscrewed with LH feathers….but a sensible one, too…thanks for the thinking food…

Michael

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