hey everybody this pj riley from lancaster archery out here on our outdoor shooting range got kind of
a fun video today a couple weeks ago we were making a video about determining which way
to fletch an arrow whether you're going to fletch left offset right offset and we all know you know
you you can test on your bow with a bear shaft and see which way it naturally wants to spin
a lot of archers that's the way they then fletch but we're always curious about what happens if
you shoot let's say your bow wants to shoot counterclockwise and you shoot an arrow that is
fletch to spin clockwise what happens well in the video that we shot we were shooting we're
using a regular camera just in slow motion and it sure looked like that arrow hesitated that the
fletching started coming off to flit to spin the way the string wanted it to go and then came back
and went according to the fletching so we decided hey we need a high-speed camera to tell for
sure so we got a high-speed camera and we did a little testing today so what we got here are two
easton axis five millimeter arrows we're shooting an elite ritual the bow that we're
shooting naturally wants to spin counterclockwise so we've got one arrow fletched here we got uh the
tack driver 2.75 it's at about a three degree left offset so this one spins the way the bow
naturally wants it to spin then we got our other uh five millimeter and this one's a factory fletch
it is a right offset and it's pretty harsh we got two inch blazers on there i'm gonna say this is
four or even five degrees possibly it's got a harsh offset and helical so
what do we see looking through the high speed it's and you can comment below if you agree disagree
tell us what you think it matters but it sure looks to me like the one that's fletched to spin
naturally the way the string wants it to it just looks like this one starts spinning immediately
it's going the direction you know counterclockwise spin as soon as this the string is released this
this arrow starts spinning this one that goes against the natural spin it sure looked to me
like there is a long hesitation it's out of the bow before it starts spinning according
to the fletching what does that mean i don't know does that make a difference you tell me leave a
question or leave us comments in the comment section below tell us if you're seeing what we're
seeing tell us if you think it makes a difference some people say it doesn't some people say it does
but you can see the difference there is there's definitely something different
happening and the the rate of spin as well with these blazers again it's got that harsh helical
once it does catch up man this thing is spinning like crazy as compared to the gentler offset
of the tack driver all right something else that we see these are two different styles of vein
in terms of flexibility the tacks designed by levi morgan he wanted something that was
vertically stiff which the tacks are as compared to the blazer it's got a little more flexibility
to it so it sure looked like in the high speed video that the tack came out and maintained
that vertical straightness as compared to the blazer it looks like it folds over a little bit
that's pretty cool i think it's really interesting that you see right away that before the arrow even
leaves the bow like that arrow is not spinning for at least a few feet um so it's really not
recovered yet it's definitely out of the bow and it comes to a certain point where it wants to go
the natural way and then it corrects itself and goes back the way that the the veins are making
it spin essentially why fight it is what i say levi murray is the first guy to ever bring that
up to me he's the first guy i ever heard talk about that is basically referred to it like
throwing a knuckleball right think about the way a knuckleball looks coming at you when it moves
this way it's actually moving it doesn't just it's not an illusion it's actually moving i'm not 100
sure on whether i would be correct or not but at that point in time where that arrow actually stops
spinning that i think that you would personally lose accuracy right there i never really thought
about clocking an arrow you know marking it but after watching videos and seeing people talk about
it you know when it's social media you know you learn more i have tested a lot of different bones
okay and it seems to me like the slower the bow the faster it turns and i've seen those that turn
up half a turn in three feet three four feet i've seen bows that hardly turn them at all i'm sure
the ones that turn them really hard if you're fighting it the other way are going to create
kind of that knuckle ball every single elite bow i have and it's got to be the twist of the string
you know the direction the twist is they clock left you know if you mark the top of that arrow
when you shoot a bare shaft that always wants to turn to the left so i started shooting left field
all the time what you think is that your bare shaft is going to naturally come off one way
or the other totally understand that concept however i don't feel like it comes off with force
it comes off just naturally that way i i'd be willing to bet that if you if you did hours right
and left on the same bow in high speed like this you probably aren't going to see a difference i
think our veins are going to start and crank it whichever way they're fleshed most of the time
for a right-handed shooter with most strings your arrow's naturally going to want to spin left for
a target arrow i always flitch the way it wants to go just because you want it spinning out of
the bow on my hunt and arrows i tend not to and it depends on what broadhead you're shooting to but
i always run screw in tips for hunting and they're constantly unscrewing on me if i have
a left helical they're always wanting to back out my broadheads are wanting to come undone does it
make a difference i just switched to left-handed two and a half months ago and to get my veins to
clear on a left-handed bow i get better clearance with right helical so i'm shooting every still an
elite bow same twist same strings i'm shooting right helical now on my arrows i'm shooting
pretty good okay right now with them i'd say you know so does it make a difference from the video
yeah it looks like it makes a big difference my opinion on that with just a real quick thought
with field points on a target setup probably doesn't make a nickels worth of difference
i honestly 100 think it matters yeah because like i just said it and and i don't know if it
if it actually plays an accuracy factor or not but my opinion would be that arrow stopping in
mid-flight and then correcting itself that's just something else that has to correct that you can
eliminate altogether where say you make a bad shot personally i would think that that would
be magnified because that arrow is unstable to begin with like with an arrow that spins
the left naturally i test it with a left latch and a right clutch it's close enough that i can't
barely even make out a difference for a glued in point it makes absolutely no
sense to fletch the opposite of the way that it wants to go but with the screw-in point
i always want to tighten him because i'm not having to constantly tighten my tips and my bra
wants to tighten but if you're shooting a broad head that's got like offset blades or something
then you have to match that and do what the the broad head has to do otherwise it's going to
knuckle ball and cause all transitions but some setups are going to be more critical to it than
others are but for the most part not enough to matter really good but that fletching's on
there for a reason it's to guide that arrow all it does is steer the point so if it's
correcting that quick you know like you could see it you know the right helical would pause
and then it would take over the left heat will start it right away so
does it make a difference in your accuracy i think it could is it detrimental will it make you lose
a tournament i'd have to do a lot of testing to see so but pretty pretty cool to see that but uh
i don't know you know the jury's out for me on that but i do like that it's good good info
which is quieter stiffer softer for sure softer higher creates more drag creates more control
also creates more noise one of the big detractors to fix blades is more noise you know because you
have to have more vane to steer softness to me is more for fletching capabilities than anything
i just think a softer vein i can put some acetone on it i can get it to adhere better with different
glue stiffer veins seem to have different materials i have a tougher time fletching stiffer
veins but i prefer a softer vein to shoot as well i don't really you know have a lot of data to back
up why i just prefer that stiff veins probably cut good they may be great for broadheads but just
overall for target even shooting into a target a softer i shoot flex fletch for example they have
a great memory if i shoot one into a group and i bend them up in just a few minutes they come back
to life they're perfect although i love fletching arrows i like to keep my stuff perfect and i just
think a softer vein increases my longevity in my arrows i think having a vein that acts more like a
feather on a large diameter arrow like a 2712 like what i would run indoors i think that's better for
me anyways with my particular setup everybody obviously is going to be different and i mean
we've we've discussed that a lot every setup for everybody is going to be different no matter what
i mean what i do and what somebody else is what somebody else does could be completely different
and work for them but not work for me and yeah i think with my indoor stuff having a vein that
is much softer and does act more like a feather on a large diameter arrow i think that's that's
more accurate in my opinion i run one that's kind of between i'm shooting the q2i's they're stiffer
than a blazer but not quite as stiff as attack it seems like that's pretty good combo because
when you hit your arrows and stuff they don't want to rip and tear or fold over real easy they hold
up really well but they also stick super well and they don't want to pop off you get a real
stiff band they get hard to stick and if you hit something it's really easy to like crack them or
to break them off i'm too soft of a vein they're always going to fold over and be wrinkled and
warped and it's an issue but it seems like a stiff vein does tend to steer an arrow really well if
you get fletching contact on your wrestler you're going to have major issues with the stiffer veins
more than you would with a softer vein so tell us what you see let's get this comment section going