3 fletch vs 4 fletch

[live to hunt]

I am sure this has been brought up before and I may have missed the thread, but I am going to ask it anyway. I follow and watch John Dudley a fair but and he is doing almost all of his arrows now with a 4 fletch and a slight helical on them. Has anyone on here done this and tried it against there normal 3 fletch? I am going to start fletching my own arrows this year and am going to do some side by side comparisons.
Any personal insight would be appreciated, have a great day.

[mrcrossbow]

I shoot strictly 4 feathers. longbow and recurve ( don't shoot compound so I don't know ) I do this for a few reasons.
1- I find it's easier to nock my arrows as there is no wrong way as long as it's on the string it's good to shoot. so no glancing down to make sure feathers are facing right way.
2- I find them more stable in wind
3- I find I am more accurate ( I instinctive shoot, no aiming, just raise bow and release )
4- most importantly, it just looks cool, can have 4 different colors or 2 and 2 colors.
5- no mixing up my arrows down range because very few ppl shoot 4 feathers.
6- seems to be a bit more forgiving on spine don't have to be perfect, just close and they fly good.
there is one con I can think of. does increase drag, but there's not really a big deal at 25 or 30 yards with a razor sharp broad head that's 250 to 300 grains. but it is a con none the less.
not sure if that's the sort info you were looking for.

[live to hunt]

That is great information thank you for posting its exactly what i am looking for and was wondering.

[goose slayer10]

I would say just try it. I really don't think the amount of helical or offset will matter just make sure there is some. Shoot a 3 vs 4 fletch and see what happens. Firstly you will need to be able to shoot good groups to begin with and you will also need to be properly spined. Get your bow tuned well and shoot the 4 and 3 fletch out to 80 yards and see the difference of groups. Then to further. Try the same thing with broad heads, especially if you are shooting fixed heads. My guess is that you won't notice a large difference. However, it is fun to tinker and tune. Hopefully you find a good recipe.

[Lefty-Canuck]

I use 4 fletch helical, found it stabilizes a fixed blade broadhead better.

LC

[3blade]

Didn’t change anything for me, played around with 4 fletch offset blazers - couldn't do helical on small diameter arrows. Also wondered if it would create more drag in a wound channel and less pass throughs, but never put one through anything to know for sure.

My guess is you would only see a small difference at the far edge of accuracy, distance, score, speed etc...but that’s the world Dudley lives in. He is really good at what he does, but what he does isn’t necessarily the answer for every or even most bowhunting scenarios. Ex - back tension releases, 3 foot long stabilizers, 2 minute shot sequences, some of that target stuff has too big a trade off in hunting scenarios.

Fletch a few and try it, especially in a good crosswind. Maybe it’ll work for your setup

[byronick87]

I shoot a 3 fletch helical where the front of the vane ever so slightly overlaps the back of the next vane if you look at the arrow from either end.
My logic is that the vanes will have 100% contact with the "air" as it travels down range.
From a side profile, 4 fletch will have double the surface area of the vane "contacting" the cross wind at all times where the 3 fletch will have 1.5 surface area.
That's how my brain interprets it anyway...
I've never found indexing my BH to my vanes do anything other than keep my OCD at bay.