On any well tuned hunting arrow, every net effect of using excessively large fletching - any amount ABOVE THAT REQUIRED TO GIVE STABILITY under ALL of YOUR personal shooting conditions - are detrimental. It creates additional drag on the arrow, reduces arrow speed, increases arrow trajectory and reduces arrow force. It increase the destabilizing effect when shooting in windy conditions, increasing the arrow’s cross-wind drift, and increases the sound of the arrow in flight.
The plus factors to excess fletching are that you can get away with using arrows that are less than perfectly tuned to your bow and your arrows are easier to see in flight. For some, another plus may be the aesthetics.
More fletching area is REQUIRED on arrows of normal and high FOC if one is to achieve rapid recovery from paradox. However, even with massive fletching area, I’ve yet to see a normal or high FOC arrow that gives as fast a recovery from paradox as a well-tuned EFOC arrow is capable of, even when shot as a bare-shaft.
That said, virtually every choice we make in our hunting setups has both plus and minus factors; all of which we should be aware when making our choices. Using larger-than-required-for-stability fletching on your hunting arrows because you like to, or because you feel they look more traditional is a perfectly adequate reason to do so. There are also many negatives to the 70” straight end longbows I prefer to use; and some pluses - but I also have my aesthetic and emotional reasons for choosing them.
Ed
TGMM Family of the Bow
Topic: Why use 5" feathers....? (Read 2573 times)
