Best fletching shape

[jmorgan41480]

recently did a little field test with the traditional cut, parabolic and shield.
traditional cut was my favorite to look at, but the noisiest. parabolic and shield were both very quiet.

[Paul_R]

I've never noticed a heck of a lot of performance difference but low cut bananas look the best on everything from fancy painted wood and carbon to plain Jane bamboo primitives. My Bearpaw cutter adjusted all the way down turns 'em out  at a hair over 4 3/4" X 1/2".

[Zradix]

I've done quite a bit of testing for noise.
I found any shape that has a trailing edge starts out the loudest.
The quietest have rounded backs ( para, moon, t-hawk)
Also the shorter in height the better.
Also the more twist in the feather the louder.

Once I found the best combo of looks and quietness in a feather for my taste, while still having a good amount of feather back there to do the job ( ended up a slightly modified 4x 5" T-hawk chop).

They were silent in flight and more than enough feather to forgive my mistakes a little.

it took me quite a while to come up with this "perfect" combo.

After shooting a while the feathers got a bit worn and made noise anyway...lol

moral...shoot what you like...lol