Feathers and vanes in the same quiver?

[John Malone]

Hello guys. Ive been using a spine calculator from 3 Rivers. Seems to give a nice ball park figure, its dead on when I run the info on my 45# setup through which has perfect flight. My question is if I toggle between generic vanes and 4inch feathers the vanes add 5# of stiffness to the arrows. I know small changes can potentially make a huge difference but that seems extreme. I'm going to be fletching this new batch of arrows with feathers for a 55# but would like to do a couple with vanes. I know some of you talk about keeping an arrow with a vane on it in case of really wet weather. Would it make that much of a difference in flight when the only difference is the fletching? A better question is will the vaned arrow group with the feathers. All I can do is try it and see but thought someone might have experience and could give me a heads up on what to expect.
  Thanks.

[John Malone]

One other thing, I don't use an elevated rest but I do build up the shelf enough to allow for good clearance. I know some say you have to use a rest with vanes to get good clearance but that's not true. Ive used feathers and vanes when I bow hunted many moons ago mostly vanes. Never tried to mix them in the same setup though.

[Gdpolk]

Slap some vanes on one arrow and test shoot it. Every bow is different. I can shoot wet feathers with no loss of accuracy which undoubtedly has a greater weight effect than the difference between feathers and vanes. I would suspect if your tuning is spot on it won't make a hill of beans difference for you.

I've got my arrows tuned so well that I don't need feathers at all to hit what I'm aiming at. I can slap a big ole Grizzly broadhead up front, completely submerg my feathers in a bucket of water and swish them around, nock it, and it'll shoot true out to 40yds (the farthest that I have tested)...that's good enough for me. I now just use plain ole turkey feathers, I don't treat them for waterproofing or anything, and I hunt when I want to without regards to weather or worrying about my tuning being off.

[John Malone]

Thanks GDPolk, mostly I want a couple to shoot pine cones for practice. I do remember stump shooting to be rough on feathers and I'm cheap as hell.
 My FOC will only be 13% not nearly as high as yours maybe its enough to cover the difference..

[Shane H]

I also shoot both feathers and vanes off the shelf, both fly great with broadheads and very handy for rainy weather.