Flu-Flu's?

[Archer Dave]

I have not shot or made any flu-flu's, but plan on making some for aerial target shooting this spring.

I have full length TrueFlight feathers and a few questions.

• Are most flu-flu's 4 fletch?
  

• What length should the fletching be for a 45# bow?
  

• Should I try the spiral?
  

• Is a regular or spiral flu-flu better?
  

Love to see photos of your flu-flu's.

Thanks guys,
Dave

[tracker12]

Will be watching this thread.  Would like to make up a few also.

[dragonheart]

I made some that are 5.5" shield cut 6 fletch.

[dhermon85]

I think spirals slow down the quickest. Done some four fletch and six fletch, six fletch seemed to slow down quicker. Don't think one is necessarily better. The idea is not to have to chase them too far. Standard lengths are fine, bow poundage has nothing to do with fletch length IMO.

[TealCoin]

Go over to trueflightfeathers . com...

They have a excellent article on spiral flu flu's.  Plan on doing a dozen for this spring too!!  Post some up if anyone has any!

[Rob DiStefano]

twin full length spiral fletching is the slowest and travels the least.  

my fave is a six fletch with 4" to 6" feathers that are not shaped, and use lotsa helical.

[karrow]

you can also trim the height of the feather to speed up flight no matter what type of feather style you use.

[Slickhead]

I prefer spirals. They are lound so most things will here them coming.
But they can me trimmed to different shapes.
I prefer trimming them like a banana or magnum cut.

[reddogge]

I hunt geese (or try to) so you need some oomph out to 30 yards. I'm shooting 4x90 degrees helical 4" uncut feathers and they carry 100 yards. Spiral will not carry that far so it depends on your usage.

[Jerry Jeffer]

I prefer spiral. Good out to about 30yrd. I use the softer flu flu featers from 3 rivers.

[Terry Lightle]

We have white spiral fluflu feathers in stock.
Terry

[shreffler]

I personally am not a fan of spiral wrapped flu flu's. As said above, they only go about 30 yards and really slow down before hitting anything. I've hit a foam target with a spiral before and had it bounce off. You don't have to go very far to chase em though!

I usually do mine 4 fletched with 4 inch full length feathers. They usually go about 70 yards or so. They still smoke a target (whether foam or an animal), but you don't have to go too far to chase them.

I'll try and post some pictures up later once I'm home from work.

[Archer Dave]

Thanks guys for the opinions and pictures. I have about 15 acres of hay right now on one part of my farm that I have at least 1300ft to shoot.

I would rather have a little more umph and speed to get the arrow where it needs to be. If it flies 70 yards that is not a big deal as I have the space and my field has not one rock that I have ever seen. I have actually done some flight shooting in this field, that is fun.

Like I mentioned in my op, I want these for aerial shooting at foam disks, so I would think the extra speed would be nice.

Do the 4-4" flu-flu's come pretty much straight down and stick in the ground vertical? Will they do this even when shot fairly horizontal to the ground?

Thanks
Dave

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally posted by Archer Dave:
...
Do the 4-4" flu-flu's come pretty much straight down and stick in the ground vertical? Will they do this even when shot fairly horizontal to the ground?

Thanks
Dave

all depends on distance and trajectory angle.  it'll take a near 45 degree angle for any arrow to come down vertical.  i mostly shoot 4" full vanes and full helical, as a 6-fletch because those are the local archery golf rules.  i also shoot them on the muzzy course to 45 yards, what a blast.  they're great for bunny hunting, too.    

you need to make up a buncha flu-flu arrows, each with a different fletch configuration, so you can see what'll work best for ..... You.

[Archer Dave]

Rob-

Thanks. Maybe I will just start off with some 4"-4 fletch flu-flu's to give it a try. I probably could get two 4" feathers from a full length TrueFlight.

I am curious about the 6 fletch, but that is a lot of feathers to be using.

[Wheels2]

I just use the full profile feathers fletched with three helical, but 5"
I would rather have the extra travel distance but they still slow down pretty quickly past shooting distances.

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally posted by Archer Dave:
... I am curious about the 6 fletch, but that is a lot of feathers to be using.

at a 45 degree angle, a 6-fletch with 4" full height feathers will travel 100 yards or more with a 45-50# longbow.

[shreffler]

We usually shoot at round foam targets thrown in the air by hand, and they always stick vertically in the ground. The spiral wrapped ones sometimes don't stick in the ground, they just bounce off and lay down.

I've found the 4-4" fletch is a good balance between good speed/distance but not too far.

Post some pictures up once you make some.

Alex

[jhk1]

I agree with the other posts that spiral-wrap flu-flus slow down faster.  But if you only do a single spiral-wrap feather per arrow, they don't slow down quite as fast, and it's about the cheapest flu-flu arrow you can make (only takes 1 full-length spiral-wrap feather).

The last bag of 100 spiral-wrap feathers I bought from 3 Rivers I think was around $25.  Unless you find some crazy deal, I don't think you can get regular full-length feathers that cheap.  It only takes 1 or 2 spiral-wrap feathers per arrow, depending on whether you do single or double spiral-wrap.

If you're doing regular 4-fletch flu-flus, it will take 2 (at minimum) full-length feathers; 6-fletch will probably take 3 full-length feathers.

I like both types of flu-flus.  I think regular-fletch flu-flus probably fly a little better, but you can make single-wrap spiral flu-flus cheaper.

[Snow Crow]

I've done a fair amount of experimenting with flu flus in attempting to develop an ideal intermediate (70-100 yard max distance) arrow.  What I've settled on is described in this thread:   http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=141646;p=1#000008


I would be happy to provide raw flight data from my testing if you would like.  Heading out to hunt crows with my flu flus...