Helicals are great for fixed blades as they help stabilize the arrow in flights. I shoot fixed blades as well and wanted to meet in the middle with my fletchings not putting too much drag on the arrow with a 3 degree helical. Rather than have straight fletched vanes I wanted to help stabilize the arrow out more and went with a 1 degree offset in a 3" vane and it flies true without as much drag, it works for my set up. If I needed the flight to be corrected more to be more consistent I would have opted to fletch at a 3 degree helical, but it flew true with this set up so I stuck with it.
Helical will help stabilize your arrow so you have a more consistent flight and grouping like Coop said. But it works because it creates drag which in turn slows your arrow down. Too much and it will drop like a brick. You have to find the balance for your setup. I shoot a 3* Right Helical with my blazer vanes.
Thanks guys. I am not worried too much about slowing my arrow down so my next set of arrows I might go with a 1 degree helical and see how it goes. I do want to tighten my group a little bit at 40 and 50 yards.
I use the Arizona EZ-Fletch system with the helical short vane arms. That puts a 3* right helical on my Blazers. I also had a couple Gold Tip arrows with no helical (factory setup) and at 40 yards they were hitting exactly where my helical'd Blazers were.
Helical or straight fletch makes little to no difference at normal bowhunting distances. In my experience, I've not been able to tell the difference inside 50 yards. I haven't run any comparison further than that.
If you can. If you buy a dozen bare shafts. Fletch them 3-4 different ways to see what shoots better out of your rig.
see no downside to helical fletching in normal ranges except maybe if you are using whisker bisquit. I refletch helical 3 degree and last testing against straight and offset were all in there out to 40 yards.
Agree with Coop....^^^ I shot trad gear (recurves) for 3 decades and fletched all my arrows with 5" RH helical feathers with my Bitz jigs. Since going the compound route, I have experimented with brands, sizes and such and have been shooting Blazers with a helical from my Bitz. Just as rifling in a firearm barrel causes the projectile to rotate and produces the best accuracy, so does helical fletching on an arrow......especially a hunting arrow with a BH up front.
This is true.....however. I did a test a few yrs ago out to 60 yds. At 50 yds, the straight only had a 2 fps advantage over the helical which was a 6 degree. 3 fps at 60 yds. This is very marginal so I would always opt for the helical for more consistant flight.
