I have decided to start fletching my own arrows. My question is what are the difference's between right and left hand helical twist. Is one better than the other? I shoot a right handed bow.
One isn't any better than the other. Just because you shoot a right-handed bow doesn't mean you have to shoot right fletching and vice versa.
Right helical spins the arrow clockwise, left = counterclockwise. The only viable argument I've heard for one over the other in the case you gave is that LH will unscrew and loosen points. I've never experienced this for myself but it seems possible. RH or R wing vs. LH or L wing fletching was originally set up because of the warp of the feather used based on which wing of the bird it came off from. Feathers from a right wing need to be fletched right helical. With vanes it doesn't matter. Traditional shooters shooting off a shelf can get better clearance with one verses the other. For compound shooters shooting through a modern rest it doesn't matter as long as the rest allows the vanes through without contact or the contact is consistent (Whisker Bisquit).
Rob is exactly correct. Traditional shooters prefer left wing fletches as you can get more helical out of a left wing than a right wing. 95% of all factory fletched arrows are either straight or right off-set just slightly. If your bow is tuned, you won't notice a difference between straight vs offset for the most part.
I fletch right helical for the reason Rob mentioned... ostensibly to keep the field point tight and from unscrewing by having it twist into the target so as to loosen it. Does it help? Can't tell one bit that it does... but that's the reason I started doing it when I bought my first helical clamp, and now I've got so many RW feathers that I'll probably always do it that way.
