3 vs. 4 Vanes: Which configuration is right for you?

What's up, precision junkies? Callum is back here with inside out accuracy and today we're going to cover the difference between a three and four flex setup on your arrow, so I've had a few questions about what the difference is and why. I prefer one over the other and I don't think there is a

right

answer here. I think that for different situations, one can work a little better or worse than the other, so you know, the most common vein

configuration

is three veins in almost all tournaments. The world has been rocked at one time or another with a three vein setup for any type of outdoor target shooting or even as a shaft arrow like a hunting arrow that with just one field point, three veins will do it. all. what you need in terms of direction, you're going to get a lot of resistance, they're going to direct that arrow very well and you're going to have a lot of success now, where I think a vein setup can really come into play is if I'm shooting a very heavy arrow, so let's say, for For example, this is my inner arrow, this is an Eastern one hundred and eighty-something grains so I think a vein setup can help on an arrow like this is if my bow isn't perfectly tuned or even if I'm just getting a little bit of torque on a shot if this arrow comes out and that one tip wants going one direction or another just outside the bow, it's so heavy that you're going to want to keep going in that direction, so you need a lot of resistance behind it to help correct it, most indoor arrows take off, you know?

The most common is like a four or five inch feather with a 12 degree helix and again what that does is you know the feather because of its texture and it allows the air to go through it a little bit and creates a Now I have a lot more resistance than a plastic vein. For a while I was shooting the blade rest and with my feathers I had a 5 inch feather in there and it had, you know, a lot of helicals and I was getting nice. of inconsistent contact where you know one feather would make contact a little more than another arrow and it just took a lot of playing to get them all to make contact exactly the same now when I switched to a drop it obviously doesn't.

It doesn't really matter what

configuration

of truck you're driving because it's going to fall off the wing you're not going to have any contact, but I kept having just when I drew the bow one of my feathers would always rub as soon as I grabbed the cable on my bus cable and it stayed curled on that feather and I just don't know if it affected the flight but it just bothered me so I want with a little bit lower profile but because these are lower profile and they are shorter I need more to achieve the same amount of drag so the same goes for a hunting arrow, if I'm going to shoot a very heavy arrow, if I'm probably over 550 grains and especially if I'm shooting. fixed blade a broad head you'll want to direct that arrow from the front having a four van configuration in the back will create more resistance from the bow and will really help stabilize that arrow quickly we built some arrows for a guy who was going to Africa you know

which

were dangerous game for FMJ up until the '50s, they're like seventeen and a half greens per inch or something and he had 50 grain brass on the front with a 150 grain broadhead, so they went in like, I mean, they're like 780 or almost 800 grains and they had a big four blade on the front and with a four van setup that really helped.

We used just regular blazer paddles and it really helped stabilize that girl quickly. She had very good flight. characteristics that, whereas in the past it was just a three-blade, there's not as much resistance in the third plane and you know the bow had to be perfectly tuned to get consistent broadhead flight, so you know, with heavy or large fixed configurations. broad blade tips I really think about four main configurations, it helps you know on my arrow this year, this is my hunting arrow, it's not just a 300 shaft and I actually went with a four fore vein configuration, but with the mini jacket and I was just nice.

From playing with this, I don't think this flies any better than a three paddle setup on a regular jacket. I was just playing with it seeing how I shot it and I was very impressed with it, you know this is a TroKar mosquito head here, you know they fly really well, but obviously you know you want a good amount of steering and drag in the rear to help so that's what I had and they've been flying very, very well, they fly well. with my field tips out to about 60 yards these are the mini Blazers so they are 1.6 instead of 2 inches long and they are only half an inch tall instead of three quarters of an inch tall so they have a lower profile. and shorter means less drag per vein, so I added an extra one and they seemed to fly very, very well, so I like that now part of the flight characteristics of your arrows will come from your propeller or offset on your fletching jig, like this that a helical is where the jig to fletching the jig is placed in a straight line so you know the top of the vein and the bottom of the vein are on the same lateral line that runs along the shaft and then the jig itself has a little twist. or a helical, so a 12-degree clamp over the course of a six-inch boom will have a 12-degree helical, so over the course of a two-inch vein you'll only get about a three-degree helical or a four degree helical.

which

is enough to steer, you know, any arrow, in fact, I wouldn't recommend going much further than that and I'll tell you why here in a second, an offset is where the clamp is really straight and you just offset, you know? that the top of the vein will be slightly to the

right

or left of the bottom of the vein, so it sits in a straight line, but it is slightly off center, not only is it perfectly straight, it is a little off, both they produce spin, both produce drag.

Generally, an offset if you're shooting as a blade rest for the target, an offset will give you a little more room on the blade rest, so it's a little more popular in the target community, but if you're shooting to fall, it really is one or the other. It's going to work fine now. I just mentioned that no more than three, three or four degrees of helical can be too much, so it's the same with offset in a three-vane configuration. It would never happen like it was 5 degrees. assembly or a 12 degree propeller on a clamp which again with shorter blades will be, you know, between three and six degrees helical and the reason is that if I turn that arrow too much if it starts to spin too fast at too high a speed, when it moves away it starts to slow down so fast that it creates what is called the parachute effect, so the flying arrows spin very fast and when it starts to slow down it goes like this like it doesn't know where.

To go basically it's that the front of the tip is the front of the arrows that slows down too quickly because of the back of the arrow and does this like it doesn't know where to go. I compare it to if I'm driving 70 miles per hour and I just hit the brakes, the car not only stops in a perfectly straight line, it drifts a little bit, it's pretty much the same with the arrow, so if I drift too much You know, if I do a 10 degree offset on a four vane or even a three vane setup, the arrow will spin very fast and be very accurate, probably at about 30 or 40 yards and then what will happen is that your groups will explode and you I don't know what's going on, it's not your arc, it's inconsistent and it's because you're getting that parachute effect now.

I'm not a physicist. I don't know exactly the forces at play that cause that if you're a physicist or an engineer and I can tell you I'd love to hear it, but I know I've seen it happen. You know, Levi Morgan has talked about this on numerous occasions, he never does more than a two degree offset in any of the four main settings and never more than like. a three or four degree helix if you're using a helical clamp, you know, because it'll keep those arrows tracking well at distance, so that's something to consider when you're building it, there are a lot of good jigs for fletching, you know, the bits. and the burgers are great. one last chance, easy Fletch's and keep boning is basically a knockoff of the chunks and burgers, so you can do a three, four or even six vein setup, which I personally think is a bit much, but like I said, you can play around with them.

I hope this answers some questions you had. A few people asked me about this topic, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to make a video about it as usual. If you have any comments or questions please leave them in the comment box below hit the subscribe button if you haven't already if you have any if you have an immediate question the best ways to contact us with Graham who is within precision of the underscore and I will do my best to respond to you in a timely manner, so until next time, keep it in the middle, remember that accuracy is a decision.