Spin Vanes vs. Straight Vanes

 

With so many olympians winning medals with spin vanes, for so many years why use anything else?

Because refletching is tedious.

You will need to refletch.

This is easily done, and can be done on the field if need be.  With my Nano Xtreme Pro arrows, they come with  zero-degree fletching lines, right from the factory. What could be easier?  But, it’s costly, because you need to buy at least two packs of 50 fletches for a dozen arrows.  Also, you should buy extra glue/tape with your arrows, as they are easy to mess up and you will need to start again.

Could I get good results from straight vanes?  To find out, one of my coaches, Larry Lemke wrapped and fletched 6 of my arrows with plastifletch, and I kept 6 with red spin vanes.  I would measure the group size of the best 5 arrows.  Here are the initial results at 50m.

(Never mind the miss on the left target – wrong sight setting)

In the first end, the spin vanes produced a slightly tighter grouping.  But in the next two ends, the plastifletch was producing slightly better groupings at 50m.  The grouping was lower, but about 2 inches better on average, 2 out of 3 ends.

Next stop, 70m

 

 

(that one was pretty good shooting, if I do say so myself)

 

On average, the grouping size was much better on every end with the spin vanes.  I thought case closed.  Then I thought about my arrow spine – did it become weaker as a result of using heavier vanes?  I decided to put a full turn on my cushion plunger, and shot just the plastifletch arrows at my next practice.  The results was a tighter group. 

(note the flyer in the lower right corner – yeah, messed that one up!)

Disclosure – these were some of my best groups at 70, but on average my best 5 out of 6 were as good as the Spin Wings grouping.  But hey, why not show off some good groupings, as I felt really pleased with them. 

My next test will be the lighter AAE Wav vane.  Why?  Why not.  Lighter and good durability?

Final verdict - If you are an olympian, or funded as an athlete, spin vanes are a good choice.  There are more durable varieties out there now, but you still can’t go wrong with the Sping Wing brand – it is a proven product.  But, if you want a little more durability, I don’t think you can go wrong with a high quality straight vane like the Plastifletch vane (I think also by AAE).