Spinners or regular vanes?

Senlac

Supporter
Supporter
Advice please.... Recurve, target, 80-100yards, ACEs. Are spinners/curlies or regular vanes best?
Spinners/curlies: say GasPro 2" shield medium. Or vanes: say 2" low profile shields.
But which? Some say spinners can never achieve the rotation rates required for gyroscopic stabilisation. But others say they really do improve grouping - and all the champs use them. Some (e.g. L4+ coaches) say spinners are not better and vanes are best - and a lot less fragile.
Is there a consensus out there? Your views please.
 

DarkMuppet

Member
Simple answer.. If you have good clearance and put them on well and look after them, spin vanes every single time. They're not used by 99% of international archers for nothing.

Not poking a wasps nest, but a L4 coach that says otherwise probably can't even tie their shoelaces... :D

To be honest, the only fragile ones are the original spin wings. Eli Vanes, gas pro and Xs vanes are made of a thicker and stiffer material and last just as well as the standard flat vane style.
 

lbp121

Member
Horses for courses on this one.

I used Kurly Vanes for years on both recurve and compound bows achieving some county level success on the way. My reason was mainly for the colours and ease of scoring on a crowded boss. I was happy to do a full refletch every year and to accept some on going maintenance. The most irritating part was then sticking together in the quiver.

Now I'm back on regular vanes. the arrow speed is marginally slower, it seems the lighter vanes take off well but don't maintain downrange speed towards the end of the longer distances.

As to coaches, when did your L4 last compete in an international competition?

Why not get a few vanes and fletch some up and shoot 6 of each and let us know your conclusion? If you use the grass for stopping arrows the regular vanes will have a better survival rate.
 

KAS

New member
I use regular (Vanetec Fita's) mainly because they seem a lot less fiddly and haven't seen anything that's confirmed the curly ones are better.

I did see the video Bohning put out about their own curly ones - and they said that to get any benefit from gyroscopic rotation the arrow would have to be spinning at so many 1,000's rpm - I forget now what they said the advantage was - but after seeing that I just couldn't see the point of using them.

However, if you do do a comparison test I'd certainly be interested in hearing how you get on.
 

Rik

Supporter
Supporter
Gyro stabilisation - no. Never happens on arrows. They are too slow and light for that to take effect.

But that's not the point. A higher spin can tighten up groups a bit, I think. Think of when you see an arrow spiralling towards a target; a higher spin rate would make smaller, tighter spirals. Is that worth the extra drag?

But spin is a characteristic of how you put the vanes on. You can get high spin rates out of conventional vanes. Was it GT who did that thing with 6 inch helical and offset and produced 6k+ rpm, plus some fairly odd behavior down range...?

Mainly, I use spinwings because I think they are less hassle to deal with. No messy glue. If I need to I can leave some vanes ready taped in Beiter wing holders and be refletched and ready to go in seconds.
 

joetapley

New member
Virtually every archer will use fletchings to axially spin their arrows (and it has nothing to do with any so called "gyroscopic stabilization").
From a technical viewpoint using curved vanes to spin arrows has many advantages over offset flat vanes.
From a practical point of view every half decent archer uses curved vanes of some kind.

The optimum, in terms of testing & performance, by elite archers seems to lean towards hybrid systems comprising curved vanes combined with offset angled vanes in some form. Spin wing vanes combine curve and offset vane spin built in to the vane design so they are normally installed straight on the shaft. Pure curved vanes (Gaspro & Elivanes) are used with some offset.

I did see the video Bohning put out about their own curly ones - and they said that to get any benefit from gyroscopic rotation the arrow would have to be spinning at so many 1,000's rpm - I forget now what they said the advantage was - but after seeing that I just couldn't see the point of using them.
It would seem that some vane manufacturers aren't able to tie their own shoelaces either. This may be an unfair comment if by "gyroscopic rotation" they actually meant "rotation" and couldn't resist adding a meaningless buzz word.
 

Tuck

New member
Been using original Spinwings since they came out, they can be really beat up and still fly ok, people look at my vanes and wince, but as long as they are not torn on the leading edge they work. (See the download section for a good article on this)
GasPros etc are alleged to be more robust? And they have a tape-tail for the front and rear tape.
As Rik says you can leave a few Spinnies taped up and installation takes a few seconds, so really convenient, and using the Beiter wing holders makes it a doddle.
If using standard vanes then test for the smallest one that stabilises ok to reduce speed loss downrange.
If you are testing various standard vanes on carbon shafts it's worth using wraps to prevent shaft damage.
 

Ar-Pe-Lo

Member
Advice please.... Recurve, target, 80-100yards, ACEs. Are spinners/curlies or regular vanes best?
Spinners/curlies: say GasPro 2" shield medium. Or vanes: say 2" low profile shields.
But which? Some say spinners can never achieve the rotation rates required for gyroscopic stabilisation. But others say they really do improve grouping - and all the champs use them. Some (e.g. L4+ coaches) say spinners are not better and vanes are best - and a lot less fragile.
Is there a consensus out there? Your views please.
For recurve spinnies any time.....if you don't have clearance problem they last long, if you have clearance problem they will let you that know - which is good. Many coaches have many opinions....look at the proof=when you seen international medalist shooting straight vanes?
 

Senlac

Supporter
Supporter
Thanks very much for all your responses. Very helpful undeed.
I used regular vanes until I got to 100yds, and then I tried spinners. These days not many misses - on a good day zero misses. But no A-B test....
I've now got a load of new bare ACE shafts ready to fletch, hence my appeal for advice. Yes, I could do half as spinners and half as vanes, shoot the lot quite a few times at 100yds, and see how the groupings compared.... Perhaps there's such a thing a Standard Deviation group radius.
 

Ar-Pe-Lo

Member
Thanks very much for all your responses. Very helpful undeed.
I used regular vanes until I got to 100yds, and then I tried spinners. These days not many misses - on a good day zero misses. But no A-B test....
I've now got a load of new bare ACE shafts ready to fletch, hence my appeal for advice. Yes, I could do half as spinners and half as vanes, shoot the lot quite a few times at 100yds, and see how the groupings compared.... Perhaps there's such a thing a Standard Deviation group radius.
You can do trial, but the winner is obvious:) If you use elivanes/gaspro use ofset, if spingwings put them straight.

btw. which club you belong to? just wander if you are from my club :)
 

eljetico

Supporter
Supporter
Perhaps there's such a thing a Standard Deviation group radius.
Actually, there is: Standard Radial Deviation - used to measure precision and accuracy (group size) in ballistics etc...and employed by some of the finer archery apps ;-)
 
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Vagabond

New member
This question occured to me too, so one day I did a little experiment with my ACE arrows:
* 3 arrows with standard 1.75" spin-wings.
* 3 arrows with plastic vanes @ 1 degree (EP16 from Quicks).


Shooting ends of 6 arrows at 100 yards: little or no difference.
I was gob-smacked.
I also shot left-handed spin-wings against right-handed: no difference (thus proving the club smart-"R"s wrong)


So I use standard spin-wings fitted at zero angle to the shaft:
* they are easier to fit because of the zero angle.
* you can fix fletchings during a tournament - no need to wait for glue to dry.


Perhaps if I could shoot better then I'd notice a difference!
(PS: qualified as MB for past 3 years)


Health warning: Many archers have deeply entrenched views on fletchings.
Believe only in the results of practical tests carried out by yourself.


V
 

Senlac

Supporter
Supporter
Thanks again for all you advice - and the interesting links. This may be one of those times when there's a real choice - at least at my current standard (senior gent w/handicap in mid-30s)
I reached the same conclusion on ACE spines... To cut a long story short, having done lots of fletched vs. unfletched test shots at 20 & 30 yards with spines from 520 to 720 and fine-tuning with different point weights, button pressures and string weights, I concluded that I could chose between:
- 620s w/100-105grn; or
- 670s w/95grn; or
- 720s even.
All looked as though they delivered very similar fletched-unfletched separation at these distances. So I ended up deciding: (a) the 720s would be too heavy and wreck my range at 100yds - being in a higher shaft weight category; (b) of the 620s and 670s I could safely go with the 620s as I already had 20 of them of varying vintage & wear; but (c) the best bet would be the 670s as they were slightly better especially with a lighter string and lighter than the 620s so better at 100yds.
Back on this spinners vs. regular vanes question, from all your advice the simple answer may be that: (a) spinners are probably best - based on grouping evidence and that the big shots use them; (b) regular vanes may be much the same for some one of my standard and even give me slightly more range; and (c) I could do always do my own A-B test. So perhaps the simple conclusion is that, at my standard of BM or thereabouts, I could go with either spinners or regular vanes. But as I'm not quite on the limit of my sight at 100yds I'd be best going for spinners.
Phew.....
 

buzz lite beer

Well-known member
While not being so extensive in my trials as Vagabond, I've seen no great difference in performance, with just a marginal drop in sight marks when using regular vanes over spinwing type vanes (about 3" drop in group position) however all of my best scores have been made while shooting with either Spinwings or Kurly vanes, but that's most likely as a result of using them for longer than vanes. Also noticed no performance loss when mixing colours or range-o matic vanes either
 

joetapley

New member
... To cut a long story short, having done lots of fletched vs. unfletched test shots at 20 & 30 yards with spines from 520 to 720 and fine-tuning with different point weights, button pressures and string weights, I concluded that I could chose between:
- 620s w/100-105grn; or
- 670s w/95grn; or
- 720s even.
All looked as though they delivered very similar fletched-unfletched separation at these distances. So I ended up deciding: (a) the 720s would be too heavy and wreck my range at 100yds - being in a higher shaft weight category; (b) of the 620s and 670s I could safely go with the 620s as I already had 20 of them of varying vintage & wear; but (c) the best bet would be the 670s as they were slightly better especially with a lighter string and lighter than the 620s so better at 100yds. .
I'm very dubious that using the the separation between bare shafts and fletched arrows to assess fletchings has any value. (just saying :) ).

To make a change from all the references to fletchings for hunting arrows with compound bows here are a couple related to recurve bows for target archery.

Spin Wings Vanes

Spin Wings v Flat Vanes
 

Laurie

New member
I can't see the physics really helping with an arrow over distances up to 100 yards or thereabouts, I think it's more a fashion thing. They will slow the flight ( increase drag ) down a bit, and that is not a good thing. Why go to all the trouble of developing a faster arrow for a flatter trajectory, less flight time....and then slow it down?
It seems more people (far more capable and experienced than I) that I have spoken with, are now thinking along similar lines.


..."Gyroscopic rotation"?......next we'll be taling about "centrifugal FORCE"!!!!:eek:
 

joetapley

New member
I can't see the physics really helping with an arrow over distances up to 100 yards or thereabouts, I think it's more a fashion thing. They will slow the flight ( increase drag ) down a bit, and that is not a good thing. Why go to all the trouble of developing a faster arrow for a flatter trajectory, less flight time....and then slow it down?
It seems more people (far more capable and experienced than I) that I have spoken with, are now thinking along similar lines.


..."Gyroscopic rotation"?......next we'll be taling about "centrifugal FORCE"!!!!:eek:
Speed and flat trajectory are useful for compound bow hunters and for unmarked field. With target recurve speed plays second fiddle to FOC.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/archery-folk/nc-k2LAp588
 
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