helical fletching with whisker biscuit

Feathers and WB's don't mix. My favorite rest to date is the QAD.

blazer vanes and whisker biscuits go together like pea n carrots. drop the helical. my .02

I've shot the WB for years and shoot a lot. There is some noticeable effect of feathers, making them "fuzzy" in appearance, but it's mostly cosmetic. I have some helical feathers that have been through the WB hundreds of times and the flight seems unaffected.

I am currently shooting both straight and helical vanes mixed in the quiver and am having trouble seeing any difference in stabilization or drop within 40 yards. I am using the biscuit with the larger hole, made for aluminums, although I use the medium diameter carbons. Shoots them just fine. Might be a tad more sensitive to a poor release, but when I do my part, the groups are very good. Slight wrinkling of the vanes but again, no noticeable effect on performance, just on appearance.

I would advise that you check for clearance with 5" fletching of any kind with the WB, if refletching would be a deal-breaker. With most modern bows, the brace height of around 6 1/2 inches will put the fletches inside the whiskers at rest, depending on their location in regards to the nock end of the arrow. I shoot fingers and like mine fletched slightly more forward for extra room in that area, which makes the situation even tighter. I find that 4 inch vanes are the longest I can shoot without placing them inside the whiskers at rest. The problem doesn't affect flight, but it does make it awkward to load them without ruffling the feathers and just seems like a poor fit.

Other than that caution, I'd say the WB is VERY forgiving of whatever type fletching you choose. I even got curious and tried some flu-flu's I had made up for aerial targets shooting and pheasant hunting, and was surprised to find them to fly well through the obvious interference of the biscuit.These particular flu-flu's used the six-fletch full height feathers method. I didn't have any spiral fletched flu-flu's on hand to try at the time,so can't say about them, but the ones I shot seemed to fly the same as they had from my previous flipper rests.

I have only used Blazers fletched at an offset (not straight) with my WB, so I am no expert as to what will not work with the WB, but supposedly the QuickSpins do not mix well with the WB because of the little spoiler on the trailing edge of the vane to give it the extra spin. Also I did fire a feather fletched arrow through my WB about 10 times when I first got a WB and it was eating up the feathers pretty bad and flattening them down. Just personal experiences and YMMV.

I find that the WB is very UNforgiving in form. If I drop my arm on release, the arrow hits in the direction of the arm drop (usually low and left).

When I was looking for a new bow, I asked about going to a dropaway rest for forgiveness in my form. I was told by the archery pro that sticking with the WB and learning to control my form was better for me as an archer. Take that for what it is worth, but I got a new WB on my new bow and it shoots great as long as I follow through correctly. When I don't, I hit about 2" low and 2" left @ 30 yards.

The NAP Apache is a very good drop away rest for decent money ($50). I have one on my BT Assassin and have been nothing but pleased with it's quality and ease of adjustment.

Jay