Originally Posted by
bigbulls
I don't know who in the world started this lining up the blades with the fletchings B.S. but I would really like to have their name(s) so I could shoot them in the foot with an arrow that has a 4 blade head and three fletchings.
I hate to be blunt about it but you completely wasted your time lining up the blades and vanes. Only in a perfectly controlled laboratory environment would this produce any measurable benefit. Change just one variable like wind speed, arrow velocity, wind direction, etc... etc... and all of your calculations to get it right go right out the window.
I've got a theory about how that mess started.
Back in the aluminum arrow and tapered nock days... somebody probably had some broadhead wiggle, and took their torch and twisted around their broadhead/insert/both and kept shooting until they got perfect flight. It just so happened that this person (likely someone of prominence in the hunting/shooting community and also almost certainly a writer) noticed that after his tweeking, his blades were in line with his fletches. It does kinda make sense to the lay shooter/tuner I suppose, but it is surely snake oil. Just a coincidence that someone ran away with.
The way you'd tune a 4-blade is just like a three blade.... you can use some o-rings if you need to, or twist your nock 120 degrees at a time... odd vane might end up to the side... but just use a magic marker and number your new index vane with that arrows number... or draw and UP arrow on it so you'll remember you tuned that one a specific way. Thats part of why I fletch my arrows with three white blazers.