As with everything, it doesn't pay to be cheap. And the beauty of fletching your own arrows is that you can experiment. And to answer the question> longer fletching = more stability but mre drag/ adversely a shorter fletching will give you less drag= a bit more speed but less stability. I've experimented and found thatfor hunting with my set up , the differences were negligable. But the heliacal is more important. If I use too much angle the fletching gets torn apart easily as it passes through my rest. Advice is great as a reference, but really, experiment as much as you can afford, to ultimately find what will perform the best for your style of shooting and equipment.CHRIS