Hey Gang,

I built a feather burner the other day and have playing around with different shapes.

I've found a shape that is basically silent.

I've shot "trad" shaped, shields, naners, and parabolic of different heights and lengths and have learned what makes a feather more quiet.

My real question is whether a feather that has a bit of a hiss...not a lot..talking more like the sound you get from a heavy helical 5" shield....
...is that noise going to make a lick of difference when hunting?...I'm talking whitetail mostly.

Fact is I have a shape that's very quiet...but I came up another shape that I really like the looks of...but it has a slight hiss I can't get rid of.
Kinda vain I know...but I think it would be fun to shoot a more unique fletch if it isn't going to affect hunting.

Thing is I know Howard Hill used a type of fletch shape that had to make a hiss sounds and he was a great hunter.

Just curious if any of you have ever noticed if making a difference.

There used to be a thread on here talking about it but it seems to be deleted.


Thanks

John

!!MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I call that hiss "the hiss of death".

to a calm deer probably not but a wired up deer may notice and jump the string so to speak .

It hypnotizes them.  Probably not fair chase  

Feather height has a lot to do with feather noise.I'm not sure if that is heard much,I mean my buddy and I were playing with them one day.I was standing behind a barn and he was shooting arrows.I never heard the feather noise until the arrow went passed me.So I wonder if a deer would hear it coming straight at them? I didn't hear the feather noise until it went pass me but a deer may hear before? I know we can hear the noise because we are standing behind the arrow but will a deer hear it coming at them?

The feather hissing would be very similar to a broad head the hisses.

Sound at approximately 1100 fps, arrow at, say, 170 fps.  They definitely hear it.  It would be at a higher pitch due to the Doppler effect.

I don't worry about feather noise, though my shield cut feathers don't seem to make any, at least that I can hear.  

A deer will hear the bow go off before it hears any noise from the feathers.  If it doesn't react to the bow noise, it will be too late to react to the sound of the feathers at 20 yards or less.

Thanks for the replies Gents.

I actually found the problem with my feather shape.

As most of us know..a taller feather basically equals more noise.
...also having unsupported long fletch at the back of the feather is going to make it louder as well.

What I learned today is that having too abrupt of an angle from the lower front of the fletch to the overall height also plays a big role in feather noise.

...the steeper the angle the louder the fletch.

That hiss had me thinking the same thing. I used to shoot hi profile 5 1/2 shields and bananas and switched to parabolic and smaller shields in a 4 fletch and get just as good of stabilization and whisper quiet.  Didn't want an issue that I could fix bight me in the rear at crunch time!

Stand down range perhaps behind a brick wall and see if your arrows don't hiss when they go by now. I bet they do.

I once chopped a feather backwards, with the quill pointing forward on the arrow by mistake. It was only the cock feather but Man, that thing sounded like a helicopter.

James

I've found that a pointed trailing end will make noise but if you clip that corner off or round the back end it seems to quiet it down.

I had the same problem with shield cut feathers, and even more so if some of the feathers got a little beat up.  I reshaped my wire on the burner and took off the sharp point on the rear of the feather and that took care of the problem.  I could hear the arrows as well as anyone near me when shooting 3D's.  Don't know if animals could react quick enough to avoid them, but I need all the help I can get and wanted quieter arrows.

Deer hear feather noise all the time.    

I shot a Pope and Young cut for years that whistled with my longbows and still shot deer,bear and caribou and never noticed them jumping the string. Like elk nailer said "hiss of death". Another thing was one year I shot the renaissance fair competition and was the only one using the P&Y cut. Every time I shot the crowd would go wild! They loved it!