Thinking about 3” banana fletch on some aluminum arrows. Anyone else use that setup?

I have in the past, I cut my own feathers. They work just fine.

Any pics?

Is there any real advantage to Bananas?

I had one dozen aluminums fletched with huge, yellow bananas and felt like I might as well be shooting flu-flus for all the noise and drag they produced. That was when I was shooting 3 & 4 blade BH and I distinctly recall taking a lot of fletchings clean off by stacking BH & FP in a target when I went to make sure I was “tuned enough”, but talk about a Bigger Hammer “solution”….. About the best thing about them was that they were easy to find…..

Some folks like how they look, and they can be distinctive… which has its benefits if you shoot at a course where your fellow Regulars will recognize your arrows and get them back to you on those occasions when they’re harder to recover…

Years ago when “little chopper” was its own company I had them make me a 3” banana cutter. Mainly for my wife’s 35# bow. They just didn’t look right for my arrows and ASL LB. My mistake was the height of finished fletch. It was to high. It slowed her arrows down. I ended up trading it away.

My buddy Scott is using 3" parabolic on his 1916 hunting arrows and they fly perfectly with his broadheads; not banana but it gives you an idea of what other shapes will do. You don't need a lot of fletching really but lots of guys like the visibility of larger fletch.

I'm going to switch down to 3" on my next batch of aluminums, if for nothing else than to save on feather cost. They work very well even on larger sizes. Archery Past always has good prices and very reasonable shipping as well on their fletching.

Ran 4.5 inch Bananas for awhile, they worked okay.

3 rivers sells a cutter for 3 inch banana. Always liked the looks of bananas. They say they're louder. But I killed my first trad deer with five inch bananas.

Here are some 3” bananas. As mentioned, they are fairly loud even compared to shield cut. I like the looks of them and have them on my hunting arrows, though.

Well, I’ll try pictures later I suppose.

You don't need separate choppers for different size bananas just use a spacer. >>>----> Ken

I cut/make my own 3" banana feathers. They work well. Also made some 3.5" 4" and 5". The larger sizes do slow the arrow some.

Here's my Moon / Baby Moon chopper. The geometry is the chord of a circle. They are symmetrical. Pictured are 3" Baby Moons. It can be adjusted to cut 4.5" Moons. That's pretty much all I shoot. With 2° front and 0° back angle on the fletcher, they easily keep my 125g Muzzys stable on 2117s. And are far quieter than the shield cuts as tested by my grandson's blindfold hearing test as he sat down range. Arrow passed by him at 10' at just under 200fps.

Try the photo again.

Hey! Admins! You want folks to pay for premium access on a sight that can't fix a simple photo upload. YES! I reduced the size down to 40%! Fix it! Sheesh!

"You want folks to pay for premium access on a sight that can't fix a simple photo upload"......??????? PAY for what ?

When you pay nothing, you should expect exactly what you pay for.

Well then...I get exactly what I haven't paid for. Lol...

I use 3" parabolic 4 fletch. Modified my 5" chopper.

I tried to post a pic :^(

One more shot.

Couldn't post either. Have shot bananas exclusively for decades. Occasionally I get one that is little loud. I just put it aside. I have also found that staggering the feathers just a little helps a lot.

Kaw369..

Oh, what an awesome thought... Staggering the feather....love it! So questions.... How much stagger do you find to be adequate? And do you adjust timing in anyway to keep them 120° from each other? Thank you.

Has the photo upload issue been fixed? No pic means...nope, still broke.

Mr. Martin... I use only a slight stagger with my bananas. Never more than an 1/8 inch and most of the time a 1/16th of an inch. Never worried about timing with this. Actually, a compound shooter actually gave me the thought. I had one arrow where I didn't line each feather up that well towards the nock. As it turned out, it was my best flying arrow. Hum! Then I remember what the fellow told me to try at the archery shop. Not traditional by the way. So, I intentionally started to set each feather about a 1/16 back further and was surprised at how much better the arrow flew. A quicker recovery coming off the shelf... I would say. For some reason when I tried a bigger back set, I found that a few flew even better with a 1/8th offset. Others not so much. Much further and the timing seemed to be thrown off. Might just be my old mind playing tricks on me. I do have another friend in trad archery playing with it also. He too was surprised at the results.

Sorry! I forgot to say that I have been playing with woods and aluminums.

I don't understand "staggering a feather"? A pic would be nice, but.....

Sorry I haven't been able to post a pic. Staggering feathers is placing them on the shaft so that each feather is a little further back towards the nock. None are on the same plane or distance from the nock.

Kaw369, That is so freaking awesome. I will give that a try. I'm glad I asked, how much. I was guessing a 1/4". I don't play with woods, just aluminum and C/F. This is gonna be fun... Thanks.

On aluminums, I found that I can squeeze the feathers a little more apart for some reason. Just playing with it. May see what happens with shield cuts too. Haven't seen much of anything during this year's rut. Too much time I guess.

"Staggering feathers is placing them on the shaft so that each feather is a little further back towards the nock. None are on the same plane or distance from the nock."

Huh, I can do that without even trying.

Kind of like this? - - - - but around the shaft of course. Just trying to wrap my pea brain around this

Is....?

Nope...no pics yet.... Oh well...

Hey, it worked. Those are 3” bananas I made from a buddy’s turkey he shot.

Those are nice.

Finally...here's my chopper

That didn't work typing as I thot.

Ok pic of staggered fletch?

Hopefully mine works, 3" parabolic

Gun... I couldn't get the results with shield cuts as I did with bananas on aluminums and woods. Maybe it has something to do with the trailing edge of the feather?

Maybe the best bananna yet.

That's quite the chopper. Homemade? Makes me wish I was still machining! Well almost :)

Sweet chopper

Sweet chopper

Sweet chopper

Martin- How about a couple more pix of the undercarriage of that chopper. Thanks

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