Snow Peak Badminton Shuttles I will recomend Snow Peak Superior Grade C1101, It is very similar to AS40, and cheaper, check it out on the web site snowpeakbadminton.com
while there is about 40/60 split in preference of plastic vs feather shuttlecock based on the poll results, but in the badminton hall around the areas that I used to play, I see at least 9 out of 10 courts are using feather shuttlecock, why the discrepancies?
I think that there are more plastic shuttlecock users in North America and fewer in Asian and Europe. I've been using Hi-Qua Purples. At less than US$10 a tube from mybadmintonstore.com they are a really good deal and the durability is pretty solid (after steaming).
The HIQUA Purple from mybadmintonstore is not The HIQUA Purple that is normally seen in North America. The later is much more expensive.
The tube definitely looks different: And they seem to be much less expensive than in the US. In addition mybadmintonstore.com sells shuttlecocks with different names than the Hi-Qua webpage lists (Gold, Green, Orange, Purple, Blue, Red & Special Edition vs Chester, Blue, Purple, Orange, Legacy & Team). Maybe they produce different shuttles for the Asian market. I've never compared them to the Purples you can get in the US. I should note that the Hi-Qua Blues at mybadmintonstore.com are about the same price as in the US. Maybe they got a special deal on the purples. Either way, the purples from mybadmintonstore.com are a great practice birdie at under $10 a tube.
in our club, no body uses plastic birds! i haven't seen plastic birds used in most of the USA badminton clubs at all. strange poll result!
we always use feather in China, you know, China produce different grade of shuttlecocks, from USD 4.20 to 20.00 grade,different grade for different players, usually we use USD6.00 grade for practice, and USD 10.00-13.00 grade for tournament, and we buy it from factory in bulk, and the price is much competitive.
Ive seldom use feather shuttle, but always eliminated so quickly. Even though, I still use it.Im planning to use plastic shuttle on my own daily training, so anyonce can recoomended me any plastic shuttle???
Feather shuttle, - because in a real tournament you'll be using a feather shuttle. Plastic will fly further faster, so it doesn't give you as good of an idea of how much power you need for a certain shot.
Feather FTW!! i always keep worn out feathers for pratice cuz nothing beats the feel of feather now having a large stock of used n worn feather shuttles
If you ever intend or wish to play at any level using feather shuttlecocks, you should only ever use them. Playing with plastic shuttlecocks is a tottally different thing. In my club, everyone in the top 30% for any age group uses Yonex AeroSensa 50 shuttlecocks for practice and Yonex F-90 shuttlecocks for matches; the remainder tends to use Yonex AeroSensa 40 shuttlecocks for practice, Yonex AeroSensa 50 for general matches and Yonex F-90 only for large, organized tournaments. The club has a shuttlecock provider and buys them in bulk. In terms of how often we switch shuttlecocks, the club's elite (the top 50) normally use 2 or 3 per tournament game (4-6 per tournament match), and normally use 1 per game in a casual match, switching once every 10 minutes in practice. Most of the club uses 1 Yonex F-90 shuttlecock per tournament game (2 per match), and 1 Yonex AeroSensa 50 per tournament game (2 per match) in casual matches. Although this sort of stuff might cost a lot of money, I suppose it's worth it to train future professionals.