Sports

Did you want to know everything about a badminton shuttlecock?

Photo of author

By Kaleem Ullah

A shuttlecock or cock is also known to us as a bird and is used in the game of badminton. It is not a ball like an arrow dynamic projectile that is played by hitting it back and forth. It is a device that travels from one place to another and it plays the most important role in the game of badminton. You can’t even think of playing badminton without Shuttlecock. That’s why a badminton shuttlecock is known all over the country.

Why is it called a Shuttlecock?

The game of badminton is known to many as the game of shuttle, and the shuttle indicates the front and rear motions of the game.

Many people know badminton or the game of racket and ball. The shuttle is said to be a part of cock because it is made of cork and feathers.

When was the name Shuttlecock first devised?

Although the game shuttlecock was first officially named in the 1870s, it has been around for centuries. The name shuttlecock is much more common than badminton. The game has been growing in popularity since the 1560s and its origin.

How is a Shuttlecock made?

If you can do good handicrafts then you can make your own shuttlecock. All that is needed is some cock or feathers that can be synthetic, real, and sticky. However, the shuttle used in the tournaments is made up of 16 duck feathers which are then inserted into the head of a glory cork.

The feathers are first cleaned and cut into a specific shape, shaped like a piece of cork, and covered with an artificial skin layer. The feathers are then inserted into the cork by machine and adjusted until they are properly shaped. After getting the shape, the threads are tied and glued so that the shape of the shuttlecock is fixed.

These are Shuttlecock specifications:

  • There will be a total of 16 feathers and the length of each will be 60 mm.
  • The diameter of the cork will be 25 mm to 28 mm.
  • The total weight of the cork will be about 4.75 to 5.50 grams.

There are basically two types of shuttlecock:

Type1: Feather shuttlecock

Type2: The Synthetic Nylon shuttlecock

The Syntheticock

How do you know which Badminton Shuttlecock to use?

Which badminton shuttlecock you will utilize relies generally upon your area. Assuming that you play badminton in the mountains of Switzerland, the shuttlecock they will sell is appropriate for the mountains of Switzerland.

However, it is up to the tournament organizers to ensure that the shuttlecock is used in the right weights in the tournaments. The International Badminton Federation (IBF) has set some rules for the game and the shuttlecocks are checked before each game. So that the shuttle can reach from the baseline of the badminton court to the double serve line at the other end

A shuttle cock can hit very hard and fast, sometimes reaching speeds of up to 320 km/hour. But when it starts to descend from the wind, it becomes relatively slow.

According to the latest news, it has been decided to use synthetic shuttlecocks to reduce the waste of the Badminton federation and their durability is much higher than the traditional shuttlecocks.