The two shuttle types. Nylon is tough, cheap and predictable; feather flies finer and more precisely but barely survives a beginner's hitting.
A shuttle is a consumable, not a piece of kit — and that's where the classic beginner purchase goes wrong: feather shuttles fall apart within minutes under hard, imprecise hitting. Nylon shuttles are tougher, cheaper and fly predictably; switching to feather pays off once your strokes get cleaner and you need a finer touch. What hardly anyone knows: nylon shuttles come in different speeds — slow, medium, fast — and which one suits depends on the hall and its temperature. If every clear in your hall drops short of the baseline or sails out, that can be the shuttle speed rather than your technique. Club sessions usually put feather shuttles on the table; for your own repetitions, nylon stays the sensible choice.