Break cue weight conversation

Suplex · Mar 7, 2014

During 9 ball league last night, my opponent had a break cue weighing 25oz. He is an above average player. His break speed was only about average. After the match we had a conversation about break cue weights, and he was not open to my thoughts on optimal weight for the break cue. Here is my thoughts, just wondering if anyone agrees.

I played baseball and softball all of my life. Now, it makes sense that the heavier the weight, the further the ball goes, but why so.....? It is because after the bat makes contact with ball, the actual bat speed slows less than a lighter bat would. I really can't remember the figures, but lets say your swing a 30oz at 40mph, it might drop to 30mph after ball contact, where a 28oz at 40mph may drop to 25mph. therefore the 30oz bat would hit the ball further because after contact, bat speed drops less. It all makes sense and seems to translate to breaking in pool, but I don't agree, because is in baseball, you are using larger group muscles to create bat speed, but in pool for the most part, you are using virtually just your biceps, a small muscle group.

Because your are using small muscle groups to create acceleration vs. your entire body, I believe you need a lighter cue. If you have a heavier cue, it would be harder to get to top speed. Yes, after cue ball contact, you would keep more speed on because of physics, but look at it this way: 25oz cue, top cue speed 30mph, after contact speed, 25mph, but a lighter cue lets say 18oz: top speed 35, after contact speed, 28mph.

Now just on a side note, I am 6'1" 240 lbs, and I hit homers in softball at will, I use a lighter 27oz bat. I feel that I get a higher bat speed from a lighter bat, and I believe because of my mechanics in my swing, I excellerate through the ball very well and keep my after contact speed high.

These number are not exact or factually tested by me, and I am sure someone did, I just haven't come across that info. Just curious what others thought about this. Also, It is probably different from person to person, determining on how strong they are or how much fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fibers they have.

Shannon.spronk · Mar 7, 2014

Well you are not quite looking at the problem correctly. Force = Mass x Acceleration. When thinking of the cue ball the mass will always be the same and the only difference will be how fast you can make the cue ball accelerate. When thinking of how you move that cue ball that is where cue mass comes into play. For each person the ideal mass for maximum acceleration will be different. So it really comes down to what works best for an individual.

Personally my break cue has just slightly more mass than my playing cue. I also find that my best breaks occur when I am only putting about 65% of my maximum into the break shot. It is really more of a comfort thing for an individual than anything else. I will agree that 25oz is certainly on the extreme side.

Lesh · Mar 7, 2014

Suplex, you are correct in your thinking... a lighter cue will accelerate to a faster speed to the cue ball than a heavier cue. This would mean that you require less effort to reach a speed that delivers the performance you want without having to worry even more about accurately hitting the cue ball than you already do with a heavier cue, providing you have a decent stroke to begin with.

Many will say that a heavier cue has a stabilizing effect on their stroke, and that is also true.... slower sure.... but more stable. You may run through the force * mass * acceleration formulas to get a more qualitative determination if you like. Fact remains that a lighter cue moves faster. I claim nothing more than that. I like a lighter shooting cue and break cue (mostly because they are the same stick..... as they should be @ 17.5 ounces)

Lesh

dr_dave · Mar 7, 2014

Suplex said:
During 9 ball league last night, my opponent had a break cue weighing 25oz. He is an above average player. His break speed was only about average. After the match we had a conversation about break cue weights, and he was not open to my thoughts on optimal weight for the break cue. Here is my thoughts, just wondering if anyone agrees.

I played baseball and softball all of my life. Now, it makes sense that the heavier the weight, the further the ball goes, but why so.....? It is because after the bat makes contact with ball, the actual bat speed slows less than a lighter bat would. I really can't remember the figures, but lets say your swing a 30oz at 40mph, it might drop to 30mph after ball contact, where a 28oz at 40mph may drop to 25mph. therefore the 30oz bat would hit the ball further because after contact, bat speed drops less. It all makes sense and seems to translate to breaking in pool, but I don't agree, because is in baseball, you are using larger group muscles to create bat speed, but in pool for the most part, you are using virtually just your biceps, a small muscle group.

Because your are using small muscle groups to create acceleration vs. your entire body, I believe you need a lighter cue. If you have a heavier cue, it would be harder to get to top speed. Yes, after cue ball contact, you would keep more speed on because of physics, but look at it this way: 25oz cue, top cue speed 30mph, after contact speed, 25mph, but a lighter cue lets say 18oz: top speed 35, after contact speed, 28mph.

Now just on a side note, I am 6'1" 240 lbs, and I hit homers in softball at will, I use a lighter 27oz bat. I feel that I get a higher bat speed from a lighter bat, and I believe because of my mechanics in my swing, I excellerate through the ball very well and keep my after contact speed high.

These number are not exact or factually tested by me, and I am sure someone did, I just haven't come across that info. Just curious what others thought about this. Also, It is probably different from person to person, determining on how strong they are or how much fast twitch vs slow twitch muscle fibers they have.

The optimal cue weight for an individual depends on many factors (anatomy, physiology, psychology, etc.).

For lots of info on this topic, see the optimal cue weight resource page. You might find the baseball bat link particularly interesting.

Enjoy,
Dave

Suplex · Mar 7, 2014

Extended thought:

Boxers are taught to punch through the bag or their opponent rather than to punch the surface. If I were to get into a fight, I'd rather get punched by a 300 lb bouncer that doesn't know how to punch rather than lets say Floyd mayweather. yes, the big guy would hurt, but I would put money on that his hand speed after contact with my face is slower that pretty boy Floyd's. I think that floyd could inflict for damage. thanks for the info dr dave!

Sloppy Pockets · Mar 7, 2014

A heavier cue transfers more momentum to the CB than a lighter cue at identical velocities. This means the CB will depart the tip at a faster speed than the cue was moving at, as long as the cue weighs more than the CB.

For an perfectly elastic collision (which a break cue with a phenolic tip approaches, but doesn't quite gets there), this can be predicted and expressed as what you might think of as a "speed multiplying factor". Below are a couple of charts I made which demonstrate this effect.

In the first chart, the numbers on the y-axis represent the speed multiplying factor, and the numbers on the x-axis represent the cue weight in ounces. The green line on the left is for a 6oz cue striking a 6oz CB. As you can see on the y-axis, the factor is 1, so there is no increase in speed beyond the actual speed of the cue.

The green line in the middle is for an 18oz cue hitting the same 6oz CB. Here you can see that the final CB speed is 1.5 times as fast as the cue is moving at impact.

The green line on the right shows a 24oz cue striking a 6oz ball. Despite the cue being 33% heavier than an 18oz cue, the final CB speed is only about 7% faster. This assumes that you actually can accelerate the heavier cue to the same velocity during the time/distance allowed by your stroke. I'm betting most folks can't.

Carrying this to the extreme, the second chart shows what happens as the cue weight approaches very high numbers. At identical speeds, the speed multiplying factor flattens out and never actually reaches 2 times the cue speed no matter how heavy you make it.

icucybe · Mar 7, 2014

Sloppy Pockets said:
A heavier cue transfers more momentum to the CB than a lighter cue at identical velocities. This means the CB will depart the tip at a faster speed than the cue was moving at, as long as the cue weighs more than the CB.

For an perfectly elastic collision (which a break cue with a phenolic tip approaches, but doesn't quite gets there), this can be predicted and expressed as what you might think of as a "speed multiplying factor". Below are a couple of charts I made which demonstrate this effect.

In the first chart, the numbers on the y-axis represent the speed multiplying factor, and the numbers on the x-axis represent the cue weight in ounces. The green line on the left is for a 6oz cue striking a 6oz CB. As you can see on the y-axis, the factor is 1, so there is no increase in speed beyond the actual speed of the cue.

The green line in the middle is for an 18oz cue hitting the same 6oz CB. Here you can see that the final CB speed is 1.5 times as fast as the cue is moving at impact.

The green line on the right shows a 24oz cue striking a 6oz ball. Despite the cue being 33% heavier than an 18oz cue, the final CB speed is only about 7% faster. This assumes that you actually can accelerate the heavier cue to the same velocity during the time/distance allowed by your stroke. I'm betting most folks can't.

Carrying this to the extreme, the second chart shows what happens as the cue weight approaches very high numbers. At identical speeds, the speed multiplying factor flattens out and never actually reaches 2 times the cue speed no matter how heavy you make it.

So 24oz was faster than 18oz. I tested this with my phone app and keep track of over 30 racks with a 25oz vs 15oz.

a) The 25oz consistenly gives me better feel and faster break with avrg 20mph.

b) The 15oz avrg is 18mph.

Now my fastest speed is37mph with the 15oz. How can we explain that... LOL

Sloppy Pockets · Mar 7, 2014

Suplex said:
Extended thought:

Boxers are taught to punch through the bag or their opponent rather than to punch the surface. If I were to get into a fight, I'd rather get punched by a 300 lb bouncer that doesn't know how to punch rather than lets say Floyd mayweather. yes, the big guy would hurt, but I would put money on that his hand speed after contact with my face is slower that pretty boy Floyd's. I think that floyd could inflict for damage. thanks for the info dr dave!

You are mixing billiard balls and marshmallows. The collision between a fist and a man is hardly an elastic one. The cue tip is only on the ball for 1/1000th of a second. Much of the momentum of the moving cue remains with the cue after impact because the faster moving CB separates from the tip and the "follow through" momentum does nothing to help the CB go faster. In contrast, a boxer's punch stays in contact with the opponent the whole time, so most of the momentum gets transferred to him.

BTW pool players are also taught to "stroke through the ball", but this doesn't help with the momentum transfer problem. It has zero effect on the CB, but placing the attention on a good follow through helps you keep the stroke moving along the intended line, so it is a very good thing IMO.

Sloppy Pockets · Mar 7, 2014

icucybe said:
So 24oz was faster than 18oz. I tested this with my phone app and keep track of over 30 racks with a 25oz vs 15oz.

a) The 25oz consistenly gives me better feel and faster break with avrg 20mph.

b) The 15oz avrg is 18mph.

Now my fastest speed is37mph with the 15oz. How can we explain that... LOL

Easy to explain. You were moving the 15oz cue much faster.

A radar gun or an accelerometer on the cue would show this. All the break speed app does is measure the time between the sounds of the two impacts and computes the elapsed time between the two sounds using the distance you plug into the app. It has no clue how fast the cue itself was moving at impact.

But I gotta say, if you're getting 37MPH with good control, you're doing it right.

icucybe · Mar 7, 2014

Sloppy Pockets said:
Easy to explain. You were moving the 15oz cue much faster.

A radar gun or an accelerometer on the cue would show this. All the break speed app does is measure the time between the sounds of the two impacts and computes the elapsed time between the two sounds using the distance you plug into the app. It has no clue how fast the cue itself was moving at impact.

But I gotta say, if you're getting 37MPH with good control, you're doing it right.

I agree . Thing is that only happend 1 time LOL. I also want to add I was playing 8 ball and made 4 balls on that break including the 8ball

. This was on a Dimond Pro Am 9ft. It was an amazing feeling to hit that break!

So after that I started tracking all my breaks with both my break cues 25oz & 15oz. Besides that 37mph break I haven't been able to hit over 20mph with the 15oz. My highest besides the 37mph is 20mph, but consistenly is low 18 and high 17.

Now with my 25oz I haven't been able to go higher than 21mph, but hit consistent 20mph and no less than 19.

nobcitypool · Mar 7, 2014

The baseball analogy isn't relevant because a CB is stationary, therefore, it has zero acceleration at rest. When hitting a baseball, it is moving in the opposite direction as the bat, therefore, F=ma does apply as the baseball has substantially increased force due the velocity it is moving at. Two different animals involved here.

Roadking · Mar 7, 2014

I always tried to break as hard & fast as I could using a lite break cue.
And most of the time for me it was uncontrollable. Cue ball would scratch or fly off the table. Never new what the hell was gonna happen.
So I've since put a heavier weight in & just try to get a nice controlled break. And I'm still around 19.5mph (according to break app). And leave the cue ball in the center some where. Now I still might scratch but it's mostly from another ball hitting it. But no more yelling WATCH OUT and running down the cue ball.

Break cue weight conversation

Suplex

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Shannon.spronk

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Lesh

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