OK folks, here's the deal.
I just got my new Prime (pro taper) shaft for the Becue and it has an Ultras-soft tip on it. I had them ship me another of the same tip and I'm having it put on the 5.1 (conical shaft). I won't get that shaft back until sometime this week, so I didn't get a chance to compare the shafts with the same type of tips.
Now for the review of the cue with the Prime shaft after about 10 hours of playing with it today.
I can't think of enough superlatives to give this cue the rating that it deserves. I have hit with LOTS and LOTS of cues over the 50 years I've played, but I think this cue may be the best hitting cue made. I don't care if you have a Szamboti, a Balabushka, a Southwest, or whatever, it ISN'T going to hit better than this cue and that is a FACT.
One of the other Becue owners on here said something like "it goes through the ball" and that is exactly what it does It may be the "purist" hitting cue on the market. You can hit ALL OVER the cue ball and you never feel that "boing" or vibrating-type hit that you feel with regular shaft when you hit the very extreme edges of the cue ball. It makes it feel like you are hitting center cue ball on every shot.
The cue seems to generate a lot more power with less force than a wooden cue. It must be because the entire cue is made of carbon fiber...not just the shaft. You can really move the cue ball without a lot of effort. I must say the Ultra-skin soft will generate a LOT of spin if you rev it up with a power stroke. I had a couple people come over and ask me what type of tip I was using because I was making the cue ball MOVE.
I sit up some shots where I put an object ball on the long rail about six inches above the side pocket and I put the cue ball about an inch off the same side rail and back down the table below the spot. This gives you almost a 5-foot shot that is practically straight in with the object ball on the rail. I was DRILLING this shot over and over and bringing the cue ball 3 and 4 rails back down table for position for a ball on the end rail behind the spot. On the table I was playing on, which doesn't have the fastest cloth, you have to put some serious "HOUDINI" on the ball to power it back from that shallow of an angle. The cue ball is traveling about 20 feet.
There is very little deflection on this shaft. I usually use my Predator FAT 314-2 and I think it has a bit more deflection that this shaft, but I didn't have any trouble adjusting to it. The whole time I was shooting with it, I was thinking it may be the first "point and shoot" cue...sort of WYSIWYG...what you see is what you get.
I will say right now that I don't think ANYBODY can make a wood shaft that hits as precise and solid as this shaft hits.
I know the shaft must have a bit of flex in it, but I never noticed it or felt it. You can generate a lot of "swerve" with the shaft for EXTREME back cuts. I shot some balls that looked impossible to make but the cue ball swerved at the last moment and spun the object ball at cut angles so far backwards that some people asked me how I did it.
If you want to collect fancy cues then keep right on doing it. If you want a cue that is strictly a high-performance PLAYER that will do EVERYTHING your cue can and MORE, then try out one these cues.
Then again, don't try it out...you might start shooting so good that you will sell all your other stuff and you won't look so fancy.
The more I shot with this cue, the more I wanted to keep playing beyond the 10 hours I played. It hits so good it may be against the law.
If Mosconi had this cue he may have run 526 balls every time he played