Heavy arse break cues,whats the deal?

Thunderball

Thunderball

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I have a bud who bought a 25 oz cue to break with....later he added a "sur nuf" one piece break tip.The thing feels crazy heavy on the ass end.

I also once met a guy in a PH who had "machined" a BQ...(BQ= break cue for the remainder of this post lol) completley out of steal,And I aint kidding. Dam thing might have weighed four pounds if not more. To pick it up was to say "holy shyatt!".

I get why these guys arrive at the conclusion,but I also think they are wrong wrong and still wrong.

Or perhaps I am ( thinking Im not fwiw) missing something.

Who swings a heavier BQ when compared to your regular shooter?
Who has a lighter one?
And why?
 
Thunderball said:
Who swings a heavier BQ when compared to your regular shooter?
Who has a lighter one?
And why?
Click to expand...

I have both. I have a Joss Boss from, IIRC, sometime in the mid '80s that is 24 oz. Extremely solid hitting break cue and scatters the balls great. Real good for 10 ball or full rack blast breaks. Gets heavy after a few hours of use, though. The last several years, I've been using either a Mali 19 oz. which I sold or the '70s Adam with a steel joint that's in my case now. The Adam is 18-19 oz., somewhat lighter than my 19.5 oz. playing cue. For 9 ball, which I very seldom play any more, the Adam seems to give me a bit more control, especially on a bar table. The Mali was probably the best of the three and I shouldn't have sold it.
 
There has been a debate for a long time here on which is better, light or heavy, I used to say light because I figured its not the cue stick that breaks the rack but the cue ball so the lighter the cue the faster the arm travels and in turn the faster the cb moves and the harder the break. Having said that I cut a 21 oz one piece Dufferin in half and added a joint and this cue hits very hard. I like a light cue to shoot with, 18 oz or under but lately I really like how this heavy cue hits. I am beginning to think that it is like so many other things in this game it just might be a mental thing, at least at my level.
 
bigshooter said:
I like my break cue to be approximately the same weight as my shooting cue.
Click to expand...

Yep that's what i think. they should be the same or at the most i'd prefer a slightly heavier break cue.

i don't believe in all that light break cue hype. sure the cue can move faster but if you're stoke isn't perfect during that quick acceleration it could turn out real bad
 
speed and weight

Although the current theory is that the lighter break cues give greater speed at impact that isn't necessarily true and a lot depends on breaking style. Each person has to evaluate different weight cues for themselves to find which breaks best for them.

Graphs from accelerometers show that there is a tremendous drop in cue speed when it impacts the cue ball on the break. How tight you grip the cue at impact and the weight of the cue both have major effects on this. To be precise, the weight of the cue directly corresponds to the reduction in speed when it hits the cue ball and the grip can change the effective weight of the cue in my opinion.

Much like when a gun is fired, there is an equal and opposite reaction when a cue stick hits a cue ball. Two things keep this from being obvious when observing a break. The cue ball is accelerating from zero and the cue stick is decelerating from a speed of roughly 20-25mph. (not going to get scientific and use accelerating for all changes in speed here)

Back to the gun analogy, if the gun and bullet weighed the same thing, the gun would fly backwards at the same speed the bullet went forwards. We know the rifle moves at far less speed and this is because of the huge differences in weight. With break cues weighing roughly three to four times what a cue ball weighs it would seem that the heavier cue would have a third less deceleration therefore there would be more forward speed on the cue ball much like the heavy rifle and light bullet. Same amount of force from the collision in each object, different masses.

Lighter cues should allow a person to generate more cue speed as a general rule. Heavier cues should allow the transfer of more of the cue speed to the cue ball. Somewhere there is a balance point for each individual.

Hu
 
It is just like swinging a bat....

You swing the heaviest thing that you can swing fast.

Tip speed is important but you still need something behind it once contact is made.


I guess I am oldschool..I like them heavy.
 
I really like my (just a hair under) 22oz Varney- everybody that's tried it so far keeps asking to use it when it's their break- I break with a more upright stance then I shoot any other shot with, and the heavier cue just feels better to me than the ~19oz I like for my playing cues.;)
 
Very well put, ShootingArts. Although I use the same weight break cue as my playing, cue, I'd agree that between lighter and heavier, heavier makes more sense. To move a lighter cue faster, you risk sacrificing control. With a heavier cue, you can swing it slower and still break as hard, giving you more control over where the tip hits the ball.

Elite makes a 27oz break cue. We sold a ton of them when I ran a room last year. We even had a break tournament and gave one of them away to anyone who could make 5 or more balls on a 9-ball break. The players loved them. You didn't have to hit the ball any harder than a normal shot and it SHATTERED the rack. I can still sell them for $100 shipped if anyone wants to try one. ;)

But yeah, for the record, I have for years and still do use a 19oz Cuetec with a Bunjee tip. Love the way it breaks, but you definitely have to have enough control on your break to put some ass into it. Just my style, but I have always though that having a monster break can be somewhat intimidating to your opponent.

That's my .02. I'm done rambling.
 
Elastic collision( Ok some energy is lost through sound, heat, and maybe even slight deformation), so conservation of kinetic energy and momentum with target initially at rest:


v2 = 2m1*v1 / (m1 + m2)

1 = cue
2 = cue ball

derivation: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/elacol2.html#c1


the cue ball what, 6 oz? 18 oz cue weighs 3x that, m1 / (m1 + m2) will be 0.75, add an oz, you get 0.76. At a 25 MPH break, that would be an equivalent of adding 0.25 MPH. However, M2 is not really 18 oz, you must add in grip pressure. Say we add in half the weight of the cue, m1 is now 27 oz, the mass constant will now be 0.818, add in one oz, that is now 0.823. The difference in MPH is more insignificant at 0.133 MPH. I very well may be drawing the wrong conclusion but I don't know why I am awake at 7 am.

So, in effect, adding to the mass of the cue makes minimal difference in the cue ball velocity if we swing at the same speed. Increasing the speed makes more of a difference. However, some may find it is easier to accelerate or control a heavier cue, perhaps. Control is the biggest factor, because if you end up with half a ball hit, you lose like a quarter of the speed!
 
Well this is a little more 50% then I would have thought. I'm in the lighter is better camp,but I can see the argument for the other side.

I wonder if Dr. Dave has done any work in this area?
 
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