My Experience Trying Revo Shafts.
I recently got to try the Revo shafts in both sizes with a uni-lock joint.
Over the years, I tried different LD shafts and I prefer original maple.
The Revo shaft played much better than any LD shaft I've tried. My
pool game is strictly played on larger tables (9' & 10") and I found the
shaft to be very accurate on long shots even using extreme English.
There are three (3) aspects of the shaft that just didn't click for me and
for the price of this shaft, it should dazzle me which it never really did.
Nonetheless, for some players, this shaft will be nirvana and I see why.
My shortfalls are material feel (tactile) , etc.. I actually prefer the feeling
maple shafts which I meticuously maintain. The shafts on my cues are
all better than new in smoothness and feel. The wood has a warmth to
it and it just feels natural after almost 6o years of playing pool. The Revo
shaft felt cold in my closed bridge and no where as slick or smooth.
The next aspect was the absence of a ferrule. For me, the end of the shaft
is my sightline for aiming and on maple shafts with ferrules, the end of the
shaft, i.e., tip, stands out and there is a distinct picture formed when you
stroke the cue ball. Practice strokes and actual strokes are presented to
you with a different sight picture since the end of the shaft is very distinct.
The Revo shaft does not offer the same sight viewing and one of the shafts
I tried had a Kamui black tip whereas the other shaft had a orig. Predator tip.
With the Kamui tip, I did not care for the sight picture at all. It was not easy
to practice stroke since the end of the shaft was almost non-distinguishable.
This combination I found to be very distracting and almost bothersome to use.
The orig, Predator shaft was a big improvement and I had a sense of where the
shaft tip was aimed and I could measure and deliver my stroke much better , Overall
I definitely liked the Predator tip more so since the gold color helped distinguish
the end of the shaft when I stroked the cue ball. Personally, I think if the tip had
even used a bright colored pad, it would have helped even more, at least to my way
of thinking. I could live with the Predator tip but I really wasn't thrilled with the sight
picture either. I also think the absence of the ferrule made disguised my sight picture.
The final aspect of the shaft is just my own personal idiosyncranicity which is it's just
very hard to change from 6 decades of allowing for deflection in aiming the cue ball.
I also found that the feel of the hit of the cue felt different and I did notice that playing
with the shaft on a custom Sly custom cue butt felt much better to me than on the
Predator cue butt, Nonetheless, having to adjust my aiming with both was necessary.
I think the shaft had a distinct advantage shooting at object balls 6, 7, 8 diamonds away
for extreme cuts, frozen rails or lots of follow. On 1/2 table shape and shots in general,
I prefer playing with original maple shafts which provided me with more tactile feedback.
If I was a new player, or experienced say less than 10 years of playing with maple shafts,
I'd give this shaft a try. But after 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and in my case, almost 60
yrs of playing orig. maple shafts, the switch seems to be more annoying than being helpful.
Matt B.
p.s. I'm also a strong proponent of weight proportionality between the cue butt & cue shafts.
Light weight cue shafts do not feel or perform as well if mismatched with too heavy of a butt.