Anyone else prefer very hard tips??

[Island Drive]

What I noticed when I first started playing, the better players seemed to prefer harder tips, and Rudolph Wanderone used to cure his tips this way.
Evelyn (his wife) said Fats always kept his next cue tip to be used, in his pockets where he handled his money/change.
The sweat and hand oils over a few months, going in/out of his pockets, helped improved the leather, cured the tip.

My reasoning, and why I use a hard tip is deformity.
When your game starts to and keeps on improving also, your swing speed IN-creases.
Combine these two, and they Deform a tip quicker on a softer tip.
It's why in my past, constant attentiveness of your tip ''flaring'' out is VERY important.

 

[Sealegs50]

90+% of de-lam's are from A.too high lathe speed and B. dull blade. Or both.

I wrote to Kamui several years back and they said the biggest problem leading to delamination is heat. That would seem consistent with your observations.

 

[hang-the-9]

I spent about 20 minutes trying Mike Massey’s extreme draw shot and after 20+ tries not getting past 9-10 diamonds of draw, I grabbed my break cue with a Samsara tip and immediately got 2-3 more diamonds of draw. It was a significant enough difference that I am planning to split the difference on hardnesses on my next re-tip.


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Your break cue probably had a different shaft as well. Shaft design has a pretty large effect on how much action you get from a cueball. When I use my Revo shaft I can get much easier draw on the cueball as has everyone that has tried it out. That has a soft tip on it, and spins the ball better than my other shafts even those with medium hardness tips.

 

[Zerksies]

I prefer them on my break cue

 

[maha]

on fast tables hard tips are fine. but on slow tables you have to hit higher or lower to get the same distance from the cueball. or at least, and hitting it harder.

so few being a pro where the tip goes almost exactly where you aimed, many times you are a little off. and hard tips hold less chalk or little if you are lazy about it. so the hitting too low often will end up in a miscue, or just being less accurate.

for most a softer tip makes sense to me.

but many agonize over the tip as well as the chalk they use. and only can justify that by thinking thats why they miss.

 

[hejests]

When I started shooting about 30 yrs ago, I used elk masters, very soft out of the box and got harder over time. Since then I've used at least dozen or more variations of layered tips in S, M & MH. A couple of years ago I moved from an LD wood shafts to carbon and since then I've been using dry-pressed elk masters. They're hard, very consistent, hold chalk extremely well and feel like home.

 

[couldnthinkof01]

Sound, longevity, and consistency are why I choose a harder non- layered tip.
Table size and speed make zero difference to me. The angle I play from ball to ball controls the speed of the next shot. Bar table I play thicker angles/ big table I play thinner angles.( In reality it's more trying to do that, missing position, shooting hero shots, shaking my opponents hand and congratulating them on their win)

 

[CJH]

I liked Dennis Searing's hard tips but only had a couple. They added some crispness to an already hard hitting cue. Reality is that I don't think I play better or worse with a particular tip hardness but I like the sound and feel of Precision-Hard.

 

[rharm]

Of course not but with a set of Walmart clubs a pro golfer can beat almost anybody on the course that day.
The Indian certainly does have a lot to do with it though, most of it actually.
If you had the same equipment to play with that Jayson Shaw uses you would not play like Jayson Shaw I don't think.

So if Shaw were to a race to 10 against the ghost using his Peri cue and then another race to 10 using a Walmart cue, would he have the same results if its the Indian and not the arrow?

 

[philly]

Agree 100%. Cues are so over-rated as to their importance. I've seen huge scores taken down by players using a house cue. When i went to Derby in '07 i saw a couple huge action matches. Both were won by guys using MAYBE 100buck sneakies. Pool lore is full of tales of players that just borrowed a cue and played lights out. Seen it myself. Pool is easily 95% game and 5% cue.

Thank you, I agree.

 

[couldnthinkof01]

So if Shaw were to a race to 10 against the ghost using his Peri cue and then another race to 10 using a Walmart cue, would he have the same results if its the Indian and not the arrow?

If you gave him the Walmart cue to practice with for 6 months, it was relatively straight and had a decent tip. about exactly the same.

 

[JolietJames]

I always played either Talisman WB hard (20 years at least), or Dawgduds (recent years). Both played great.
When I switched to CF, they both play too hard imo.
The Sniper is only 5 points less and seems just right with the Cynergy.
I've tried going back to those harder tips more than once and always cut them off within a day or two and put on a Sniper.
Seems odd that 5 points could make that much of a difference to me but it does.

 

[Tooler]

If you game him the Walmart cue to practice with for 6 months, it was relatively straight and had a decent tip. about exactly the same.

6 mo....? more like 6 hrs.

 

[philly]

6 mo....? more like 6 hrs.

But wait.
It's the arrow not the Indian.
These guys have no talent unless they play with a really good stick.
Without a really really good stick they are just bangers.
Nobody could play a lick at this game until George Balabushka came along.
Everyone knows that what they see going on their minds on the table is only there because of their equipment.

 

[SeniorTom]

Many players want a breaking cue with a really hard tip. Me on the other hand, and many others I play with, opt for a medium tip or less when using their break cue. Players like to put some side action on the ball when hitting their desired spot on a rack, and a softer tip allows that to happen. I'm changing out my rock hard tip on my break cue to a medium, it should be in the mail tomorrow.

 

[Fatboy]

Anyone else just get may more action with a single piece of very hard leather, far less miscues and years of playing without tinkering?

I feel like super soft tips are marketed well so people will buy them more since they wear out faster…

Anyone share the opinion?

Not me, however I have a friend who plays super strong 725-735 these days and he’s old now lol. Anyways he’s got as big of a stroke as anyone ever, played pro speed at his best 25-30 years ago. He likes super hard tips, he gets more on the rock with them and plays his best with super hard tips. He can play good with any cue-natural talent. But with rock hard tips he’s at his best on any cue-he has a solid cue collection too, so it’s not a cue related thing. He’s played right at 40 years now.

All I got on this one,
Fatboy<———likes triangles

 

[Greg M]

I've always used medium pressed tips on the majority of the cues I've owned. Recently bought a few ADR147 laminated tips for the first time for my English pool cue, but I found that I'm having a lot of miscues with my Taom 2.0, so I've gone back to my trusty green Triangle chalk. I have a new cue coming in February and opted for a Century G3 tip, so while it's not super hard, it's certainly harder than all of the other pressed tips I've used in the past. It'll be interesting to see how I get on.

 

[RDeca]

I was a big fan of the sumo tips but they were prone to losing chunks on a miscue.

I did it to 3 tips, as I recall. That's not workable.

I never had that problem you probably got some real old or dry ones for whatever reason..

 

[buckshotshoey]

But wait.
It's the arrow not the Indian.
These guys have no talent unless they play with a really good stick.
Without a really really good stick they are just bangers.
Nobody could play a lick at this game until George Balabushka came along.
Everyone knows that what they see going on their minds on the table is only there because of their equipment.

Your attemt at humor needs help too. What ot comes down to is if a pro could play just as well with a bar stick, they'd be doing it. They won't. Because a fellow pro with better equipment (and equil abilities) will beat their ass every time.

I assume you just use a bar stick off the wall too?

Never mind. I really don't care. I'm done with you.

 

[philly]

Your attemt at humor needs help too. What ot comes down to is if a pro could play just as well with a bar stick, they'd be doing it. They won't. Because a fellow pro with better equipment (and equil abilities) will beat their ass every time.

I assume you just use a bar stick off the wall too?

Never mind. I really don't care. I'm done with you.

I never said a pro would play better with a bar stick.
We all like our own equipment and I am sure a pro does too.
I don't use a bar stick.
I use a custom cue designed by myself and the cue maker.
I could probably play as well with a sneaky Pete designed by the same cue maker but I do like the aesthetics of
the one that I designed, old school Bushkalike.
The stuff going on in the Indian's head is the difference.
Focus, confidence, heart, will, and talent.
An arrow does not give you that.