I will be the first to review. I volunteered to be one of the 10 guinea pigs for Webbs Billiards.
First, Mr Webb has been awesome to work with. knowledgeable, straight talking, and a very nice discount from retail. I recommend him fully. Second, I got a great discount, but there's no "arrangement" to give a good review or whatever.
Third, I was a Viking bigot before this, and I'm still a Viking bigot. This makes 4 that I now own. Prior to this new one, my primary playing cue was an F-74. Now, here's what I got. I got a Viking V123K-WH, in 20oz. Just a dang handsome cue. There was a discount, so I indulged.
Now preliminaries are out of the way. Here's my review.
Wrap - Like all/most Vikings, the grip is linen wrap. When I first got it, the linen wrap was slicker than I expected, a bit disconcertingly so. But after a couple of weeks of usage it seems to have tacked up nicely, or perhaps I just got used to it. I never had a brand new cue before, perhaps that is just the way it is with new linen wraps.
Balance - Second, this cue is very evenly balanced, as opposed to being a little bit butt-heavy. I hear that a knock on the Vikings is that they are butt-heavy. One might argue that my F-74 cue is a bit that way. This new one certainly is not.
Tip - Comes with a tip called Tiger Everest. Laminated, reminds me of a Moori. Works for me so far.
Shaft - this is the $2 question. This new Vikore low-deflection shaft is what they are putting out there to review. My opinion so far - it's a pretty good entry into the LD space.
I'm a fairly low-experience player, I've just been going hard at it for 2 years now. Starting to move up in the ranks, but I'm by no means a pool-hall stud. I'm a mid-high 4 in APA 8-ball. So calculate that into the worth of my opinion. I'm just now getting at a level with cue-ball control that my left and right english are pretty fair. Not good, but fair. I recently shot an afternoon with a 314 shaft, so until now that's been my only go-round with an LD shaft. That afternoon with the 314 was well-nigh life-altering. I realized at that point that I was doing some right things with English, but my stock shaft was giving up accuracy and consistency.
Which brings me to the Vikore shaft, the one that came on my new V123K. If it's any less good than the 314, I couldn't tell it. I suppose that a very high-skilled player might discern better. I can only tell what I see. It is very tight, very true, very sweet with the English. high, low, left, right. I get much better response on a draw than I did (I'm having to adjust for that.... good problem to have), and I'm notably more accurate with a full tip or more of English than with a stock shaft, and less prone to miscue. And by the way, maybe it's just my perception, but it feels more trustworthy on full-ball hits as well.
After playing with this offline (not in league play) for a week, I did the unthinkable. I switched main playing cues in the latter part of an APA session. The cue has been a little bit of an adjustment, but in my assessment I'm already playing better with it. So far with the new cue? I'm 1-0.
Right now, I heartily recommend the Vikore shaft.
Next review, because I think somebody up thread was asking - for fun, I'm going to mate the new Vikore shaft to the butt of my F-74, my previous main playing cue. Then I'll report that here.
