So as I promised here are my thoughts about BECUE after two hours of shooting yesterday.
1) The packaging - well opening the package was like a siege of Fort Knox, LOTS of styrofoam, LOTS of ducttape, I believe BECUE would survive being ran-over by 18wheeler
Job very well done in that department
2) The grip - I liked the grip as it has smooth wrapless feel and I suspect that the grip is slightly smaller radius than is used in most cues - I take it as a plus because the grip can be more relaxed that way.
3) The aiming - white colour of the shaft is pure BOMB!!! No distraction by the painting of the wood, no reflections from the lights, no nothing..just pure white colour. This is so much better than normal wood..at least for me I had an opportunity to shoot with REVO and the black colour was something that I felt as a negative thing because of the all reflections from the light made it quite difficult to aim properly - BECUE definitely beats REVO and wooden shafts in this department for me! As for the white finish of the shaft it is smooth BUT it is not as perfectly smooth as I am used to with my wooden shaft. On the other hand I started to use Kamui glove few days back so it isnt an issue with me and I believe almost anybody would be happy with it, I am just a perfectionist in this department
4) The deflection - BECUE has considerably lower deflection than REVO and I would say BECUE has even slightly lower deflection than my WX900 shaft. I would rate it about the same as Z3 deflection-wise.
5) The taper - I would say BECUE is halfway between pro-taper and euro-taper, no problem with closed bridge at all.
6) The weight and balance system - I didnt weight BECUE but I would say it is about 19oz going by the feel. It is evenly balanced and feels good. For anyone who enjoys a heavier cue BECUE has a balance system (they call it "Leonardo Balance system") where you can easily add 4 different weights to your cue so basically you can choose whichever weight you want in 19-21oz range.
7) The energy transfer, the hit - BECUE delivers a punch comparable with solid maple shaft and outperforms wooden LD shafts by a mile. BECUE performs very similar to REVO in this department, both shafts work great, they can draw cueball or masse WAY easier than wooden LD shafts. There is one thing that is really different from wooden shafts - I didnt feel any vibrations during the hit! I dont know how BECUE guys did it but I believe this is the reason why the transfer of the energy is so good. As for the sound of the hit - it is quite dampened to what I am used to with wooden shaft, but to compare it better I plan to rettip from Ultraskin medium which is installed on the shaft to Kamui Original hard, then I will be able to say more about the sound comparison.
To make my review complete I have to say there were two things not so positive about BECUE. First the tip - it was not trimmed very good and the tip wasnt even burnished on the sides, I had to shape it as well. The second issue was with the butt of BECUE - about 2cm from the joint there were tiny dents rising above the surface of the finish but I need to say again - these were really tiny..like dots made by a pen rising above the finish like 0,1mm. I communicated these issues with BECUE, they want to provide me with a new butt so I would have a perfect cue but like I said those dots seem like a minor cosmetic flaw to me with no effect on playability and dont bother me in any way so I wont definitely press the issue.
Thats all I can say about BECUE so far, soon I will shoot some vids with BECUE so you can see/hear what BECUE does.
1) The packaging - well opening the package was like a siege of Fort Knox, LOTS of styrofoam, LOTS of ducttape, I believe BECUE would survive being ran-over by 18wheeler
Job very well done in that department 2) The grip - I liked the grip as it has smooth wrapless feel and I suspect that the grip is slightly smaller radius than is used in most cues - I take it as a plus because the grip can be more relaxed that way.
3) The aiming - white colour of the shaft is pure BOMB!!! No distraction by the painting of the wood, no reflections from the lights, no nothing..just pure white colour. This is so much better than normal wood..at least for me
I had an opportunity to shoot with REVO and the black colour was something that I felt as a negative thing because of the all reflections from the light made it quite difficult to aim properly - BECUE definitely beats REVO and wooden shafts in this department for me! As for the white finish of the shaft it is smooth BUT it is not as perfectly smooth as I am used to with my wooden shaft. On the other hand I started to use Kamui glove few days back so it isnt an issue with me and I believe almost anybody would be happy with it, I am just a perfectionist in this department 4) The deflection - BECUE has considerably lower deflection than REVO and I would say BECUE has even slightly lower deflection than my WX900 shaft. I would rate it about the same as Z3 deflection-wise.
5) The taper - I would say BECUE is halfway between pro-taper and euro-taper, no problem with closed bridge at all.
6) The weight and balance system - I didnt weight BECUE but I would say it is about 19oz going by the feel. It is evenly balanced and feels good. For anyone who enjoys a heavier cue BECUE has a balance system (they call it "Leonardo Balance system") where you can easily add 4 different weights to your cue so basically you can choose whichever weight you want in 19-21oz range.
7) The energy transfer, the hit - BECUE delivers a punch comparable with solid maple shaft and outperforms wooden LD shafts by a mile. BECUE performs very similar to REVO in this department, both shafts work great, they can draw cueball or masse WAY easier than wooden LD shafts. There is one thing that is really different from wooden shafts - I didnt feel any vibrations during the hit! I dont know how BECUE guys did it but I believe this is the reason why the transfer of the energy is so good. As for the sound of the hit - it is quite dampened to what I am used to with wooden shaft, but to compare it better I plan to rettip from Ultraskin medium which is installed on the shaft to Kamui Original hard, then I will be able to say more about the sound comparison.
To make my review complete I have to say there were two things not so positive about BECUE. First the tip - it was not trimmed very good and the tip wasnt even burnished on the sides, I had to shape it as well. The second issue was with the butt of BECUE - about 2cm from the joint there were tiny dents rising above the surface of the finish but I need to say again - these were really tiny..like dots made by a pen rising above the finish like 0,1mm. I communicated these issues with BECUE, they want to provide me with a new butt so I would have a perfect cue but like I said those dots seem like a minor cosmetic flaw to me with no effect on playability and dont bother me in any way so I wont definitely press the issue.
Thats all I can say about BECUE so far, soon I will shoot some vids with BECUE so you can see/hear what BECUE does.
