I've been thinking about this for a long time, and have refrained from posting it until now.
What is Low Deflection?
What we're really talking about here is "Cue Ball Squirt". Squirt is what happens when you hit the cue ball off center. If you hit the left of the cue ball, the line the cue ball travels down will be at a slight angle to the right. The opposite is true if you hit it on the right, the cue ball line will be to the left. This is Cue Ball Squirt.
How does it do this?
Squirt is caused by the difference of "Effective Tip End Mass" of the cue shaft as compared to the mass of the cue ball. The less ETIM, the lower the cue ball squirt. Shaft stiffness doesn't really come into play. While it's true that a stiff shaft could raise the ETIM, the cue ball is long gone from the tip by the time this effect could take place. So a true LD shaft has to have been engineered to reduce the Tip End Mass.
So, whats the difference?
High LD shafts, or really high Squirt shafts will increase this angle. Low LD or Squirt shafts will reduce this angle. That's it! No special curves or "Mojo", it just makes for a different aiming point. There simply is less of an angle to have to compensate for. What it all comes down to is your errors are smaller due to a smaller adjustment in the first place. Your errors are magnified much less meaning you pocket more balls.
Are there really that many LD shafts out there?
There are many cue shafts that claim to be LD. Most do have less cue ball squirt than an off the shelf conventional shaft, but the question is by how much? Unless significant steps have been taken to reduce the Tip End Mass, they simply can't reduce the cue ball squirt very much. They can still claim LD, but you really need to look at the construction and ask yourself how the Tip End Mass is reduced. Laminated shafts don't do anything to reduce cue ball squirt. It's all in the design of the tip end what has been done to reduce mass without sacrificing the integrity of the cue shaft.
So, if you're in the market for a low Squirt or LD shaft, just look for yourself and ask "what steps have been taken to reduce the Tip End Mass".
At OB Cues, we make very low "Squirt" cue shafts of all different types and sizes to suit just about any taste.
