Best Hitting Shaft is...

[X Breaker]

The dilema with a shaft like the Z is that it will exagerate every reaction of the cue ball, where you may have used 1/2 tip of english before a 1/4 will get the same reaction. The first few hours had me pulling my hair out, but once you adjust , whoa!
It will also allow the cueball to travel straight even if you do not strike center ball, making it harder to tell if you have hit off center. I don't see this as a lack of "feel" at all you just don't get the immediate swerve off line that visually tells you what happened. It demands and rewards a pure stroke imho, I would not recommend this type of shaft to a beginner

I have seen a lot of beginners who have improved a lot with a Z shaft or a 314 shaft in the sense that they could make shots they could not otherwise make with a regular shaft in the same time frame. In that regards, I think the Z can shorten the learning curve for beginners.

"Feel" or lack thereof is subjective. When I think of "feel' I am thinking of the feel of the tip hitting the cue ball, or the feel of the cue ball coming off the tip. I am thinking of the feedback I feel in my grip, it has nothing to do with swerve. But everyone has a different definition of the word "feel."

Moreover, I do not see how "low deflection" can help a player to have more accurate cue ball control.

The Z shaft does react differently coming off the ball, it is not just the swerve, I find that it also follows a different curve off the ball on draw shots and follow shots. It does take some time to get used to.


Thanks,

Richard

 

[Chris]

This is not true. The contact time is determined by effective mass of the whole stick (not the endmass), the effective mass of the ball, and the shape and characteristics of the tip (softer tip = longer contact time, shorter radius of curvature , e,g., dime over nickel, = longer contact time. I say "effective" mass of the cueball because the mass of what the stick's pushing is lower for spin shots than for centerball shots (so longer contact time).
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mike page
fargo

Excellent post. Could you please explain why a shorter radius of curvature increases contact time? Thanks.

 

[mikepage]

Excellent post. Could you please explain why a shorter radius of curvature increases contact time? Thanks.

The easier a tip is to compress, the longer the contact time. All rounded tips start out easy to compress because at the very beginning you're only compressing a very small contact area. As the tip continues to compress, the contact area that needs to be compressed gets larger. For a flatter tip (larger radius of curvature), the tip gets fatter faster, and this shortens the contact time.

mike page
fargo

 

[Chris]

The easier a tip is to compress, the longer the contact time. All rounded tips start out easy to compress because at the very beginning you're only compressing a very small contact area. As the tip continues to compress, the contact area that needs to be compressed gets larger. For a flatter tip (larger radius of curvature), the tip gets fatter faster, and this shortens the contact time.

mike page
fargo

That makes sense. Thanks.