Butt of your Cue

Palmerfan

Palmerfan

AzB Gold Member
Silver Member
If you put a Predator 314 shaft with a Kamui tip on your cue (or any LD shaft and tip of your choice), does the butt of the cue make that much of a difference, if at all? I'm not talking about a Walmart $20 butt...but any Meucci, Mcdermott, Lucasi...etc.

Would any "decent quality" production cue butt make the cue play any differently, or is it basically for looks?
 
I have a lot of butts and shafts, all using a 5/16 x 18 pin, so I can mix and match.

My unscientific opinion:
Tip and shaft are the primary performance components.
Butt is for mostly for show.

I would love to see the answer quantified with some kind of testing.
 
The type of joint (steel,ivory,phenolic,wood,etc),the woods used, and the way that they are joined, (full splice or short splice),sleeved,or cored all have an effect on play and feedback.
Marc
 
A buddy of mine plays with a Coors Light butt & a predator shaft. He calls it his "trunk stick" because he leaves it in the trunk of his car year-round. He's a 6 in TAP 8-Ball & was a 7 in APA. He shoots pretty good & it seems to irritate the heck out of people he beats because they laugh whenever he pulls the cue out for league play.
 
The biggest thing about the butt that comes to my mind is the weight placement. In my experience it can affect the hit to a degree.
 
XmarathonX said:
A buddy of mine plays with a Coors Light butt & a predator shaft. He calls it his "trunk stick" because he leaves it in the trunk of his car year-round. He's a 6 in TAP 8-Ball & was a 7 in APA. He shoots pretty good & it seems to irritate the heck out of people he beats because they laugh whenever he pulls the cue out for league play.
Click to expand...

That is awesome. :thumbup:

This got me wondering, are Predator shafts with the "pie-slice" construction less prone to warping than standard maple shafts? I'm sure it has been asked before and I'm about to do a search, just wanted to see if someone knew the answer first.
 
My personal opinion (based on my experiences) is that there is more of a difference in the feedback as opposed to the playability.

In my experimenting....a good shaft on a cheap butt still makes for a good playing cue...but the harmonics/feedback can be different....but for me, feedback has never been that big of a deal. Yes, I like and prefer a cue that feels "right" when I strike the cue ball....but that's not my most important consideration. I want the cue to feel solid...not rattle-y or "ping-y". I have achieved this feel with LD shafts on cheaper butts...but not every time.

Maniac
 
What matters the most to me when it comes to cue butts is the weight i have in my hand, some are just too heavy.....others too light, and the width of it too.
I hate butts that are too wide even though i have very loose grip and the cue sits in my first finger or two, most people think the width doesn't matter, to me it does.
That being said you can pretty much get used to anything, even a broom handle.....
 
Balance, thickness and finish. I like my balance further up, the butt on the thin side, and wrapless. Those r the only three things I figure a butt makes a difference on
 
Palmerfan said:
If you put a Predator 314 shaft with a Kamui tip on your cue (or any LD shaft and tip of your choice), does the butt of the cue make that much of a difference, if at all? I'm not talking about a Walmart $20 butt...but any Meucci, Mcdermott, Lucasi...etc.

Would any "decent quality" production cue butt make the cue play any differently, or is it basically for looks?
Click to expand...


I can move the same shaft from handle to handle and make very few aiming adjustments. If the butts are similar in weight, length, diameter and balance, then you won't have to make any adjustments at all.

Handle weight to me is the most critical, followed by diameter, balance and length.
 
I think a great cue is a perfect marriage between a butt and a shaft.
Gus Szamboti felt the wood in the forearm was very important.

I once had two great snooker cues with 7 shafts that intermixed....
....one shaft belonged to the heavy butt, one shaft belonged to the
light butt....the other 5 shafts became practice shafts.

All the combinations were at least 90% satisfactory.....
...but do you really want to give up that extra 10%?
 
I think the tip and the shaft are most important. I like a fairly hard tip like the Kamui Black Medium. I have a couple of Pat Diveney Lake Salvage shafts and a OB Classic shaft for one of Pat's Ebony Hustler's. I had them made up at 30 inches and a 12.5 mm with a straight taper for the first 18 inches. That feels best in my bridge hand. I think I could put any one of those shafts on a butt of the same weight as the Ebony hustler and shoot about the same. I look at the butt of a cue as a good place for custom cue makers to make a big bunch of money as they work their magic with inlays that appeal to those richer then me. They sure are good to look at.
 
My experience is similar with the other posts in this thread. The tip/ferrule/shaft have more impact on play and feel than the butt. However, my favorite butt plays best with all of my shafts. I have a cue butt that feels more "dead" than the others. That dead feel is consistent with all of my shafts (no surprise). I agree with the 90%/10% estimation. I have also been interested in quantitative analysis of cue joints and butts. But it might be difficult to assign significance to such a small effect.


Atlatlien said:
That is awesome. :thumbup:

This got me wondering, are Predator shafts with the "pie-slice" construction less prone to warping than standard maple shafts? I'm sure it has been asked before and I'm about to do a search, just wanted to see if someone knew the answer first.
Click to expand...


My experience only represents a single data point. I have owned a Predator 314-2 for 5 years which has seen very little use (original tip still looks fairly new). It has been stored vertically for the entire time in the same cases as my other shafts. It has a definite "taper roll". Nothing bad that would keep me from wanting to play with it, but it is noticeable. Both shafts on my 1985 Joss remain perfectly straight. My shafts from Showman, Schick, and Szamboti are also straight and range from 8-21 years in age. Those shafts see significant play time. Would the Predator remain more true if it was played more?????
 
The butt's primarily responsible for the weight, and that definitely does make a difference performance-wise.

The handle thickness and wrap will make a big difference in how the cue feels in your hand, which can arguably make a difference in how well you play. Butt construction can make the hit feel more or less solid, but I think it's an aesthetic difference. The CB doesn't notice.

Balance point is very overrated in my opinion.

-Andrew
 
Palmerfan said:
If you put a Predator 314 shaft with a Kamui tip on your cue (or any LD shaft and tip of your choice), does the butt of the cue make that much of a difference, if at all? I'm not talking about a Walmart $20 butt...but any Meucci, Mcdermott, Lucasi...etc.

Would any "decent quality" production cue butt make the cue play any differently, or is it basically for looks?
Click to expand...

With how well you can pocket a ball, there should be pretty much no difference. With the feel, will be pretty noticeable. I've used my shaft on several cues, a McD Lucky cue, my son's cue with a horn joint, and both of those had a distinctly different hit than when the shaft was on my cue.
 
hang-the-9 said:
With how well you can pocket a ball, there should be pretty much no difference. With the feel, will be pretty noticeable. I've used my shaft on several cues, a McD Lucky cue, my son's cue with a horn joint, and both of those had a distinctly different hit than when the shaft was on my cue.
Click to expand...

Correct. The actual performance of the cue will not change (so much that you would notice), but you will get different feedback from different cue butts.

I can play just as well with my Tiger shaft on a custom sneaky pete, as I can with my shaft on a McDermott, but they will feel totally different.
 
Just changing the tip made my Schon feel like a completely different cue. I believe the shaft/tip affects feedback the most, its like the farther from the cue ball the part of the cue is the less affect on feedback. Except for the bumper, remove the bumper and the cues feedback is far different.
 
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