dumping the break cue and feel liberated!!!

[Chili Palmer]

Nope not happening. I can break with my players, but I have cracked lots of ferrules. I hope you like playing with a hard tip too because it's going to harden up pretty quick, that is unless you are breaking like Cory.

The ferrule on my Huebler has been cracked for many years, literally decades but it did sit in a case 14 of those.

OP, you won't feel really liberated until you dump your shooting cue and just play with a house cue.

The main reason I use a break cue is not so much that I get a better break (I actually do get a better break with a harder tip) but because I use a soft tip on my shooting cue and breaking with a soft tip, and even a medium tip, compresses the tip and hardens it, especially layered tips. I'm meticulous about the condition of my shooting tip and to use it for breaking racks would make it respond differently as it hardens and also require more frequent tip changes.

Years ago I played with a medium tip but now that I use a hard tip that is still my thought process. The more you break with it the more it can begin to compress and become glazed over requiring more maintenance.

 

[telinoz]

When I used to play more 2 shot English pool, broke with playing cue and same cue for Snooker.
However, one day it gave up the ghost on a break and the end of the cue fractured..
So I started using a break cue for that game and had to find a playing cue I liked.

With the 2 1/4" pool games, I quickly got a break cue for that as I got tired of more tip maintenance after lots of big breaks with my playing cue.
2004 I found a combination I was happy with, still in use today.
I went through loads of bags though, currently have a decent hard case that is small, light but still manages the jump cue and cue extensions.. So hard NOT to carry around a lot of gear.

Nobody makes a perfect bag for me, so I have been working on my own design on the side.
Will use carbon fibre and has some built in features nobody else has.
I am an Engineer at heart, love to tinker and picked up enough skills from custom Radio Control cars, planes etc and 3D printing to make this work. Anyway, that is a bit of a tangent from the topic of break cues but I guess all pool players want to make it easy on their shoulders carrying around too much stuff.
The lighter and more practical the better is a common goal I am sure.

 

[Guy Manges]

It is fun to smash a hard break shot. If you think about it, if it's a 9' table and the pockets are 4 1/2 inches, every time a ball goes to a rail there is a 9% chance that there is a pocket there. So more balls hitting rails equals more balls in holes! On the other hand, no ball can actually wind up more than about 8 feet from where it started so at some point the balls start to cluster back up. I think I've seen a couple of pros break and the balls all seemed to reassemble near the head spot.

What I am still figuring out is why I sometimes get a better scatter with a softer break. The balls seem to stick together like the extra force causes friction. Or possibly I'm just hitting the rack more accurately and actually delivering the energy where it counts.

Yes, if I can watch a 110 lb. girl break equally to a 200 lb. Man as far as opening up the table for a good position for pattern play, pretty much the same balls on rail and balls made... Then what I see is there is no need to push ( Push ) with all we have into a break shot... I don't see 110 lb. women jumping the cb off the table... I wonder how many years it would take to have the same break ball configuration, too exact location, maybe never... Guy

 

[MmmSharp]

I don't break with my playing cue but I also don't use a "break cue", I just use whatever is close, at home I have an old bar cue.

Usually my opponent's playing cue is closer. So i just use it

I have an original bk. I just use that.