OK, I promised SNAPSHOT9 I'd give my honest opinion on my Shurtz cue I bought, so here' goes!! First, lets discuss positives. It arrived in GREAT shape through this bad weather we had. It plays REALLY solid, and looks just as good! The "grain" of the wood is just AWESOME!! I like the balance on it also...It just feels good in my hands (when I actually use it) NOW, the negatives: I got the cue and instantly tried it out at the pool room. It played really bad at first, but I have to attribute this to the BAD tip it had on it when it arrived...No, I'm not blaming Bob Owen for this, it was just a bad tip...It happens. This is fixed now though!! 
I tried to put it into my PORPER 2x4 case I bought from CoryC here, but the shaft taper don't let it go in all the way without some force applied...The joint end about 1- 1 1/2 inches up is waay too big to fit into a "tube style" case like my porper. Its a good thing I have other cases to keep it in or that would have upset me. When I got it, the linen wrap was REALLY slick...It slid out of my grip hand VERY easily while stroking cause I like to use a light grip. After a little remedy for taking the "sheen" off the wrap though, its better and I can use it without much of a problem now. (THANKS BRENT!!!!!) ALL IN ALL I guess...I do like the cue, it plays very nicely! I just prefer to use my cocobolo DZ cue for playing now, but it is kept as a nice backup cue for my backup DZ s/p!! lol YES, I do like the cue...I guess I just wish the wrap was leather, but it will be eventually down the road! I basically bought this cue for 3 reasons: I wanted to try Shurtz cues and it was cheap enough so I did, It has a phenolic joint on it like my new purpleheart plain jane DZ will so I wanted to make sure I'd like it. Guess what?...I sure do!! lol I also wanted to make sure a leather wrap was what I wanted to use for a wrap on my DZ, and after using this linen a couple times, leather is the way to go!! I'll try to answer questions if you got any about it, so feel free to ask me!
I tried to put it into my PORPER 2x4 case I bought from CoryC here, but the shaft taper don't let it go in all the way without some force applied...The joint end about 1- 1 1/2 inches up is waay too big to fit into a "tube style" case like my porper. Its a good thing I have other cases to keep it in or that would have upset me. When I got it, the linen wrap was REALLY slick...It slid out of my grip hand VERY easily while stroking cause I like to use a light grip. After a little remedy for taking the "sheen" off the wrap though, its better and I can use it without much of a problem now. (THANKS BRENT!!!!!) ALL IN ALL I guess...I do like the cue, it plays very nicely! I just prefer to use my cocobolo DZ cue for playing now, but it is kept as a nice backup cue for my backup DZ s/p!! lol YES, I do like the cue...I guess I just wish the wrap was leather, but it will be eventually down the road! I basically bought this cue for 3 reasons: I wanted to try Shurtz cues and it was cheap enough so I did, It has a phenolic joint on it like my new purpleheart plain jane DZ will so I wanted to make sure I'd like it. Guess what?...I sure do!! lol I also wanted to make sure a leather wrap was what I wanted to use for a wrap on my DZ, and after using this linen a couple times, leather is the way to go!! I'll try to answer questions if you got any about it, so feel free to ask me!