New shaft - 314-3 turned down or Z-3 with a pro taper?

R

RogerR

New member
After 8+ years of playing with an original Predator 314 shaft I have found a crack in the ferrule and am in the market to replace it. I have read several places that the ferrule is a warranty item unless you have turned the shaft down past a significant point...which I definitely have. My original 314 has been cleaned and tuned over the years and I am super comfortable playing with it with a pro taper at 11.8mm. Conveniently enough that is about the size that a Z-3 comes in, 11.85mm I think.

So, the real question is whether to purchase the 314-3 or the Z-3. I am guessing that the difference between a 314 turned that small and a Z are pretty negligible. Am I correct? Would my best bet, to stay at the size I am used to playing with, to buy the Z-3? I am currently on deployment overseas, my last one after 20+ years of active duty in the Navy, and will be coming home and picking it up fresh without shooting a real game for 8 months so starting fresh should be easy to adapt to considering.

What about a ferrule replacement...anyone had success with that? Even $50 for that work it would be better than $300 for a new shaft. Keep in mind, I'd rather pay the money and start with something new then return to playing with something that will not be as good or last as long.

Thanks for the info and the opinions,
Roger
 
A lot of the benefit of the Predator tech is that it gets the deflection very low while staying with a larger tip size and retaining enough stiffness to get power into the ball no matter how you stroke.

The Z3's taper is what allows you to still get good power into a ball even though the shaft is skinny with a hollow front end. I'd be interested to hear from anybody with the Sybert's 'S-tuned' Z3 (Z3 taken to a pro taper) on how consistently that shaft can juice a ball at different cuing angles.

How is your stroke now that you've been playing with a sub-12mm pro taper shaft for so long? My bet would be that you've developed a more linear delivery with less lift on the back stroke, without a tendency to 'rock' the cue over your bridge when you stroke.

My point is, if you are comfortable with a pro-taper under 12mm and your stroke works with shafts that others might call 'whippy', you may be able to try other brands. Once your tip gets down to that size, anything with a short ferrule is going to have such low deflection already, the Predator tech becomes less important.

The Katana Bushido (11.5mm tip with 14in pro taper) when you get a harder tip put on (Kamui Black M or around there, the stock Moori is a bit too soft) can get some really finely controlled high spin action, with astonishingly low deflection, the only trick is you need to take the consistency of your stroke up another notch to get consistency from the shaft since its liveliness is highly variable depending on how you deliver the cue.

You may even want to experiment with building a shaft from a blank, when I have time to deal with it I'm planning on constructing an 11mm pro taper from a radially spliced ash blank (ash stays stiffer at smaller diameters than maple) and I'm sure any short ferrule will result in very low deflection.

So you have options as long as a whippy shaft agrees with your stroke. If you don't want to turn down a 314 or reprofile a Z3 to a pro taper. Lucasi skinny (11.75mm) is also good but just a little stiff for my liking, others love it.
 
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