Purple Heart in a shaft has a very hard, flat feeling hit, with not much added cue ball action. It feels great for the break. It does jump well, but also adds an extra ounce and a half to the weight of the shaft, so that is the only negative I can think of. I have found that the flat laminated maple shaft kind of splits the difference so to speak, falling about half way between normal maple and purple heart in weight, hit and feel, and is what I use on break jump cues now. The flat laminated maple jumps better and breaks almost as hard. I used to make many purple heart shafts for my cue building customers, but they lost popularity a little bit because of the flat laminated maple and I just completely quit offereing the the purple heart shaft blanks a couple of years ago.