Snap judgments on 6 CF shafts

T

terpdad

Registered
I have a Revo 12.4 & am considering purchasing a 2d carbon fiber shaft for my backup. I was able to visit Seybert's & play around with several different models. Everyone will have different thoughts on how a shaft feels & plays & I concede I did not spend enough time with any of these shafts to know them inside & out. These are just my observations which I hope are helpful for someone who may be on the fence about a particular shaft.

Predator Revo- my baseline. I like this shaft more the more I play w/ it. As everyone knows, it has a hollow tone & very little vibration or deflection. Every other shaft I tried has more vibration (or feel) than the Revo;
Cuetec Cynergy- very similar dimensions to the Revo when laid side by side. Finish not as slick;
Jacoby BlaCk- longest taper of any of the shafts I tried. I expected not to like it, but it felt good to me;
Koda Bull- slick finish. I preferred it to the Cynergy;
Pechauer Rogue- nice finish. Most muffled hit. Longer taper than the Revo.;
OB- similar to the Cynergy. Felt fine, but D/N do anything for me.

I could have tried the Meucci & BeCue but didn't bother because I had to run & to me it became obvious there are more similarities than differences between all these shafts. Someone will like one more than another (my faves were the Bull & the Rogue) but it is much more a "Coke vs. Pepsi" situation than "Coke vs. milk." I could play w/ any of these shafts & be happy. If you are thinking of making the jump, don't stress about it. The difference between wood & CF is more significant than the difference between one CF shaft & the next.

If anyone cares, my personal preference is CF > keilwood > laminated (314-3) > traditional maple. I really like the keilwood & might bump it up to #1 if it vibrated less. I find I have to check my joint more often b/c it loosens up more quickly than the Revo.

I hope this was helpful to somebody. Have a great day.
 
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I will note that the Cynergy slicks off after a little play. I was a little unhappy with mine when I first bought it. A few weeks later some roughness was gone and some of the black too. It is more silverish where it rides on my bridge the most now.

Hu
 
Thunder Thighs said:
How was the build quality of the Koda Bull? Can you interchange joints like the OB Carbon shaft?
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Top-notch & the next one I'd buy. It was either my top or tied for it regardless of price but its price happens to be better than the others too. I wish it came in 12.4 or 12.5, but I'm sure I could get used to the 12.25mm diameter.
 
ShootingArts said:
I will note that the Cynergy slicks off after a little play. I was a little unhappy with mine when I first bought it. A few weeks later some roughness was gone and some of the black too. It is more silverish where it rides on my bridge the most now.

Hu
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This shaft was a well-used demo model, so it was plenty broken in & had the silverish caste you mention. It is a very nice shaft, but I prefer the slicker Revo, Rogue & Bull.
 
gregnice37 said:
I haven't read anywhere that Koda is like OB in that regards. Doesn't help they don't have a website either.
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From Seyberts

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Here's the most info I see about them. Doesn't say interchangeable here. Seyberts could've been a copy and paste error. Maybe Monday I'll send them a message on messenger.
 

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After playing with a bunch of CF shafts at trade shows, borrowing from friends, the only two that are different from a standard LD shaft are the Revo and the Mezz ones. The rest feel and play like wood LD shafts, so if anyone is looking for a different playing shaft the move to a Revo or Ignite is good, otherwise the swap is mostly for the actual material used not so much for any difference in flex feel or deflection or extra power.
 
hang-the-9 said:
After playing with a bunch of CF shafts at trade shows, borrowing from friends, the only two that are different from a standard LD shaft are the Revo and the Mezz ones. The rest feel and play like wood LD shafts, so if anyone is looking for a different playing shaft the move to a Revo or Ignite is good, otherwise the swap is mostly for the actual material used not so much for any difference in flex feel or deflection or extra power.
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I haven’t tried them all, but from what I have tried, the Mezz Ignite is hard to beat.
 
ChrisinNC said:
I haven’t tried them all, but from what I have tried, the Mezz Ignite is hard to beat.
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Yep, aside from the fact that Mezz likes to one-up even Predator in the pricing LOL, they have a great CF shaft. It's the one I have most experience with since my son bought one but he sold it, and I played with it for quite a few hours. We had the Cuetec one for a day, both of us felt it was just like a normal LD shaft and it got traded that same day for a Revo. All the rest we tried at SBE or at the BCA shows and none of the other brands stood out as different from a wood LD shaft. I guess if someone wants it for the material difference that is good but I wanted something that actually had a performance difference. I did a test of deflection with shooting length of the table at a ball with spin, with a Revo I hit the ball pretty dead one with 2 tips of spin (which is probably the max any of us would use in most play). Using any other LD wood shaft best I could do was maybe a 3/4 hit or a bit fuller, but nothing matched the Revo which was almost dead center.
 
hang-the-9 said:
I did a test of deflection with shooting length of the table at a ball with spin, with a Revo I hit the ball pretty dead one with 2 tips of spin (which is probably the max any of us would use in most play). Using any other LD wood shaft best I could do was maybe a 3/4 hit or a bit fuller, but nothing matched the Revo which was almost dead center.
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Could you explain where you hit the cue ball, and how far it deflected when it hit the rail? I can't make any sense of that.
 
terpdad said:
Predator Revo- my baseline. I like this shaft more the more I play w/ it. As everyone knows, it has a hollow tone & very little vibration or deflection. Every other shaft I tried has more vibration (or feel) than the Revo;
Cuetec Cynergy- very similar dimensions to the Revo when laid side by side. Finish not as slick;
Jacoby BlaCk- longest taper of any of the shafts I tried. I expected not to like it, but it felt good to me;
Koda Bull- slick finish. I preferred it to the Cynergy;
Pechauer Rogue- nice finish. Most muffled hit. Longer taper than the Revo.;
OB- similar to the Cynergy. Felt fine, but D/N do anything for me.
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Based on your own words, the choice is between Revo and Jacoby.
 
i can say after trying the 11.8 revo
which came in closer to 12 than 11.8
its scary crazy how close to dead aim you can do without adjustment when using spin
 
garczar said:
Wow. '111.75' huh? Must squirt a bit. Wonder where you find 113mm tips?? ;)
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You just cut down the 125mm tips to fit!

Hu
bbb said:
i can say after trying the 11.8 revo
which came in closer to 12 than 11.8
its scary crazy how close to dead aim you can do without adjustment when using spin
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Having shot with the REVO a few times, including a brief attack on snooker balls, it seems a cut above for the way I shoot. I suspect that people's preferred bridge length will have a lot to do with which shaft they like best. I have the Cynergy but I think if I get the chance I will part company with it and get a REVO. A friend that shot with a REVO for awhile seems to favor the Ignite so I will have to give it a try first I guess. For me, if I rated the Cynergy at 8.5 I would rate the REVO at nine and we all know there ain't no ten!

Hu
 
hang-the-9 said:
After playing with a bunch of CF shafts at trade shows, borrowing from friends, the only two that are different from a standard LD shaft are the Revo and the Mezz ones. The rest feel and play like wood LD shafts, so if anyone is looking for a different playing shaft the move to a Revo or Ignite is good, otherwise the swap is mostly for the actual material used not so much for any difference in flex feel or deflection or extra power.
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I agree with this, none of them come close to the Revo and ignite. I've tried them all except for the defy, seige & bull. I could tell you the 2 I found to be complete garbage were the jacoby and cynergy. The cynergy just felt like hitting with a 2 ton dead log and the jacoby felt whippy and had tons of deflection.
 
7stud said:
Could you explain where you hit the cue ball, and how far it deflected when it hit the rail? I can't make any sense of that.
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Just hit with normal far left or far right spin, at about a 3 rail shot speed. Cueball at the spot, object ball against the far rail. With the Revo it hit that object ball pretty full in the face, which shows as little deflection as you can get from a shaft.

I use this to show players what deflection is, it is very easy to see what happens with spin using different shafts. With a standard shaft the cueball always misses the object ball, with an LD shaft that is really LD, it hits it full to 3/4 (Predator Z, some of my custom LD shafts). Some other "lite" LD shafts get a 1/4 -3/4 hit but still hit the ball, like the Players HXT 12.75 mm one.

There are way too many players, especially new players, that are after buying a "better" cue than what they have, without much understanding what makes that other cue better. This is something I talk to them about as pretty much the first thing so they know how shafts are different and what they need to do to aim with them, aside from just the butt construction. I setup the table length spin shot, have them shoot it a few times with some of my shafts to see the difference. It also can help explain to people why they seem to randomly miss.
 
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Thanks for this review. I appreciate it.
I'm also curious about the Becue and the Meucci too. I've heard mixed reviews (and no one here has them to try).


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