Things to consider for those forum members buying their first pool cue

ShootingArts said:
I have sold a few things I regretted forever after. Hunger can be a powerful motivation!

For the people talking weights, if it is a spec cue the type of pin plays a role in weight and balance. When adding weight it can be added behind the pin as well as near the bumper. In extreme cases weight can be added to the shaft too.

My cue has a balance point 21" from the bumper and isn't forward balanced. The catch is that while we call out the balance point from the bumper what really matters is where it is at from the tip. With my sixty inch cue the balance point is exactly the same from the tip as the common cue with a 58" length and 19" balance point.

The materials to make a cue can vary in weight a good bit so sometimes a cue builder has to do a little magic to suit a customer. Designing it themselves they should need little or no extra weight. Pin choices from stainless to G-10, length of pin, collars, some other choices, the weight added can be built into the design.

Hu
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Hey Hu, I think you hit the nail on the head my friend, your explanation of how a cue can be built and how a cue maker can adjust the weight internally is very accurate. I have personally built a few cues where weight was added behind pin to fully balance the cue due to materials used to build the cue.

Peace Hu✌️
 
DeeDeeCues said:
Oh, so now it's a range of nearly an ounce. That pretty much covers every maple shaft.
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You beat me to the exact same message.

I have a Joss cue with a two ounce weight bolt installed. The bottom of the set screw sits approximately 4 inches up the from the back of the buttcap. The butt weighs 15.25 ounces.

I have had shafts on the cue that weigh from 3.2 - 4.2 ounces. I currently have the 3.2 & 3.55 in the case. I will sell the 4.1-4.2 ounce shafts as those are the weights people believe to be the best.

As you mentioned 17% - 23% is a very wide range when it comes to shaft weight. So wide that imo it doesn't mean much.
 
Fore Rail said:
You beat me to the exact same message.

I have a Joss cue with a two ounce weight bolt installed. The bottom of the set screw sits approximately 4 inches up the from the back of the buttcap. The butt weighs 15.25 ounces.

I have had shafts on the cue that weigh from 3.2 - 4.2 ounces. I currently have the 3.2 & 3.55 in the case. I will sell the 4.1-4.2 ounce shafts as those are the weights people believe to be the best.

As you mentioned 17% - 23% is a very wide range when it comes to shaft weight. So wide that imo it doesn't mean much.
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Yeah his message changed from all the greatest saying that the shaft had to be an exact weight to 'the greats all put shafts on their cues.'

Two ounces is significant. I generally aim for 3/4 to 1.5oz bumper bolt. I make my cues with leather bumpers that have a flat head stainless cap screw exposed like a bumperless, I don't use an actual weight bolt otherwise, generally.
 
DeeDeeCues said:
Yeah his message changed from all the greatest saying that the shaft had to be an exact weight to 'the greats all put shafts on their cues.'

Two ounces is significant. I generally aim for 3/4 to 1.5oz bumper bolt. I make my cues with leather bumpers that have a flat head stainless cap screw exposed like a bumperless, I don't use an actual weight bolt otherwise, generally.
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I generally aim to not use added weight at all. Out of my 4 other playing cues 3 of them can't accept any weight & the other doesn't have much.

On this cue, which is my grab and go cue I made a huge exception.
 
Fore Rail said:
I generally aim to not use added weight at all. Out of my 4 other playing cues 3 of them can't accept any weight & the other doesn't have much.

On this cue, which is my grab and go cue I made a huge exception.
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100% agree, but I need a way to keep the bumper in and like the look.

IMG_20250904_121947_439~2.jpg
 
Cue_Cheap GSE 40 dollars.jpg
A popular cue among new and cheap players is a $40 GSE cue at Amazon. It was reviewed 3500 times and it averaged 4.5 out of 5. YouTuber Average Joes Pool reviewed it last year and figured it had excessive wobble and played inconsistently. He figured the shaft was fiberglass outside and wood inside. He only saw fiberglass in the butt. The balance point was 16-1/8" measured from the rear.

See Average Joes Pool video at
 
The Old Jaybird said:
that's like telling a right handed 6 year old, to start playing baseball left handed and then if you like it you can switch to righty later.
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At the end of the day, unless you can request what tip you want, its probably going to be a medium or hard you end up with. Forget about it, and play pool🙂
 
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Cue Alchemist said:
What does that matter? Its about what works for the player. the amount of tips on the market, hard tips are a good start. then work down from there.
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I see it the opposite way.A beginner can't know what works for him so I would advise them to use a softer type tip first that allows them to spin the ball easier and miscue less ''then'' see if they like harder tips.

Its a bit of a mute point as a beginner will buy a cue and use whatever tip is on there anyway.

Mike Sigel recommends medium soft tips for easier draw (the biggest challenge of any beginner) and he won a tournament or two, if memory serves..
 
Frosty said:
Regarding tip selection, save yourselves a lot of trouble and select a hard tip. Yes, for a few decades now there has been a gaggle of types of different hardness from soft on up. Remember kids, it’s a tiny sliver of leather that you’re going to repeatedly bash against a hard phenolic sphere. It’s going to be a “hard” within a week or so anyway, so you might as well start at hard and save yourself the mushroom and trimming.
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To say that every tip turns into a hard tip is the most ridiculous statement I read on this site so far.

I am using a Tiger Onyx tip for two years now which I would consider medium in terms of hardness, which not only has not changed its playing characteristics nor has it mushroomed the slightest and I break with my playing cue.
 
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The Old Jaybird said:
what kind of pistols??? I dabble in guns too. My gun safe is also my cue safe, actually the cues are worth more than the guns!!!
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That one was a Sig P238 .380 for concealed carry. I've since gotten the P938 9mm and the little lady has the .380. They're both sweet little shooters.

Funny story, my step dad was an awesome dude and a pretty avid gun collector. One of the many things he taught me was a rule, "If you sell a gun you have to use the money to buy another gun." Obviously there are caveats to this. Like if you need to sell a gun to pay for a legitimate emergency, so be it. But the gist of it is that if you sell a gun or any other "toy" and then spend the money on day to day B.S, that money is gone and so is your toy. If you keep that up, eventually you won't have any toys left or the money to get new ones. I've simplified the rule to "Sell a toy; Buy a toy" or The SatBat Rule.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Amazon reviews are somewhere between laughable and criminal. You can get some use out of them by ignoring the rating number and reading the bad ones.
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Glad to hear I'm not the only one who looks at reviews like this.

The wife lovingly takes jabs at me for how much research I put into reviews of anything I want to buy that I deem even moderately significant. I always look at the overall review breakdown by start rating and then go straight to the one star reviews to determine whether they're legitimate. And holy crap... The number of one star reviews that are obvious lies, twisted realities, people who just don't know how the review system works (It's perfect! One Star,) or other nonsense is pretty impressive.
 
Jimmy_Betmore said:
.... The number of one star reviews that are obvious lies, twisted realities, people who just don't know how the review system works (It's perfect! One Star,) or other nonsense is pretty impressive.
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Like the restaurant reviews that give one star because the restaurant had closed at closing time, or they didn't even go in for some other flakey reason.

But if I'm checking out some gadget, and four bad reviews all complain about the latch breaking or the handle being made of brittle plastic, I can either move on or prepare to deal with the broken part. I bought a 4.5-star Amazon kitchen gadget that turned out to be toy-quality construction. How anyone could legitimately have given it more than a 2 after trying to use it is a mystery.
 
The Old Jaybird said:
what kind of pistols??? I dabble in guns too. My gun safe is also my cue safe, actually the cues are worth more than the guns!!!
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If you like revolvers, here are a few of my favorites to shoot. The S&W guns a were made in 1977 so they are classics.
The Model 29 is basically a Dirty Harry model with a 6.5” barrel and the 27 is the highly sought after 5” version. Both
are just a gas to shoot and produce flame thrower discharges, especially when using a hot load which is the most fun.

Neither of the cowboy guns are Colt peacemakers, especially generations 1 or 2 that would cost many thousands.
But the guns shoot very accurately despite having just a bare bones iron front sight. And it is a nostalgic kick to shoot.
However, on my CCW, I mostly have listed pistols because of the added capacity. My favorite is a Para P12 .45 cal.
 

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