Tips make the difference no?

Texas Prez

Texas Prez

Hook'em...Enough Said
Silver Member
Okay so of course I hear everyone talking about what differences a shaft makes and what kind of shaft to use but I think the biggest difference maker is at the point of contact; the tip right?

I personally use a Tiger Sniper and I love it but my main question isn't which type but more importantly what length!

I was playing incedible a while back when my tip was worn down to the ferrule practically then I got it replaced and the new tip (same type though) seems to completely soften the hit and I feel like I have lost some of that stiffness just because a few extra millimeters of laminate hide.

But I'm reluctant to shave my tip down to nothing again; I would feel like I'm wasting its longevity.....what would you do/have done??
 
all tips get harder as you shoot with them... many times you will see a guy with a new tip slamming the hell out of all shots... he's not trying to look like a banger.. he's trying to get the tip into its compressed state faster...


any brand new tip of any hardness always shoots soft... when its new... you get more grip and more spin for a while until it settles in...

if I need a new tip I try to time it at least a month before I have to shoot serious pool with it...

IMO this holds true for all tips and all tip manufacturers..

but for me the last 1/8" of a tip shoots the best..
 
Texas Prez said:
Okay so of course I hear everyone talking about what differences a shaft makes and what kind of shaft to use but I think the biggest difference maker is at the point of contact; the tip right?

I personally use a Tiger Sniper and I love it but my main question isn't which type but more importantly what length!

I was playing incedible a while back when my tip was worn down to the ferrule practically then I got it replaced and the new tip (same type though) seems to completely soften the hit and I feel like I have lost some of that stiffness just because a few extra millimeters of laminate hide.

But I'm reluctant to shave my tip down to nothing again; I would feel like I'm wasting its longevity.....what would you do/have done??
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Buddy Hall once remarked to me that he has tried a lot of tips but he always goes back to one of the cheapest tips, LePro.

MANY players like SHORT tips instead of TALL tips. Many people including myself seem to play a little better as the tip wears down to a shorter height. Some people just get them cut short to begin with.

Some people feel the cutting down of the tip is the best way to get the most enjoyment out of playing pool even if it costs an extra $.25 a day depending upon which tip you buy.

These days I am liking the Everest tip that comes on a Predator shaft.
Best of luck.
JoeyA
 
JoeyA said:
Buddy Hall once remarked to me that he has tried a lot of tips but he always goes back to one of the cheapest tips, LePro.

MANY players like SHORT tips instead of TALL tips. Many people including myself seem to play a little better as the tip wears down to a shorter height. Some people just get them cut short to begin with.

Some people feel the cutting down of the tip is the best way to get the most enjoyment out of playing pool even if it costs an extra $.25 a day depending upon which tip you buy.

These days I am liking the Everest tip that comes on a Predator shaft.
Best of luck.
JoeyA
Click to expand...

Earl swears by the Elk Master, another cheap classic tip.
 
Da Bank said:
Earl swears by the Elk Master, another cheap classic tip.
Click to expand...

I have pressure-induced Elk Master tips on some of my other shafts. I like them too. But no buttermilk for me. :grin:
JoeyA
 
I like hard tips. The Super Pro have been doing great for me of late. I also like Talisman X hard.
 
just got a kamui med-soft recently and man that thing gets action the ball. and short of going with a low deflection shaft. yes i think the tip is the most important part of the stick.
 
I like my Elks short and battered.

For decades I used Elks (or Blue Diamonds), and I never liked them 'tall'.

When I changed a tip, I would spend 10 minutes or so hammering away on the tip with an empty beer bottle and fine sanding it every now and again. This was in order to get rid of some of the initial softness before playing with it. The procedure was a bit tedious but it was an effective way of simulating the natural 'bedding in' process without having to play for a couple of weeks with a tip that had no feel.

I have recently changed to laminated tips and find I don't need to bother. No bedding in and plays well tall or short. :smile:
 
i started using elkmaster after using tiger and lepro and i found elks to be the best for me . i was at fast eddies and earl strickland saw my tip and he almost screamed "hey hes got an elkmaster smart man!" lol at first i thought he was mocking me but then i found out he sweares by them
 
Da Bank said:
Earl swears by the Elk Master, another cheap classic tip.
Click to expand...
I have to admit, I swear by ElkMasters as well. A soft tip that doesn't "mushroom" but still compresses easily, and I've found that an ElkMaster that has been compressed a bit after a few days of "slam ball" (as softshot described in post #2) has a very sweet hit. It easily grabs the cue-ball for english, even those overweight "rocks" of cue-balls one finds on certain barboxes.

I'm not surprised that Earl noticed seanjonsean's ElkMaster in post #10; they're very distinctive in appearance -- bright blue in color.

EDIT: Efren also swears by ElkMasters, as he described in the "What's in your cue case?" side interview during his 8-ball match with Austin Murphy on the IPT a couple of months ago.

A side question; does anyone know where ElkMasters are made?

-Sean
 
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I started out with a triangle med...great tip...I switched to a layered tip once I started playing more... just a liitle more consistent and harder with time. I'd say if you don't want to drop 30 dollars on a tip Triangles are great! imo
 
i need somethin said:
What do you guys think about triangle???
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Johnny Archer likes triangle tips. He either said that in his pool school or in the Inside Pool "what's in your case" section.

I recently bought a new shaft that came with a triangle tip. I've been shooting with it for about the last week, and so far I really like it overall. It's a medium hard tip which is a little softer than I'm used to. I've been shooting with tiger hard tips for the last few years and I've been very pleased with how their tips perform. I've had a preference for the real hard tips over the last several years.

I've noticed that I can shoot stop shots a lot better with the triangle tip. I can shoot a long straight in stop shot with a lot of speed and consistently bring the cue ball to a dead stop now. I couldn't do it consistently with the tiger tip.
 
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seanjonsean said:
i started using elkmaster after using tiger and lepro and i found elks to be the best for me . i was at fast eddies and earl strickland saw my tip and he almost screamed "hey hes got an elkmaster smart man!" lol at first i thought he was mocking me but then i found out he sweares by them
Click to expand...

Earl loves elsmaster. I was there. He told everybody to replace their tips with elkmasters. I have an extra shaft and I'll probablly give the elkmaster a try even though I've never liked soft tips much in the past.
 
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I bounce back and forth between Kumi and Elk Master "Milk Duds". I like the action that I get with Kumi in 9 ball games but Love the spin and control that I get with Milk Duds in 1P. I am going to start playing more 1P so going back to Milk Duds for now.
 
JoeyA said:
Buddy Hall once remarked to me that he has tried a lot of tips but he always goes back to one of the cheapest tips, LePro.


These days I am liking the Everest tip that comes on a Predator shaft.
Best of luck.
JoeyA
Click to expand...

Funny thing, Buddy uses Snipers :cool:
 
Tips make a huge difference. I use very hard tips, right now using Superpro. I have some Kamui mediums & med/softs, and try one out every so often. I get far too much immediate spin with them, where with the harder tips I can get some "slide" & controlled deflection that allow for delayed spin. It's tough to explain. I guess the easiest way to say it is the softer tips seem to induce the spin immediately where the hard tips delay it for certain shots. I can do things with a hard tip that a soft tip won't allow. I can't explain why because I don't know, and it makes no logical sense when I try to figure it out. But nonetheless, it is what it is. So in essence, I think the tip should fit your style of play. I play with a lot of spin instead of a lot of power, and find softer tips too uncontrollable. I could spend some time & get used to them but don't want to. I'm happy as I am. I always encourage people to experiment with a wide variety of tips. They vary a lot in terms of deflection, spin, power, feel, etc. In my opinion, they seem to be more responsible for deflection than shafts. It's a science for sure.
 
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