There was a sense of familiarity as the first EI Flex Distribution Graph formed as I measured the Riptide MX. I have seen this profile before, in fact it is an archetypical design. Successful on tour after a very, very long time, the profile is available from several shaft companies.
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The Precision Rifle Project X has been with us for a very long time. It somehow got missed when I was in the early days of measuring the vast number of shafts in the market. I noticed its absence when I measured the Project X LZ model. It was originally made by Royal Precision Shaft Company in Connecticut. They were acquired by TrueTemper and the production was moved to Tennessee. You will see many of the best players in the world playing this shaft. Compared to a Dynamic Gold X100, it is slightly softer in the butt and stiffer in the Mid. Unlike the TrueTemper Dynamic Gold, the Project X profile is the same for all weight/stiffness variations. The heavier the shaft the stiffer it gets. The profile remains the same for all flex designations.
This video was sent to me years ago by Dave Eagar, who mentored me when I first began measuring golf shafts. It is a brief history of the Royal Precision Shaft Company and a tour through the Royal Precision facility and manufacturing process. It is presented by Ron Chalmers, then President of Royal Precision with Dave Makarucha of Accra Golf Shafts as camera man. ACCRA was recently acquired by True Sports, parent company of True Temper.
Lets look at the profile:
The measurements are available only to registered readers
My friend and mentor, Dave Tutelman posted this comment in another discussion of the shaft stiffness range metric. I cannot express my thoughts about this new metric any better than he did. “A big advantage of “measuring” shaft stiffness by plotting the EI curve is that you can do mathematical operations like this. You chose a simple one, with simple arithmetic. But it isn’t that hard to use a butt-biased weighting function that will predict frequency, or a tip-biased weighting function to predict trajectory height. The combination of a known EI profile and spreadsheet capabilities means it’s just arithmetic. As we understand shafts better, EI will not become obsolete; just the way we use and display it will.”
True Temper introduced the term “Loading Zone” with the Project X Loading Zone driver shaft a few years ago. I was skeptical at first, having seen other shafts with severe approaches to mid shaft stiffness that did not work for many of my clients. I put a Project X Loading Zone shaft in my own driver and it stayed there for several months. It comes back when I finish play testing a new design. It loads effortlessly and gives my unfixable negative angle of attack the launch I need to buy some distance. I was anxious to see how this approach would be implemented in an iron shaft.
The Project X Loading Zone irons shaft has a rapid loss of stiffness in the mid zone of the shaft. It then runs out in a long stable tip. We have seen some very successful implementations of this design over the last few years. Each with its own particular flavor. But overall in my fitting experience a very playable shaft for a wide range of golfers. This design is easy to load, creates a moderately higher flight but remains workable for the highly skilled golfer. I have seen this design add distance without adding dispersion. As of this writing, the Project X LZ has won 3 PGA events and is being played by close to 20 players between the PGA and Web tours.
The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers
Our player/coach/fitter partner has put these into his gamers for several weeks now. He replaced his Dynamic Gold Tour X100’s with the Project X LZ 6.5. His driver swing speed averages 117. He reports that he loves the feel of the shaft through impact. He gets a little lower flight and a lot more control. His ability to work the ball is improved. His dispersion is tighter. He reports he can trust the shaft to deliver the head consistently to shape his ball flight.
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The fourth generation Fubuki, the Fubuki J, released to Mitsubishi Golf Club Fitters in June of 2014. It is still in play, the unique pattern was hard to miss in the final round of the 2016 Open. The Fubuki J is an update of the second generation Fubuki, the Fubuki Alpha. I see the Fubuki family as two different profiles and discussed them in an earlier article. Here is a quick overview of the two profiles.
The original Fubuki Tour and the Fubuki K,introduced a few years later, are very much like the Diamana White and the second generation White, the ‘ahina. The third generation White, the Diamana ‘W” series is a different profile. The Fubuki Tour was discontinued in 2014. The Fubuki K is still in the product line. The second generation Fubuki Alpha and the fourth generation Fubuki J are also the same profile. They similar yet subtly different than the Diamana ‘ilima and the KuroKage Proto TINI. The differences make these unique designs that must be tested to find your best fit.
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The Aldila Rogue I/O is an update the the Rogue Silver. The tip section of the shaft has a notation, RIP I/O. The tip section of the Rogue I/o is made with Aldila’s RIP technology. RIP (Reverse Interlaminar Placement) means some of the bias wraps are moved from the core of the shaft to the outer wall. Outer layers of material exert a greater influence on tube performance than inner layers. The bias (angular) wraps of material create torsional and hoop strength in a tube. Moving those layers to the exterior of the shaft generally means lower torque and higher hoop strength. In the Rogue I/O the torque and hoop strength of the original Rogue Silver shafts are matched in the Rogue Silver RIP in a 5 to 9 gram lighter shaft.
The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers
AMT stands for Ascending Mass Technology. It is not a new concept. Ping has had ascending weight shafts for many years. Nippon 999’s were ascending. Aerotech Players Spec were ascending. If you are not a club maker you probably have not been exposed to the concept. Briefly, there are primarily two kinds of shafts; constant weight tapers and parallel’s. Constant weight tapers are made to length in the factory and the shafts in the set are all the same weight even though they are different lengths. Parallels are made to one length in the factory. The club maker cuts them to the length needed for the club he is building. As they are cut shorter they weigh less. The shafts in a set are lighter in the short irons than in the long irons. I wrote an article about this some years ago in the technical stuff section of this site; Constant Weight vs Parallel Iron Shafts.
Iron heads get heavier as the the numbers get higher. The 4 iron head is heavier than the 3 iron, the 5 iron is heavier than the 4 iron and so on down to the gap wedge. In sets made of parallel shafts, the shafts get lighter while the head gets heavier. In sets made from constant weight shafts, the shafts are the same weight while the heads get heavier. In ASCENDING WEIGHT sets, the shafts get heavier as the heads get heavier. This has always been an attraction the club builders that create MOI, Moment of Inertia, matched sets.
The technical discussion, measurements and testing results are available only to registered readers
This is a great step forward in iron shaft technology. Keep it coming, True Temper, the club building community has waited a long time for a set of iron shafts like this!
By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
True Temper introduced the term “Loading Zone” with the 
The Aldila Rogue I/O is an update the the 