Carbon fiber. It’s the shift toward the new cue shaft the billiards industry has waited for. Some companies and individual custom cue makers are making their own Carbon fiber shafts, such as Meucci, Jacoby, Predator, Mezz, and CueTec. Each company’s carbon fiber shafts seem to play well, but what is obvious is how they all feel a little different during use in the sport. Carbon Fiber shafts became popular about five years ago when Predator cues released the Revo series shaft. They really sparked the revolution and have done an excellent job pushing the industry with their innovation. Since then other companies have jumped on the carbon-fiber-shaft bandwagon, such as Kali.
This trend in carbon fiber shafts is here to stay and there are many players that love them. According to an article on Reddit, carbon fiber shafts have been said to reduce ”the amount that you need to compensate for when playing, which can give you an advantage during your game. A cue with low deflection isn't a priority for everyone, but many players consider it to be an important quality in their game. Using a carbon fiber shaft can give you more control over your game play”
Kali, a Switzerland cue company, decided to send our team at SPM Magazine a couple of their carbon fiber shafts for us to play around with and give our professional opinions. The Switzerland company has been making shafts for almost 20 years now, being founded in 2001, their products have maintained the test of time and quality. Sacha Volery, of Kali, is on the cutting edge of cue making and loves what he does. Sacha puts his passion and love for the game into each cue, giving it a unique sense of control over the outcomes from skilled players. He has been doing this for a while and is always improving what he does. After having put the shafts to the test of the table, it is easy to say that the deflection in the Kali shaft is comparable to that of the Rogue by Pechauer. Now for those who are looking to purchase this amazing cue you should know that it ships directly from the maker, Sacha Volery, in Switzerland. With that being said, I received the shaft in a timely manner considering it came from overseas. The total amount of shipping time was about 2 weeks. Now with the slow down’s of the COVID-19 world pandemic, we can imagine that shipping times are going to lag beyond this a bit, so if you can wait and want to support small businesses, feel free to place an order!
The Kali shafts we received were 12.5mm 29” radial joint carbon fiber machine shafts. The taper on the shaft took a little bit of time to get used to and is slightly different than what I'm used to playing on. The shaft itself was responsive to adding excessive amounts of english. The power transfer of this shaft is great for a mid length table and is easy to learn how to use with a decent stroke. As previously mentioned the shaft plays similar to the Pechauer Rogue shaft. In my opinion this is a good transition between a low deflection shaft and some of the other carbon fiber shafts that are available. It has a hit that resembles the hit of a wooden shaft combined with a carbon fiber shaft. The hit does not sound metallic, like that which happens with some of the shafts on the market.
Looking at the shaft objectively the finish on the tube has some imperfections in it. There are little pieces in the finish that are missing and this is just part of the manufacturing process of the carbon fiber material. This does nothing to the integrity of the shaft, it can be an eyesore if one is desiring a perfectly glossy shaft. I received two shafts and they were identical except for the balance point in them. One was pushed further inward and played over all, better. The acoustics of this shaft sounded a lot better in my opinion as well.
This shaft retails for about $320. That is not bad if you want to get into a decent carbon fiber shaft. This shaft has a 16” taper and has a 12.4mm tip. The Kali shaft is offered in 3/8X10 5/16X14 5/16X18 Radial, UniLock threads. Make sure to grab yourself a shaft, subscribe to our blog and magazine, and stay tuned for the hottest stories in the billiards industry.
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