cpm's how to read?

What are the general cpm's in relation to flex?

 

R=

S=

X=

xx=

 

What would 280 cpm's be?

 

Thanks in advance.

21900[/snapback]

Wow, how to answer that one...........

Certain things need to be considered when quoting butt frequency "cpm's" -

1-length of the club, because as a club is shortened the frequency increases - think of twanging a ruler on a bench end and drawing it in, listening to the noise. Same for a shafted club - a plain cpm measurement is useless unless you quote the length.

2-length of clamp, the "standard" is 5" , but some company's use different ones. Royal Precision use a 2.5" and fujikuras' is 7" iirc. So if Fuji say their shaft "blah blah" in "S"flex is 275cpm - you need to realise that measured on a 5" clamp it will be lower as 2" less of the shaft is clamped.

3- whether or not it is measured with a grip on or not. A grip dampens the vibration of the shaft - so it will give a lower measurement than ungripped and different grips give different results - so it's best to measure ungripped. Take you club into a shop that measures on the spot with the grip on, and you better hope that the fitter is very experienced - ask how many cpm's they are compensating for with your kind of grip - no answer should tell you that you're better going elsewhere.

The final thing to note- is the biggest point of all. Butt frequency is way over rated and should not be relied upon to assess different shafts. 2 safts may bounce at 250cpm at 45" but play way differently. Remember that in a 5" clamp, that gives 40" of shaft to "wiggle" and the same cpm measurement may hide 2 completely different profiles along the 40". One could be soft tip / butt stiff and the other tip stiff / butt soft - and as such suitable for different playing styles.

For me, the frequency meter is used mainly for sorting iron shafts and then frequency matching sets of irons. With woods I use it to assess quality in shafts. After spining and flo'ing I measure the lbp and then at 90,180 and 270' from there to check the variance around the shaft. If it's 5cpm over the nbp I don't use it. Most quality shafts I have tested recently now have an nbp/s1 difference of about 2cpm max.

Back to the original query, 280cpm - if it's 45" I would say it's in XX Stiff territory. I use the kaufman chart and from the top of my head - 250="R", 260="S" ,270="X" and 280="XX" (ungripped measurement on a 5" clamp).

Hope that helps

mj

Every Freq machine manufacturer has a different chart.

However, Number means nothing if you don't know the character and spec of the shaft. Some shaft w/ high number play soft and some shaft w/ smaller number play really stiffer.

Joe