shaft adapter help

[headcase59]

Hi,

I've been tinkering with clubs for over 20 years now but have never dealt with shaft adapters until now. I have an M3 Tour driver 440 and an RBZ Stage 2 Tour 3HL heads coming my way in the next week. I'm installing a Matrix RUL 70 in the driver and a RUL 80 in the 3 wood. Both shafts are brand new, raw, uncut shafts. Trying to plan the installation and everything I need before the heads arrive next week. Here are my questions:

recommendation for the best place online to purchase the necessary shaft adapters for both the M3 and the 3HL. I looked on Golfworks.com but I did not see one for an RBZ Stage 2 fairway??do I need just the shaft adapters? do either of these require a seperate ferrulewhere would one find shaft tip trimming instructions for installation in a shaft adapterAny help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

[Stuart_G]

I'll answer the last question first. Just use the shaft manufacturers tipping instructions. The adapter itself doesn't change anything other than you need to include the adapter weight in with the head weight. Screw the adapter into the head without the shaft you just have another standard bore head. It's as simple as that. Any adjustments to the shaft manufacturers tipping instructions needs to be based on the particular head model's weight (after any swing weight adjustment), bore depth, and BBGM. That's it. Ignore everything you might have heard about the TM factory tipping practices. There is no actual valid basis in accepted club building practices for what they do (or rather what they suddenly started to do in 2013 during the SLDR driver release).

All the TM adjustable drivers and fairways since the R1 and RBZ stage 2 releases use the same 2nd generation adapter design. There have been variations but it's all been aesthetic, not functional so any of the gen 2 adapters will work. Just make sure you get the right tip size. So any of these will work fine. And they all will come with whatever ferrule is necessary. You generally only need to get a replacement ferrule if you pull and reuse an adapter. TaylorMade R-15 Shaft Adaptor The GolfWorks RBZ Stage 2 Shaft Adaptor The GolfWorks Universal R-15 Shaft Adaptor TaylorMade SLDR Shaft Adaptor SleevesBilly Bob's Golf is another good source for OEM and the CMX aftermarket adapters - they usually have a slightly wider range of choices.

[headcase59]

Outstanding sir! Thank you so much.

 

[headcase59]

So I received the M3 440 head today. It actually came with an adapter. The adapter looks different then what I've seen in other photos of the M3. The others seem to flare out a bit where the adapter meets the hosel. Also the adapter that comes with the driver has the TP logo on the adapter. See pictures. Now I'm nervous I got a fake M3. Probably just being paranoid but thought I'd put it out there to see if anyone has any feedback.
Thanks,
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[Stuart_G]

There have been lots of variations in the legit TM adapters over the years so the fact that it may not match the ones that came with the M3 out of the factory doesn't mean anything. And to be honest, there have also been quite a few knock off adatpers coming out of china that are widely availble from sources such as ebay (most of which work perfectly fine despite not being legit).

However, even if the adapter is a knock off, that really doesn't mean anything about whether the head is a knock off or not. Unfortunately, the only way to really be sure if a head is legit is to send it into TM so they can visually inspect the interior of the head. There may be some indications on the outside in some cases but even if the outside is perfect, that is no guarantee.