I’ve had the chance to really play with Crazy shafts and I do say that I’ve been very impressed with their feel and performance. It’s time now to give another premium shaft maker a whirl, Quadra Composite Techno.

For those of you who do not know Quadra, they are a very high end graphite and carbon shaft maker who have long been involved in the golf shaft and carbon sheets business.

Quadra as you can tell by their name, means 4 and they were the first brand to create the quad axis weave used in many shafts from many different brands today including Axiv, Honma and Graphite Design today.

They produce such high quality carbon sheets that they actually supply carbon sheets to some of the top brands including Honma’s ARMRQ which also feature the 4 axis weave in their shafts.

Fire Express 55 onboard…

Quadra has spent the last few years growing and developing their own shaft line and what many people outside of Japan may not know is that Quadra is actually frequently in the top 5 brands in sales in Japan battling the likes of Graphite Design, Mitsubishi, Fujikura and yes even Crazy.

After trying the lightweight Crazy Longest Yard, I’ve decided to put a Fire Express 55 shaft into a new driver build. The Fire Express uses 2 sections of 4 axis weave using either  high elastic 80t carbon sheets (65 and 75 series) or 50t carbon (in the 55 series) utilizing nano technology to create a low spin super stable shaft with little to no twisting and perfect return at impact. The higher the quality carbon the tighter the dispersion due to its consistent rebound and flex. Higher grade carbon also contains more glass and metal materials rather than rubber in low end shafts also contributing to the quality and the feel of this strong shaft. The Fire Express is for the better player whose who wants low spin, more penetrating type trajectory for control and distance.

Click here to read more on the Quadra Install Part 1

PRGR’s RED 505 Head meets Fire Express…

In Part 1 of the Quadra Fire Express build I’ll look at the basic features of the shaft and the actual club build. I’ve decided to pair the Fire Express 55 Regular with  2010 PRGR RED 505 10.5* driver. Forged by Endo, this VL Titanium driver has received very good feedback in Japan for explosive distance and an already penetrating trajectory. The stock driver comes with a PRGR original shaft made by Mitsubishi Rayon. It’s was an M-37 flex which is considered regular flex in Japan or approximate 80-90mph if you need a range. On TSG we actually call this a soft R and the M-40 we call regular since the M-40 seems to better suit players 85-95mph.

General Specs and CPM…

The first thing I did was check the CPM of the stock club. CPM is a general guideline for the stiffness of a shaft. It in no way tells us how a shaft will perform or feel. There are many factors that come into play when looking at a shafts performance and feel including, torque, bend profile, how stiffness is distributed through a shafts 3 main sections (butt, center, tip) and the overall balance of a shaft.  The stock 45.75″ PRGR came out at 229cpm on the Vibroscope with 5″ clamp. This is pretty reasonable actually for a Japan market stock shaft regular. I have seen softer as witnessed by the 214cpm with Callaway’s Legacy stock regular back in the Crazy install. Swing weight was at D1 and overall club weight 282g.  These specs are very reflective of today’s average golfer distance oriented drivers. Sub 290g weight, 45.75″ and longer.

Not all lengths are created equal…

Since I have been working more and more with different manufacturers and brands in the last two years, I wanted to take this opportunity to note that  because of different measuring methods, length can sometimes vary from brand to brand. Depending on at which points are measured length can vary by as much as 0.5″ ie from butt of the grip end, or before the grip cap can already result in a 0.25″ difference and also at what point at the driver’s heel does the measurement begin. Some manufacturers do the back line of the shaft (point B) and others do where the lie begins (point A) and yet others do the front line of the shaft (point C). This can result in yet another 0.25″ (or more) difference. So while PRGR specs list 45.75″ I found the driver to be more like 46.25″ at least by my standards as they must have measured using the two nearest points from heel to before grip end. This is why I thought I would bring this up. Like flex there is no international “standard”.  So out came the stock shaft.

Stiffness distribution and bend profile…

The Quadra Fire Express 55 stiffness distribution breaks down as follows, softer active tip section, very firm center section, slightly firm butt section. If you are choosing the 55 series, it means you’re looking for distance primarily while the Fire Express 65 and 75 are a combination of distance and control with a stiffer butt section. Even though the FE 55 has a softer active tip it is still very stable, spins low and does not launch high thanks to the kick point being both mid and low. With the shaft also kicking towards the center section trajectory is kept down and stability is maintained since it’s the stiffest section of the entire shaft. The softer tip area accelerates the head to impact for increased swing speed and distance. The 55 Regular features 4.4* of torque which is mid range, enough to provide feel and at the same time help square the head without excessive twisting.

Finished Length and new CPM…

I prefer a driver around 45.25″ which is what I also played for the Crazy Longest Yard install.  However because of the very long club and the light weight head I was going to be very hard pressed to make an acceptable swing weight at a full inch lower if I went with 45.25″ (I don’t like adding weight to the head or down the hosel as I believe it effects the way the head was meant to feel and perform). So I compromised by going to 45.75″ and losing about 3 swing weight points (based on what I believed was a 46.2″ stock length).  I gained 1 point back by going with a slightly lighter grip and ended up with the club at an acceptable C9 with no additional weighting. CPM  on the Vibroscope with 5″ clamp came out to a good 243cpm which was a touch more than my Crazy LY-01 R2 flex which was 241cpm albeit at 0.5″ shorter.

Specs and data look good… on to real world testing!

Like any other golfer I’m looking for the best combination of distance and control. The Crazy did that previously and now I’m ready to put the Quadra to the test.  Based on launch monitor shaft test data I have, the Fire Express 55 vs the Longest Yard 01 installed in the same head at 45″ had the LY-01 produce 2485rpm of back spin. Meanwhile the Fire Express 55 produced 2405rpm which is very very comparable.  The LY-01 launched at 15.3* while the FE 55 launched at 14.4*. While the FE55 starts on a lower trajectory it reaches a similar apex as thr LY-01, both right at around 30 yards high.  Based on this launch data it will be interesting to see how the Quadra performs in the real world. Stay tuned for Part 2 some time after the Japanese Obon holiday!