Mizuno MP20 HMB -MB blended set review

harpo_72

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Feb 20, 2013
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Mizuno MP20 5,6 HMB and 7,8,9,PW MB.
All fitted with recoil regular shafts. The 6 iron has been bent 1 degree higher in loft to maintain the distance gaps.
The fitting was conducted on skytrack and only using a 7 iron head in MB and HMB. The DNA shaft selector gave up 3 stiff shafts but 15 close fits. The recoil was in that group of 15. The recoil was chosen because of its flight, stability and consistency. It also gave the greatest average smash factor of 1.49. The recoil shafts have a lot of decals on and the pro suggested they be face down, which means I look down a nice clean silver-ish smooth shaft ( stepless shafts are very pleasing on my eyes)
There was some debate about head selection. Neither HMB or MB are offensive to look at. There is a top line difference, but this is only evident if you put the 2 clubs side by side. The back bulge difference is also not evident at address. In the bag you can see the difference from the sole thickness and profile, I use iron head covers to stop bag chatter damage and noise, so the sole stuff doesn’t affect me.
I did not try MMC as I wanted a more pure look to the blend.
The break point would always be around the 7 iron. For me my mp52 7 iron was fine, but it is a cavity back forged head. There is a lot of chatter about blades being hard to hit. However this is not the case having learnt the game on Mizuno TP18 blades, todays modern blades are so much more forgiving! In the end I opted for the MB 7i as the start of my blend. Which yielded a minor cost save as the MB is cheaper per club, also there is no cost differential between the shafts .. so pick and enjoy!
The clubs took 8-9days to come through because of the popularity of the HMB heads.
I took them out straight away, and I was eager to see the 5i HMB in action, I used it off the tee. The ball was hit from the tee, it came off the groove part of the face in the middle and travelled straight down the middle 180yards. I then proceeded to use an 8i MB to reach the green. The flight was straight and landed at the expected 140yards. Unfortunately the heavens opened and this course test ended abruptly!
I retired to the range and then hit 50 balls going up and down the irons. I could not see any distance discrepancies and the flights were all fantastically high and soft landing. The shafts just feel right and smooth, much of the head feel can be impacted by shaft selection in my opinion. But this is my first set of graphite shafted irons, as I have a few arm pains and I am getting older. For me this has made my iron game effortless and the HMB irons forgive me every time delivering yardage. It’s hard to describe the sensation of a well struck shot, but both heads differ. The HMB feels like a “thunk” and some sensation of the face flexing.. which is pure imagination I am sure. The MB is no vibration (HMB suffers less vibration on poor shots) and just a soft “thud”. The MBs are easy to hit with a huge amount of back spin... hopefully no more ping ponging around summer greens ! They do allow you to hit across the face up and down with minimal yardage loss. The HMB rarely loses yardage, shot height yes and roll are impacted but distance is still pretty consistent unless you really mishit it.
I was worried about PW chipping with the recoil shaft but this was soon put to bed and the behaviour that I was worrying about was just personal paranoia.
Overall I would say try and be surprised! These are not about yardage these are about consistency, feel, spin and beauty.
 

Curls

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Mar 25, 2011
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Yeah I’ve a blended MP18 set and feel the same, I think most people would fear a lack of forgiveness given how they look but they really are forgiving clubs. I had a Regular recoil in a 5iron hot metal (forget the model) a few years ago, it was stupidly easy to hit, great shafts for getting the ball going.

Of course the best thing is looking in your bag and seeing them shining. Beautiful ❤️

Enjoy!
 
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