Soft Stepping / Shaft Length / Shaft Flex

[BoadieBroadus]

I have been trying to read around this subject but am now utterly confused and hoped someone here knew what they were talking about.

Apparently soft stepping should reduce the effective flex of a club (estimates say about a third) and is achieved by putting say a 3 iron shaft into a 4 iron head.

Normally I play irons that are +0.5 inch - does this mean that they are already "soft stepped" or is 0.5 inch longer not the same thing? Does this mean that if I trim 0.5 off the butt of the shaft I'm undoing the soft stepping and effectively stiffening the shaft?

I have 2 sets of irons one is project x 6.0 and the other rifle 6.5. Both are currently +0.5 in length. Ideally I'd like to have the rifles a little closer in flex to the project x. I had thought that trimming the butt of the rifles by 0.5 might achieve this but now i'm concerned that it would in fact do the opposite.

Any thoughts?

 

[Foxholer]

As the shafts come as a set and each iron has originally installed into the matching head, they haven't been soft-stepped. Each shaft will (hopefully) oscillate at the frequency, but that ill be a lower value for a shaft that is longer - it's a sliding scale. It won't feel quite so stiff if it is longer though.

Soft-stepping will soften the feel slightly more as a 3-iron shaft is generally softer than a 4-iron anyway - even after being cut the half inch to match the length. That's the 0.3 flex difference. .

My Rifle 6.5 shafts were soft-stepped on initial install and I have simply moved the 3 into the 4 etc, so soft-stepped a second time and +1/2. They still feel slightly stronger than he Rifle 6.0s I've used, but that may be a weight thing.

PX normally feels a bit stronger than standard Rifles anyway and they are certainly a different profile - quite consistently boardy as opposed to the tip soft Rifles. I'm not sure whether you haven't got fairly well-matched shafts (as far as you can) already.

Are you trying to achieve anything more than matching the flex? Change of flight?

 

[Ethan]

PX are about 0.5 stiffer feeling then Rifles. Soft stepping once reduces flex by about 1/3 of a flex, so 0.33 in Rifle terms. Butt trimming has little effect on the flex.

In my opinion, your iron sets are already as close in flex terms as you will get them, so messing around with the shafts may not have the effect you desire. It is probably easier to decide which shaft you prefer and look for a set of 'pulls' in that flex for the second set.

 

[BoadieBroadus]

thanks for your expertise. so technically if i were to discard the 3 iron head, i could soft step by installing each shaft in the next head down.

to be honest i just wanted to solve the nagging doubt in my head every time i addressed them that said -"these are stiffer, you're going to mess this shot up"

as you have both estimated the flex to be more or less equivalent i can blame myself entirely for any misfortunes.

 

[Region3]

thanks for your expertise. so technically if i were to discard the 3 iron head, i could soft step by installing each shaft in the next head down.

to be honest i just wanted to solve the nagging doubt in my head every time i addressed them that said -"these are stiffer, you're going to mess this shot up"

as you have both estimated the flex to be more or less equivalent i can blame myself entirely for any misfortunes.

Yes, but I think you still need to take 1/2" off each one - I guess you may already realise this.

 

[Ethan]

as you have both estimated the flex to be more or less equivalent i can blame myself entirely for any misfortunes.

Well it's not that we have estimated the flex to be similar. The manufacturer says so, based on frequency. However frequency is not the whole story because different shafts have their flex distributed differently. TT DG, for example is butt soft(ish) and tip stiff whereas PX is firmer in the butt and, although not exactly soft in the tip, softer than TT DG. This has an effect on feel and it is well known that some players find PX rather harsh or boardy. Typically they suit fast tempo hitters better than smooth swingers.

So it may not be possible to replicate the feel of one shaft by hard or soft stepping another.

 

[Foxholer]

Well it's not that we have estimated the flex to be similar. The manufacturer says so, based on frequency.

Er. Based on frequency, the manufacturer has stated they are different. The 6.5s will CPM at a higher rate than the 6.0s.

Does demonstrate that CPM alone isn't sufficient to define 'stiffness'. And tht dosn't allow anything for Flighted vs non-Flighted either

 

[Ethan]

Er. Based on frequency, the manufacturer has stated they are different. The 6.5s will CPM at a higher rate than the 6.0s.

Does demonstrate that CPM alone isn't sufficient to define 'stiffness'. And tht dosn't allow anything for Flighted vs non-Flighted either

No, PX 6.0 has the same CPM as Rifle 6.5, and iirc the OP was comparing these shafts.

Flighted is a whole other beast constructed using soft and hard stepping to force the kick point wider apart across the set.
The OP aked, paraphrasing, could he make the Rifle 6.5 and PX 6.0 feel the same by hard/soft-stepping. The simple answer is, depending on feel, (a) he doesn't need to, they are already the same, or, (b) you can't make them feel the same because they are just too different and flex is only part of it.