360 PureCue first impressions

[canuck]

I just recived my 360 PureCue this morning. I'm a pretty average club player and I'm keen to get my game up a few notches. Heck, I have yet to bag a century... so the room for improvement is vast.

Anyway, I'm now in an enviable position of having my own snooker table in my house (as of the last couple of weeks) so I don't mind trying all kinds of weird implements that promise to improve my game. With that in mind I purchased the 360 PureCue that is heavily advertised on this site as the first doodad to see its effects on my game.

What follows below is my first impression of using it (less than one hour since I received it):

The cue arrived packed in a cardboard tube that was partially untwisted. I think DHL may have been rough with the handling but I noticed no visible damage to the cue. The quality of the cue itself seems good but not outstanding. There is no noticable warp on the cue when looking at it but when I roll it on the table to tip rises by just a hair in one spot which means there is a tiny amount of warp. I don't think it's enough to affect anything in practice. The warp is less than 1mm.

It is an ash cue slightly heavier than your average 10mm shaft ash cue. The extra weight is at the back of the cue where the spring joint is located. This is a one piece cue and can't be unscrewed even at the spring joint so I may need to get a cue rack or a cue stand because of that. No case hard or soft comes with the cue.

The round logo on the butt of my cue is missing and there is just a hole instead. It does not affect how the cue plays in any way but I was a bit displeased to see that missing. I think someone at the factory simply forgot to glue it into the butt. Not a real biggie as this is just a practice cue so how it looks is not all that important.

How does it play then? I think it depends on how good your cue action is. I thought I was a competent cueist and felt this cue was going to offer a limited learning opportunity. I took a couple of trial shots and my feeling was confirmed. I could easily pot a ball without the cue breaking.... then I set up a few balls to do a simple lineup with a handful of reds. That's when all hell broke loose. Once I stopped concentrating on keeping the cue from bending it quickly revealed how erratic my cueing was. The cue started wobbling in all kinds of directions. I was clearly putting downwards pressure in some shots and sideways pressure in others. Power shots would invariably break up the cue. Clearly my cueing in an actual game (or even a practice more complicated than a straight stun shot) is much worse than I anticipated.

After about 15 minutes or so I started to get the hang of it and was able to deliver the cue without it breaking up on most shots but my cuing became hesitant. I was scared to put any amount of power into my shots. I'm currently working to overcome that. I hope to be able to eventually deliver the cue with power and without breaking the cue. But it will obviously take practice. Doing deep screw (or even a top spin shot) with a decent amount of power is currently beyond my skill level with this cue.

I think the feedback this cue provides is very evident. But it is more in the sound and the feel of the cue than in the visual side. You have to pay attention to all three. When you badly hit across the line of shot the cue will go sideways. It will be visible and you'll feel it. However, when you're just slightly across your line of shot the spring bends out just a little and you might not be able to see or even feel that the cue has bent but you will hear it. It will have a metalic 'clang' sound to it. If the cue is delivered dead on straight with a nice follow through the sound will be no different than that of a normal one piece cue. If you hear that metallic sound it means you still aren't cueing straight.

So is this a good product? I think it is. I haven't had it long enough to tell you how much it improved my cueing but it is obviously a very challenging device to play with. Challenging in a good way. It reveals all kinds of issues with my cue action and it's pretty merciless. At times it makes you feel as if the spring is almost too soft. But then you lift the cue off the table by its butt and you notice that by itself the cue does not bend. Clearly it's my cue action and not the cue structure that causes the bending. I think if you can master this cue with all the different shots with all different levels of power your cue action will be piston like as this cue is unforgiving of any mistakes. Using it with the rest is just as challenging. My rest play leaves a lot to be desired and this cue revealed that I put a large amount of downward pressure when playing with a rest. I'm at work now but will write more as I get some more experience using it.

I'll write a more detailed review and perhaps even a video of me using it if you ask nicely

[stjimmy18-1991]

thanks for your review mate, interesting read.

[JonLonergan]

I just watched the video of these two cues. Personally i dont like the idea of the gravity cue. It seems to encourage the player to forget about having flaws in his cue action and rely on the cue doing the work. Thats my opinion anyway. The 360 seems a good concept, but it all seems a bit unnecessary.

[canuck]

Jon,
As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If a month of practice with this cue makes me a better player (say by allowing me to bag a century - my highest break is only 61 to date) it will have been worth it. Let's reserve judgement for a few weeks on the usefulness of the 360. Keep an open mind though. Maybe it will do nothing for my game maybe I will improve dramatically. One thing is certain, I'm gonna give it a fair shake.

[lennon11]

i also got mine last week,i have made a few century break so purchased it as an aid to help fine tune mt action,my findings were that when playing very easy shots i would expect most peoples actions to be good enough not to impact on the cue,however when appling pace to the shots in soon noticed just how smooth and level your cue action needs to be otherwise the cue will buckle significantly,causing you not to get the required action on the cue ball,which is probably caused more by downward pressure than lateral movement.atfer a few line ups,i played a few solo frames&by the end was knocking in a few 60/70 breaks.all in all i feel this cue will be a good aid for me in my aim to cue smooth&horizontally.

[Mike P]

Canuck, it must be a Canadian thing because my first 360 arrived with the upper portion of the cardboard tube unravelled and the shaft was broken. I just received another with the tube damaged in the same location. Luckily the shaft only sustained a small scratch that I can easily fix. The shaft also has a small warp in it and I found the badge at the bottom of the tube. Due to the demands for the product (waiting time), I will be keeping this one. I think the warp can be fixed and I will plug the badge hole before affixing the badge. The badge hole has to be filled before I put the badge on, or else it would be recessed too far into the butt.

I have only tried a few shots, but do think that this is a worth while product. Great review by the way.

Mike

[poolqjunkie]

I just recived my 360 PureCue this morning. I'm a pretty average club player and I'm keen to get my game up a few notches. Heck, I have yet to bag a century... so the room for improvement is vast.

Anyway, I'm now in an enviable position of having my own snooker table in my house (as of the last couple of weeks) so I don't mind trying all kinds of weird implements that promise to improve my game. With that in mind I purchased the 360 PureCue that is heavily advertised on this site as the first doodad to see its effects on my game.

What follows below is my first impression of using it (less than one hour since I received it):

The cue arrived packed in a cardboard tube that was partially untwisted. I think DHL may have been rough with the handling but I noticed no visible damage to the cue. The quality of the cue itself seems good but not outstanding. There is no noticable warp on the cue when looking at it but when I roll it on the table to tip rises by just a hair in one spot which means there is a tiny amount of warp. I don't think it's enough to affect anything in practice. The warp is less than 1mm.

It is an ash cue slightly heavier than your average 10mm shaft ash cue. The extra weight is at the back of the cue where the spring joint is located. This is a one piece cue and can't be unscrewed even at the spring joint so I may need to get a cue rack or a cue stand because of that. No case hard or soft comes with the cue.

The round logo on the butt of my cue is missing and there is just a hole instead. It does not affect how the cue plays in any way but I was a bit displeased to see that missing. I think someone at the factory simply forgot to glue it into the butt. Not a real biggie as this is just a practice cue so how it looks is not all that important.

How does it play then? I think it depends on how good your cue action is. I thought I was a competent cueist and felt this cue was going to offer a limited learning opportunity. I took a couple of trial shots and my feeling was confirmed. I could easily pot a ball without the cue breaking.... then I set up a few balls to do a simple lineup with a handful of reds. That's when all hell broke loose. Once I stopped concentrating on keeping the cue from bending it quickly revealed how erratic my cueing was. The cue started wobbling in all kinds of directions. I was clearly putting downwards pressure in some shots and sideways pressure in others. Power shots would invariably break up the cue. Clearly my cueing in an actual game (or even a practice more complicated than a straight stun shot) is much worse than I anticipated.

After about 15 minutes or so I started to get the hang of it and was able to deliver the cue without it breaking up on most shots but my cuing became hesitant. I was scared to put any amount of power into my shots. I'm currently working to overcome that. I hope to be able to eventually deliver the cue with power and without breaking the cue. But it will obviously take practice. Doing deep screw (or even a top spin shot) with a decent amount of power is currently beyond my skill level with this cue.

I think the feedback this cue provides is very evident. But it is more in the sound and the feel of the cue than in the visual side. You have to pay attention to all three. When you badly hit across the line of shot the cue will go sideways. It will be visible and you'll feel it. However, when you're just slightly across your line of shot the spring bends out just a little and you might not be able to see or even feel that the cue has bent but you will hear it. It will have a metalic 'clang' sound to it. If the cue is delivered dead on straight with a nice follow through the sound will be no different than that of a normal one piece cue. If you hear that metallic sound it means you still aren't cueing straight.

So is this a good product? I think it is. I haven't had it long enough to tell you how much it improved my cueing but it is obviously a very challenging device to play with. Challenging in a good way. It reveals all kinds of issues with my cue action and it's pretty merciless. At times it makes you feel as if the spring is almost too soft. But then you lift the cue off the table by its butt and you notice that by itself the cue does not bend. Clearly it's my cue action and not the cue structure that causes the bending. I think if you can master this cue with all the different shots with all different levels of power your cue action will be piston like as this cue is unforgiving of any mistakes. Using it with the rest is just as challenging. My rest play leaves a lot to be desired and this cue revealed that I put a large amount of downward pressure when playing with a rest. I'm at work now but will write more as I get some more experience using it.

I'll write a more detailed review and perhaps even a video of me using it if you ask nicely

Very nice review, thank you so much for taking the time to write this.
I believe this is a great concept and I think it is brilliant.
I said it before and I will say it again: Neil, is it possible not to have it produced by Peradon, please!
Good luck with your game and hope to see you break the 100 mark soon.

[perpetualboredom]

How strange, I got one last week and again the badge was in the bottom of the tube, and yes the badge hole almost penatrates the whole width of the cue. Will get to the club and give some thoughts sometimw, I know its only a training device but the shaft was rough and the metal collars around the spring quite barbed, so I'll spend some time tidying the thing up before I embarrass myself using it.

[jrc750]

How strange, I got one last week and again the badge was in the bottom of the tube, and yes the badge hole almost penatrates the whole width of the cue. Will get to the club and give some thoughts sometimw, I know its only a training device but the shaft was rough and the metal collars around the spring quite barbed, so I'll spend some time tidying the thing up before I embarrass myself using it.

Your more of a pool man aren't you Mike ? do you feel the need to have a perfect cue action for that - or are you just doing it to improve the snooker - stick a pic up of this dodgy badge setup

[GravityCue]

I just recived my 360 PureCue this morning. I'm a pretty average club player and I'm keen to get my game up a few notches. Heck, I have yet to bag a century... so the room for improvement is vast.

Anyway, I'm now in an enviable position of having my own snooker table in my house (as of the last couple of weeks) so I don't mind trying all kinds of weird implements that promise to improve my game. With that in mind I purchased the 360 PureCue that is heavily advertised on this site as the first doodad to see its effects on my game.

What follows below is my first impression of using it (less than one hour since I received it):

The cue arrived packed in a cardboard tube that was partially untwisted. I think DHL may have been rough with the handling but I noticed no visible damage to the cue. The quality of the cue itself seems good but not outstanding. There is no noticable warp on the cue when looking at it but when I roll it on the table to tip rises by just a hair in one spot which means there is a tiny amount of warp. I don't think it's enough to affect anything in practice. The warp is less than 1mm.

It is an ash cue slightly heavier than your average 10mm shaft ash cue. The extra weight is at the back of the cue where the spring joint is located. This is a one piece cue and can't be unscrewed even at the spring joint so I may need to get a cue rack or a cue stand because of that. No case hard or soft comes with the cue.

The round logo on the butt of my cue is missing and there is just a hole instead. It does not affect how the cue plays in any way but I was a bit displeased to see that missing. I think someone at the factory simply forgot to glue it into the butt. Not a real biggie as this is just a practice cue so how it looks is not all that important.

How does it play then? I think it depends on how good your cue action is. I thought I was a competent cueist and felt this cue was going to offer a limited learning opportunity. I took a couple of trial shots and my feeling was confirmed. I could easily pot a ball without the cue breaking.... then I set up a few balls to do a simple lineup with a handful of reds. That's when all hell broke loose. Once I stopped concentrating on keeping the cue from bending it quickly revealed how erratic my cueing was. The cue started wobbling in all kinds of directions. I was clearly putting downwards pressure in some shots and sideways pressure in others. Power shots would invariably break up the cue. Clearly my cueing in an actual game (or even a practice more complicated than a straight stun shot) is much worse than I anticipated.

After about 15 minutes or so I started to get the hang of it and was able to deliver the cue without it breaking up on most shots but my cuing became hesitant. I was scared to put any amount of power into my shots. I'm currently working to overcome that. I hope to be able to eventually deliver the cue with power and without breaking the cue. But it will obviously take practice. Doing deep screw (or even a top spin shot) with a decent amount of power is currently beyond my skill level with this cue.

I think the feedback this cue provides is very evident. But it is more in the sound and the feel of the cue than in the visual side. You have to pay attention to all three. When you badly hit across the line of shot the cue will go sideways. It will be visible and you'll feel it. However, when you're just slightly across your line of shot the spring bends out just a little and you might not be able to see or even feel that the cue has bent but you will hear it. It will have a metalic 'clang' sound to it. If the cue is delivered dead on straight with a nice follow through the sound will be no different than that of a normal one piece cue. If you hear that metallic sound it means you still aren't cueing straight.

So is this a good product? I think it is. I haven't had it long enough to tell you how much it improved my cueing but it is obviously a very challenging device to play with. Challenging in a good way. It reveals all kinds of issues with my cue action and it's pretty merciless. At times it makes you feel as if the spring is almost too soft. But then you lift the cue off the table by its butt and you notice that by itself the cue does not bend. Clearly it's my cue action and not the cue structure that causes the bending. I think if you can master this cue with all the different shots with all different levels of power your cue action will be piston like as this cue is unforgiving of any mistakes. Using it with the rest is just as challenging. My rest play leaves a lot to be desired and this cue revealed that I put a large amount of downward pressure when playing with a rest. I'm at work now but will write more as I get some more experience using it.

I'll write a more detailed review and perhaps even a video of me using it if you ask nicely

Hi Canuck.

Neil Johnson here.

That was a very thorough evaluation considering the short time you have had with the device. Your experience so far sounds very consistent with a high percentage of players when using the cue for the first time. The fact that you are already getting to grips with it to some degree hopefully means you are already experiencing a relieving of pressure in the grip and a general improvement in the way you feed the cue through your hand when turning back to your own cue.

All in all you seem to be taking the approach required to fine tune and purify your own and very individual cue action. However, there is one thing you mentioned regarding certain types of shots and a feeling of reluctance to commit to them. This has proved to be a pretty common initial reaction for players and is basically your subconscious telling you that the various transition phases in your action are not quite matching up with your intention, ie. cue path doesn't correspond with tempo. Your confidence will of course improve with practice but to speed the learning process up further, you could try playing a series of shots that are currently inside your comfort zone, for example, cue ball and object ball reasonably close together, and using a central area of the cue ball, but play them as firmly as you can without bending the cue. This will help teach you to build up the power that,s needed for certain shots without losing any of the accuracy.

Where top spin, screw and side are concerned, try to develop a greater sense for keeping the energy running through the cues central axis and what you need to do to achieve this. Again, you will find this is also linked to that combination of path and tempo and how efficiently they are working in tandem.

Apologies for the badge problem. This 360 is currently only sold from the one website as the intention was to start off slowly with the product made in England (with very low profit margins) until it could be mass produced abroad by one company. However, demand has been high, forcing the company to temporarily seek other manufacturers. The cue still has the desired effect regardless of manufacturer but getting some of the minor tweaks levelled out under these conditions has proved difficult. In the coming weeks we will have the benefit of a completely standardised mass produced product, allowing us to also distribute from various outlets around the world.

Cheers.
Neil.

[GravityCue]

Very nice review, thank you so much for taking the time to write this.
I believe this is a great concept and I think it is brilliant.
I said it before and I will say it again: Neil, is it possible not to have it produced by Peradon, please!
Good luck with your game and hope to see you break the 100 mark soon.

Hi poolqjunkie.

Thanks again.

Just so you know, Peradon are one of our Gravity Cue manufacturers and don't actually manufacture the 360.

You probably won't like the sound of this at first poolqjunkie but bear with me. Due to the fact that the 360 is a training device and is to do with (amongst other things) the way it develops the players mechanics. The mass produced version we have been working towards will come in graphite. I know graphite for a standard cue is generally seen as a sticky option that's lacking in feel, but feel in the normal sense isn't an issue with the 360. There's also been a special anti stick coating applied that's patented by the manufacturer so the cue is quite smooth. This coating also comes with the option of an ash or maple look which also helps to distinguish the snooker and English 8ball 360 from its American equivalent. When our manufacturing agent first proposed this to us we were very dubious but that was until the samples were delivered and we were surprised to find that it happened to work really well.

We will still provide the wooden version but this will probably be for the tailor made market only.

Cheers.
Neil.:snooker:

[ruby]

I got my 360 cue today and had a hit with it. Its just way too light.... I tried doing a lineup but it really lacks some weight I just found it hard to get a nice feel with it.

Also the shaft is annoying.... Id like to have seen the arrows along the shaft when im cueing, its not and it messes with my head seing an inconsistent pattern along the shaft.

All I did with it was hit the ball up and down the spots and potted a few balls, noticed one major thing which was on my backswing I raise the back of the cue up so I tried correcting it to keep the cue as parallel and as level as possible.

Ill continue using it ....
__________________
Originally posted at Http://www.thesnookergym.com/forums

[peterpackage]

Canuck, been a while since you posted

Still using the purecue ?

Has it helped your game ?

[Freddie Ng]

Canuck, been a while since you posted

Still using the purecue ?

Has it helped your game ?

there are a few thread about 360purecue. you can try use the search button to get them. :snooker:

Cheers

[peterpackage]

there are a few thread about 360purecue. you can try use the search button to get them. :snooker:

Cheers

I did a search mate, this is the only review thread i could find. The only other thread is about a replica of it.