AS-1F viaBig Discount Büste

I apologize for the long review, but I feel it’s important to understand why I chose this cue and why I fully recommend this cue.

The carbon fiber shaft that comes with this cue is as good as the Cuetec Cynergy 15K shafts that I have purchased. I had the 11.8mm Cynergy, but when the 10.5mm one came out I bought it and gave my 11.8mm to a friend that actually shot better with it than I did, but that’s another story. This is not intended to be a bash on Cuetec as I loved both shafts, but I couldn’t keep a tip on my 10.5mm one. Any lateral force and the tip would come off. I now attribute that to not having a pre-shaped 10.5mm tip and shaping a 13/14mm tip after it was glued on. Which I believe put too much lateral stress on the relatively small glue surface area. I might be way off base on that, but that’s my opinion. Anyway, not intended to be a bash on Cuetec as the 11.8mm never had that issue. However, I mention the tip not staying on the 10.5 only because that’s the reason I started looking for a back up shaft. Losing the tip the day before league or tournament play meant going to my older wood shaft(s). (The logistics of getting a new tip took 2 or 3 days).

Because I watch a lot of pool matches and tips on YouTube, I guess the algorithm caused J Flowers cue reviews to show up. So, I watched quite a few. Regardless of the reviewer, it was basically the same result; great cue for the price, the Moori medium tip seems a bit hard, I would play with this cue but I’m loyal to [put brand here], etc. Not a single review found anything fundamentally wrong with the cue and all praised its performance. I did like that one reviewer stated that the shafts are the same regardless of the butt, and it’s the butt that makes the difference in the price ranges. You can get butts with basically decals for decoration or get ornately inlaid designs.

I decided to purchase the AS-1 (11.5mm tip) Konllen branded cue from Amazon. The cue was available in 12.4/11.5/10.5 tip sizes. (I do love the 10.5mm tips, but was gun shy for reasons stated above). The cue can be found on the Konllen website. The price was the same from Amazon as it was on the Konllen site; however, I could get 1-day Prime shipping with Amazon. Ordered on a Friday and received by 5pm the following day (Saturday). I have had it 10 days now. All reviews I read or watched basically said the same thing about the hardness of the tip, so no surprises for me when it arrived. I started practicing immediately. At first, I didn’t know if it were the tip or maybe something different with the amount of deflection of the shaft as I was consistently missing just a little bit to the right (I shoot left-handed). In all fairness I had similar issues when I had to go to my wood shaft. By day 3 I had no issues with being slightly off on the aim and realized it was the tip hardness. I am unable to put as much english as I did with the soft tips I used on the other 2 carbon fiber shafts. However, I learned that I didn’t need to use the extreme english I was using before to get the spin and the cue location I wanted. So, my game has actually improved! Not saying I won’t go to a softer tip sometime in the future, but for now I’m staying with the Moori medium that comes with the cue. Seems like it will last a very long time.
I also purchased the 6” extension that goes with the cue. It fits well. I tried to learn to play with it all the time, but it adds a couple of ounces to the 19oz cue, and I wasn’t ready for that many changes. At some time in the future, I may try to play with it on all the time, but for now I’m happy with just using it as needed. If you get a J Flowers/Konllen cue, I highly recommend it.

I included a picture of a small spot on the butt of a chip in the finish. I felt it Sunday when I went to practice. I don’t recall miss handling the cue or banging it on anything that would have caused this. If I knowingly miss handled, I’d own up to it and wouldn’t mention it. After a short time I started ensuring my finger was on the spot; a mental thing I’m sure on my part. Only time will tell if there is a larger issue, but if it remains like it is I’ll be fine.