My Review: Bridgestone J40 Cavity Back Irons

I obtained a brand new set of Bridgestone J40 CB irons about a month ago.  They came standard length and lie with Nippon NS Pro 1050gh shafts (reg flex).  I put them in the bag right away and played 6 rounds with them and wanted to share my thoughts and review of these irons with everyone.....

I've never been one to really care too much about the looks of a club as I prefer performance all day over looks.  With this being said, if you can have a club that performs great and looks amazing on top of it, why not?  Keeping the look classic, Bridgestone did a great job and arguably they are the best looking irons out there.  Smooth lines and classic looks has you thinking that it's a blade at first until you realize that it is a true cavity back.  I lost track of the compliments that I received from people that saw them and thought they were beautiful.

While they are cavity backs, these irons are more player irons than game improvement.  There is much less offset and the head of each iron is much thinner than most cavity back offerings from other manufacturers.  They are fully forged (not just a forged face) and are well made.

I was coming off playing Taylormade R11 irons and you could clearly see that the J40's were better made with their forged heads but also had smaller heads, less offset, and would be potentially less forgiving.  This turned out to be very true.  The first thing I noticed was the rather large difference in lofts versus the R11's and the J40s.  Now each set of irons are going to have their own lofts but the difference was quite big comparing the R11's versus the J40's.  We are not talking about just a degree or two here and there, the difference was at least one club and in some cases even more than that.  It started at the 4 iron of the J40's which had the same loft as the 5 iron did in the R11's.  It continued as you went higher with the 9 iron of the J40's being 43 degrees which was almost equal to the PW of the R11 (45 degrees).

Just this difference alone took some getting used to as far as picking the right club was concerned.  I tried not to let it affect me but I know that it did, the fact that I was supposed to be playing newer and better irons yet for some reason they were not going nearly as far as my older irons that were of poorer quality.  While my ball flight improved (that's why I got the new irons), the distance loss was noticable and was going to take a lot of getting used to.

The J40's were less forgiving but I noticed that they seemed to "cut" through the rough better which made shots out of rough a bit easier.  I had to be very careful though as they were overall much less forgiving than the R11's.  If you got too steep with one of the J40's on a shot from the fairway, you were going to pay for it.

Both sets of irons had regular flex shafts and I was expecting I would like the Bridgestone's more since the shafts were heavier.  Maybe I just have not gotten used to them enough but last weekend I put the R11's back in the bag and shot my first round of sub 80.  I'm not giving up completely on the J40's, I just need to play them more and get used to them more.  They are great irons, but your ball striking has to be very good and I guess mine is just not there yet.  I am dissapointed with the Nippon shafts.  Apparently the J40's are offered with the Project X shafts which I have heard nothing but good things about and I should have probably gotten these irons with those shafts.

Overall a very good set of irons that I plan on "growing into" as my game continues to improve.  While they are cavity backs, I would say that they are much more of a players irons versus a game improvement iron though.

There are two j 40's....

One is a V cavity conventional with a MPF of 455... A players club really...

And a straight cavity with a MPF of 682... Game improvment...

Your r11's have a MPF of 508 conventional...Players club... ( not forged right?)

But I dont believe the maltby thing to some extent...

Dont know which one you have but there is no reason you should not be able to hit it coming from the r11's...( espeacially the straght cavity) Its my experience with old blades, blades,  and forged clubs that the sweet spot is more towards the hosel... So when you set up you should be like cupping the ball if you know what I mean....

I hit the callaway x forged at a demo and that has a 373 MPF... I hit that better that any club out there... Even the ultr game improvments...

Just my opinion...