What is soft stepping shafts?

[thomas55]

I'm looking at some clubs that have been "soft stepped" KBS 6.0 shafts the seller says they are like a 5.8 now.

I asked what that means to soft step a shaft and he said you put the 4 into the 3 and 5 into 4 and so on.

Help me to understand  this better. wouldn't that mean the clubs would be shorter also?  Am I missing something? Thanks

[LBlack14]

3i iron shaft into the 4i, 4i into 5i etc. That is soft stepped once. 3i into 5i, 4 i into 6i etc., that's soft stepped twice. If ya reverse that it's called hard stepping.

[thomas55]

Sorry that didn't answer my question. Aren't all iron shafts the same before they are cut to size to fit whatever club head they go in? Are we talking about how the tip is trimed? Are you saying that a shaft is pulled from a 4 iron and put into a 3 iron? Wouldn't that make the 3 iron short?

[mvmac]

Raw length of irons shafts are longer than what actually goes into the head.

Soft and Hard stepping is used to build in between flex's, and to raise or lower the ball flight where tip trimming is not an option.

An example of Soft stepping would be to use  3 iron shaft in a 4 iron head, this will make the club play about one third of a flex softer and will raise the ball flight.  Using a two iron shaft in a 4 iron head would be a double soft step, or Soft stepping twice and will make the club play about two thirds of a flex softer.  Soft stepping thrice would drop the club a full flex from say an R to an A, but will produce a much higher ball flight than you would have received by just going with the A's to start with.

Likewise Hard stepping once would be to use five iron shaft in that 4 iron which will make it play about one third of a flex stiffer and bring the ball flight down some.

More in depth

[boogielicious]

Thanks thomas55 for asking the question and Mike for answering.  We learn so much on this forum.

[R11driver]

If you are building your own clubs, you can soft step the shaft when you tip trim. If a 4 iron shaft called for a 1 inch tip trim to play to a regular flex and you tip trimmed only a half inch, the shaft has been soft stepped. It will play about a half flex more flexible doing it that way.

[thomas55]

Thanks You answred all my questions. Not yet at the level where I would know if I wanted to soft or hard step shafts. I'm really starting to feel the differences between TT S300s and Rifles and right now I'm putting

some FST Pro 115 stiff shafts in my (don't laugh) Wilson FC-17 Staffs and pulling out the old TT R300s.

I played them in my twenties and just love how they feel. Didn't know anything about equipment back then got them from my dad. Just swung em.

At any rate now in my 50s I'm learning about equipment and what I need. Teaching my 8 year old granddaughter how to play and getting my game back in shape after years away from it.