ShopTalk: Rifle Air Lite

[Keith Anderson]

Aloha All! I just had a bad experience that I would like to pass along 
in the hopes that someone might avoid the same pitfall in the future. I 
have a set of X-18 irons in to re-shaft and the customer decided that 
the Rifle Air Lites were just what he needed. I have never used this 
product, but didn't see any obvious problem after glancing at the specs 
in the GS and GW catalogues. I order a set , plus an extra SW shaft , 
and proceed to disassemble the irons and ream them to .370.  When the 
shafts arrive a couple of days later, I read the tipping  instructions 
and low and behold it is butt trim only. I'm thinking that this is 
going to be easier than I thought, but to my surprise when I dry fit 
the 3 iron it was only 38.5 inches long with no butt trim. A full 1/2 
in. short ! I look at the  Shaft ID lettering on the butt  and it says 
38.5 in for the 3-iron and the rest step down 1/2 in per club in 
dedicated lengths. Needless to say I am in a jam because I went ahead 
and reamed the heads before I had the new shafts in front of me( I 
guess I have to take the blame for that) and if I put  extentions in 
these shafts I will feel like I've sort of negated what the customer 
was trying to do when He asked for these specific ultra light shafts.  
Anyone else have a set of irons ever come with a 38.5 in 3 iron shaft? 
I would have assumed that these might have come even longer than 40-41 
inches as going to over length assembly is one of the reasons some 
people look to the newer lightweight shafts. Don't know what to tell 
the customer other than he might want to reconsider and get a different 
product  and wait a few more days for his sticks. Anyway, I'm glad to 
get that off my chest and hope that this helps someone else down the 
road. Keith Anderson