Just bought these off of Ebay.
Some MacGregor Persimmon is your next step Richie…
I’m going to fool around with these first. I’d like to get a MacGregor Eye-O-Matic, but can never find the color that I like. There was a Cleveland Classic I really liked (I used one my freshman year of college in '95…one of the few to still use persimmon) but the one on Ebay was way too expensive ($175). I’ve also got to start thinking about my current gamers (Mizuno MP-62). I may put new shafts in those or buy some new irons, like the Scratch Golf SB-1 line. i’ll probably buy some vintage Hogan irons (I’d love to get the 60’s Percussion or the Bounce Sole 1+) and see what I think of those. I’m certainly not above using some vintage irons as my gamers.
3JACK
R3,
I’ve been watching this one for a while and I’m probably going to pass on it. It didn’t sell at $65 and was just relisted at $55. Decent shaft, cool leather grip, and everything on the head looks rock solid…
Ritchie,
Love the 1+ Bounce Soles… especially after shooting 66 today with them at the Oak Creek CC in Sedona Arizona. Birdied 4 holes in a row on the back nine, and lipped out the putt for a 5th from 15 feet… 
7 birdies today, and some really crisp irons… it was weird seeing a few 10 and 15 foot putts drop… but the greens where pure… which is unusual for me to putt on.
There is something about those Bounce Soles I just love… such a clean no frills blade that just sets up really good…
R3…
…it may be a false start on that one. I just noticed what could be a crack coming out of the whipping and extending down. It may not be, but since the guy doesn’t do returns I’d double check that if it seems of interest…
Cheers
Lag,
Here’s some refinishing work done by the Iron Factory on some old Bounce Sole 1+ irons. I had a friend that was a heckuva player who had some old Macgregor blades. They had the Nicklaus stamp on the back and that was it. Then the face looked a lot like the irons I just bought. I’ve always wanted to get those irons as they were really pure. Hopefully I got some good ones in my recent purchase. If so, I’ll probably get them refinished by the Iron Factory as well.
looks like they did a great job on those…
mine are beat to hell… but in a way I suppose the beat up ones might make me play a bit better, as I would never worry about a bad lie or striking one off gravel or even a cart path. I don’t mind playing a shot off a cart path, but I don’t like standing on one. I prefer no carts on a golf course… it’s not bad having walk around the course… good exercise and saves you having to pay the gym membership.
I recently got these ones (flattened by Lag in person). The Ben Hogan on these is written in green and they have green ferrules. Does that mean anything??? $16.00
yeah macs—it means you overpaid! LOL
16 bucks—sheesh…
I would highly recommend The Iron Factory. I had a friend who had some badly beatup Titleist Tour Model blades that he had re-built by them and it practically looked like they were brand new. He told me he paid $60 a club for them to:
- Re-chrome/re-finish
- Paintfill
- Personal Stampings
- Install new shafts
- Re-groove
- Re-grip
- Bend the lie angles (he wanted the lofts to stay the same)
- Get all the head weights the same.
I recently had a KBS Shaft installed in my Mizuno 6-iron as I wanted to try it out and they charged $50 for the re-shaft and a new grip and I was pretty happy with that. To do what they do for the price they do it at is almost a steal. To think you can basically get these vintage clubs to play like they are brand new is pretty special.
3JACK
Really beautiful work on that +1, it’s really close in shape and weighting to my '92s. Just a little higher toe than mine. I’m emailing back and forth with a club guy in Fresno who has tour issue DG’s and can do hard endcap retro leather grips with the old logos. I may need to finance this pimped out clubwork.
Hi Ritchie,
I am sure the iron factory do a good job but I believe they have “previous” on the environmental front - see story below:
redorbit.com/news/science/39 … index.html
I think they decamped to Colorado subsequently.
Cheers, Arnie
Interesting Arnie. Although the article is from 2006 and from the sounds of it the water officials are basically saying that they did dump industrial wastewater illegally, but didn’t mean to do it and the city of Escondido’s monitoring and faulty monitoring equipment would have prevented it from happening. And they probably plead guilty and came to a deal with the city instead of having to go to trial
3JACK
Oh, I got the MacGregor Tourneys in the mail today and hit them.
My Mizuno’s have a better feel, especially when I catch them flush. But, the MacGregors I think are an excellent practice club and I really dig practicing with them. Furthermore, I think hitting them for a couple of hours really helped with my swing. If anything, probably helped because you really have to hit them dead square to hit a very good shot with them. I haven’t played with these type of old fashioned blades in a long time and I forgot just how much the slightest off center hit the clubhead will twist with the older blades. What’s cool is you can actually see it twist on an off center hit because the top line on these irons is very shiny. I think the shafts need to go because there wasn’t a lot of zip on flush strikes and what surprised me is that I hit them pretty high too. But overall, I’m happy with the purchase.
3JACK
One of the things I really appreciate about the older irons is the distribution of weight. With the obsession to get the ball airborne, even the top of the range modern blades have too much weight down too low. You almost have to hit it off the bottom to find the muscle. In the older blades the weight tends to be a little more spread out or focused a little higher at the back of the club, with less bounce. The result being that more mass is focused at the back of the ball at impact- one of the reasons I think that when hit well they feel so much better.
I’ve played blades for my whole life except for a week or two in college when the powers that be were forcing Pings on us. I’ve had Mac Muirfield 20th, Mizuno TP 11, Mizuno MP29, and Mizuno MP32. As time has gone on they’ve become more and more lifeless and tinny, in my opinion, even the top of the range ones from Mizuno. In fact the MP29’s might be the most overrated, lifeless iron of the lot, especially in the short irons- yet I used them for about 7 years- best of a bad bunch maybe. Funnily enough, I think I hit the pitching wedge 6 times and that was the first day I got them- it’s still brand new. And I never really enjoyed hitting the 9 iron. 7 years- what was I thinking 
Having recently gone back to an old set of Wilson Staff Tour Blades, the difference is staggering, I’m already sure they’ll be my playing set. Interestingly, I had a half inch taken off my MP32’s last year and still that 5 iron is just a fraction of an inch shorter than the Staff 3 iron. It’s funny. I haven’t checked the lofts on them yet, but I keep having to check the numbers on the bottom after I pull the club and look down at them- it’s hard to believe the 6 iron isn’t a 7 iron at most.
The other thing is that there really isn’t a huge loss of distance in them, but at the same time I feel like I can visualize hitting more club and be okay with it not going 8 miles. If I was designing a blade I’d have a narrower sole with little or no bounce, and have most of the mass 1/4 to 1/3 of the way up the back. I want to feel like what happens to the ball and club is my doing as much as possible, particularly in relation to the club and the ground. I don’t want too much bounce telling my club what to do down there. I like the feeling of being able to fit the edge of the blade in behind the ball like a knife, one of the reasons I’ve never been able to see a good shot or hit a good shot with a ping or fat soled iron. If I can’t feel that then I find it very hard to get comfortable. I don’t think I ever got a Ping Eye long iron off the ground- I just could see the club getting at the ball the way I wanted it to.
I attribute the reawakening of these feelings to using persimmon and old blades, and couldn’t agree more with the value of using old clubs to get better or at least to reconnect with your game- for better or worse! It’s all your own doing with the old clubs, particularly with the driver, the ball will only do what you do to it.
3J,
I wonder if the $60/club would be for KBS re-shafting?
They did a couple of sets for me back in the 2001 timeframe. One thing that I believe separates them from other refinish houses is the copper underplate they use to keep the headweight up (heads get lighter as metal is removed during the refinishing). They did good work, but I had some issues with chrome peeling off over time on some areas of the heads when I put the irons in play.
I was considering sending a set or 2 of the vintage gear I’ve picked up over the last year to them for refinishing, but I’m starting to appreciate the “broken-in” look of these sets. Even the sets I have that look beat up (my bounce soles for instance) have grooves that are still deep and in good shape. And I hate the idea of snagging a great set for $60 but then spending another $400+ to make them look new. 
robbo
My buddy had Rifle’s put in his Titleists. That’s at $52 a club (theironfactory.com/price.html), plus they charged an extra $8 a club for re-grooving.
Rifle’s go for about $22 a shaft, KBS Tour are $25 a shaft. Unless you get the lightweight KBS 90 shafts which are $39 a shaft. I put the regular KBS Tour in my 6-iron because while it’s a tad lighter than regular steel shafts, I also have longer shafts in my clubs. I think KBS makes a real good shaft.
3JACK
Richie,
Congrats on “the 985s”. Those are great irons. Growing up in the 80s I knew a guy who came off the tour after a few years and took a very prestigious club pro job and those were his gamers for a number of years. He used them on tour in the late 70s early 80s. He was a serious stick and a Mac Staffer. They are on my list.
Interesting to hear people on this board talking about how they were practically forced to go to Pings playing college golf. When I played in the mid-90’s our coach didn’t really care what we used, but if we wanted new clubs at a cheap price we had to go with either Ping or Titleist. I had some Ram FX Tour Grinds at the time and they were too unforgiving for my tastes and I wound up going to some Titleist 962’s because I could get them at 25% below cost at the time.
3JACK