I have been heckeled by my playing partners enough that I am caving in to buy a shiny set of irons. I was looking at some Japnese forged clubs but then read the above article by Wishon and decided to order the Maltby MMB forged heads. I think most of us have seen the kind of inconsistencies in weights in the older blades that Wishon is talking about. When these heads arrive I will weigh the raw heads and post them side by side with the my RAM XPDs (one of the heaviest classic heads). I bet the difference will be the MMBs are going to be around 10 g lighter, so I have ordered 10g hosel weights with these. These should neutralize the toe wieghting tungsten inserts to some extent and bring the sweet spot back toward the hosel. That will leave two modern features i.e rounded leading edge and a higher COG. Lets see how will it work out.
Any way I found Wishon,s article intresting enough to do this experiment.
I currently bag a set of Wishon irons. 555C 3&4 irons with the 555M 5-PW. I love playing them. They feel tremendous, look good and perform superbly. I’ve never hit the Maltby stuff, but I have hit the Snake Eyes stuff from Golfsmith and I think those are quality as well. I think it’s all about the company’s standards and reputation as far as quality goes. Hogan used to make superior forgings right in Texas. Then they got bought out by Callaway and the forgings weren’t the same. So I never quite bought into Japanese forgings being better just because they are from Japan because I’ve had forgings from them that have been good and bad.
A year ago I asked some insiders as to why everybody goes to Japan to forge their clubs. Their answer? It’s the only place to do it.
They claimed it was too expensive to do it stateside, but that made little sense to me because Japan doesn’t exactly have cheap labor and between the language barriers, shipping, etc…I couldn’t see why a company in the US couldn’t make quality forgings here for less than in Japan. Apparently, Scratch Golf saw the light on this.
R3J
My understanding from Wishon’s article is that no forging is being done in the US any more. Its either China or Japan with the majority being done in China. To my knowledge that includes Maltby, Wishon and Scratch as well as the name brands. What scratch offers for $2500 is grinding done on raw heads by don White and hid team but the forging is done in China.
OK
So I got the MMB heads. Not good. They are basically a cavity back dressed as a blade with a deeply cut pocket in the heel and a tungsten weight in the toe. Most of the weight has been flown away from the center. The hosel is less than half of any of the classic sets. Worst is the offset and steep lies. Looks a midget in height with the very short hosel.
On average 15-20 G lighter than the Ram XPD 100 heights. I could bring the only iron I shafted in the ball park by putting a 10 G hosel weight, to a D4 swing weight with an X100 shaft.
But overall looks no way as near an ABS club. Verdict: Not possible to ABS a modern blade.
These are going back to Golf Works. Will cost me both way shipping and handling. My Loss; but lesson learned.
Why don’t you just get your current setm that you get heckled form refinished? You could have shiny ‘new’ vintage irons at about $20 per head.
I am glad you showed those pics of MMB’s. I actually was looking at them a few months ago but was never aware they were fake musclebacks until you posted those detailed pics.
who doed chroming for that much; I thought the iron factory charges much more.
On the back of my mind I also wanted to prove Lag wrong and that I can create an ABS iron set from the current stuff. I still believe that a rounder leading edge and some bounce may be an advantage
