Over the last year or so there has been a growing trend for bat makers to declare that they have graded certain clefts as performance clefts. Now I have seen some bats made from these which truly are spectacular performers, infact I know of a bat maker openly rejecting perfect 10 grain clefts as they are not performing how he wants them to perform.
On the other hand I have seen some shockers. In my opinion one company is putting out a lot of under 5 grain pieces of firewood under the idea of a "performance cleft" and relying on the reputation of the bat maker for people to assume that if they say the bat will be a top performer then that will be what it will be!
The other day I saw a bat which a very well known bat maker, had listed as a performance cleft. 5 grains widely spread, but obviously had been quite low density as had a massive spine. However it was a hard hard piece of wood, with a horrible sound to it. This "performance" based bat was taken to two other bat makers who both declared that it was not up to standard and even after a lot of playing in, would only be a average bat. Now as much as there is nothing wrong with average, when you are paying close to £300 you deserve a little better than that. - On top of that this well known bat maker has refused a refund telling the customer to keep using it!
Hi Ciaran. We are more than happy for you to mention our names in this instance and I am sure that you are referring to the Legacy bat purchased by a customer of ours from Kent.
If this is the case then I advise you to speak to the customer in question again as we have already started work on his replacement and he is more than happy with the arrangement. I think it is important to ensure that facts are correct before posting on public forums.
If a customer is unhappy with the performance of one of our bats then we always recommend using them a good number of times before consigning it to the scrap heap. This is due to many factors, the main one being that it can take a while to get used to a new bat (especially one with a new type of handle).
We admit that James does not get every bat absolutely perfect and this is why we operate one of the most comprehensive after sales services in the industry. We always aim to look after every single customer who works with us and this will certainly be the case in this instance too.
Our Special Reserves are our most popular model in the UK market and the vast majority of feedback we receive is completely positive. It's a shame that you have heard different but such is life. We will continue to do everything we can for our customers going forward.
I hope that everyone has a great weekend and good luck out in the middle. Andy
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Topic: There is no such thing as grading a bat on "performance"... (Read 10763 times)