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Hi
Looking for information on where the major manufacturers are actually using the shafts they say they are. I can't buy a speeder shaft for what you can buy them on some clubs. I been told the "designed for" enables the use of cheaper shafts which are painted up to look like the real deal? Can anyone let me in on what's actually happening?

That's pretty much the deal. At the upper limits of special order you might get what you are looking for ; but, you will pay the price $$$$. You can pretty well rule out a shaft with the OEM's logo on it, ie. Cobra, Cleveland, etc. being exactly the same. That's not to say the shaft might not be a good fit for you.

The OEM's are working with the shaft manufacturers to order a large quantity of shafts, so that brings the overall cost down. The 2nd aspect is that the OEM's are dictating/working with (somewhere in between) to the shaft the specifics of the shaft characteristics they are looking for. The tourque they desire may be more mainstream than the typical Fuji (as an example).

The bottom line is you are not getting the exact same shaft as the other high end shafts that Fuji makes, but you are probably getting many of the benefits their materials, weave, or manufacturing process performs.

Most OEM's now offer multiple varieties of shafts and you have to find the right combo from testing or a fitting session.

All of the above posts are correct. OEM's use shafts "made" to their specs so they can be quite different from the factory shafts from the same shaft company. IF you look on the Titleist site, you will notice that the Voodoo shaft that comes with some Titllesist drivers is marked as a "Titleist/Aldila shaft. It's not the same as the regular Aldial VooDoo shaft, but it's made by Aldila to the specs that Titleist required. Most of the shafts I've seen are pretty close to the same, but some have MUCH HIGHER torque ratings compared to the true counterpart shaft made by the shaft maker for after market sales.

As an example, I have the new Cobra ZL driver with the OEM Voodoo shaft. The shatt is BLACK not RED like the Aldila VooDoo. And the torque rating is 4.5* , 62 gram weight, and MID kick design. The factory Aldila VooDoo shaft is 66 grams, torque is 3.5* and is Mid/High kick. As you can see it's NOT the same shaft as the real VooDoo shaft. Might be a perfectly good shaft for a lot of golfers but it's not the same shaft as the VooDoo I have in my driver that I installed a real VooDoo shaft in last year.