Buddy Jim was kind enough to let me have a go at his new secret undercover string he’s been working on, in return I review them. So here we go.
When I first received the pack I was rather unimpressed. The colors were dull and washed out. Kind of like a matte finish for strings. They had a pretty rough feel to them, but didn’t kill my finger. They almost felt stretchy. Now what these strings lacked in IN YOUR FACE PRETTY COLORS they made up for it with class, and extreme playability.
I grew to like the way the strings looks, in a similar manner as someone who enjoys retro or lo-fi photography, and that negative quickly became a positive. The strings hold up very well. They’re quite resistant to wear and I’d have to say they last about…50-75% longer then the average 100% poly string I’ve come across. That’s a good thing. They hold tension pretty darn well too. Not OMG I NEVER HAVE TO ADJUST MY TENSION good, but still. DARN good. Another selling point of these strings is their insane ability to slack and whip. They always seem to open up nice and wide without fail, even when tension is a little off. This is another good thing. Another good thing, and im my opinion on the best…THEY COME PRETIED!!! I hate when I’m paying about 50 cents a string AND I HAVE TO TIE THEM MYSELF. Just a small thing I appreciate very much
Those are the facts, now on to my own personal opinion on them. I love these strings. It’s a shame I’m all out of them, because there’s no chance I’ll be picking up more. No offense to Buddy Jim or his wonderful strings, I just don’t really see the point in paying for premium string. Maybe one day I won’t be as much of a cheapskate and I’ll have to shoot Buddy Jim cause these are the best I’ve played yet. I haven’t played a lot of the premium strings, but I have tried Chaos, Gstring, and Snacktime. And these super secret undercover prototype mega strings out preform all of those. Those other strings may have the flashy colors and the pretty strings and the gimmicks, but that’s not what these strings about. They are made to preform under extreme conditions (tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, etc) and preform they do!
One thing I do feel obligated to mention is a slight problem I had with the string. On a few of the strings, I got this phenomenon called “popped threads.” From what I noticed they didn’t hinder play much if at all, but around the bearing you can see individual snapped threads. Now for the sake of this review and just to be a rebellious edge walker, I tried to get the string to snap but it just would not. I threw as hard as I could and even tried just snapping it with my hands. Now, I could snap it with my hands, but no matter how hard I threw, it wouldn’t give. I’d rate it about a 2/5 on the to be concerned about system. Keep an eye out for it, but don’t worry about it too much
Any questions feel free to comment here
If you want to find out more about Buddy Jim and his fantastic string check out his thread
Buddy Jim’s Nor Cal Inspired String