Mizuno JPX-850 Forged Irons Preview

[Lockman850]

Tough choice.

 

[oxepyonxo]

These irons look sooo much better than the 825 pros. Can anyone that has hit these compare them to an MP 53 or MP 54?

 

[oxepyonxo]

Finally have some time to write down my experience with these..

I went for my fitting at the Golftec near my office as they were the first to get back to me when the irons arrived. I arrived and warmed up with my Apex Pros, then started the Mizuno fitting process. It's always fun when I do these fittings because my swing has changed so much from the last one I did in February. I did the shaft analyzer and was excited to see my numbers had improved. Numbers were 91 5-3-5-5. recommended me for the x100 soft stepped, PX 6.0 and KBS Tour X soft. I knew which shafts perform best for me and asked the fitter to pull C-taper, CTL, XP115 and Nippon 1150. No more PXi as an option this year which disappointed me, but it's a good thing I keep some inventory in my basement.

Let's talk about the club head first. It's an amazing blend of classic mizuno workmanship and new school tech. The satin finish lets you know the club is going to have a soft feel. The top line is thinner looking than past JPX lines. In actuality they've beveled it a bit to make it appear thinner. The sole is tri-cut a-la J40 DPC and really lets the club glide through impact. The milled pocket looks straight from the MP54 and is quite deep. The badge on the back is barely noticeable and gives the club a very classy look. At address you see a classic looking head with a medium to thinnish topline. It's not MP thin, but its about the same as the AP2 and Apex Pro.

Hitting a ball with this club is tough to explain. It's not buttery. Its more like hitting a marshmallow with a solid thud following impact. The head itself does have some weight, but no more than any other forged offering I've swung. Back to impact....The ball speed numbers I had were along the lines of what I have with my Bio Cell irons. An 88-91 swing was getting me 128-132 mph of ball speed. There were no surprises on shots center of the face. Great solid penetrating flight and very low spin. My launch was avg 17.8 and was getting up to 37 yards. Carry distances again were on par with the Bio Cells at 193-200. The ball honestly fires off of the face. Its amazing to see how quickly after impact it's gone.

Contolling trajectory isn't something I do much with a 6i, but I did hit a few low cuts and some high draws with relative easy. While the head did generate lower back spin numbers than I'm used to, I think a lot had to do with the swings. A few times I got a little flippy and caught the ball low on the face. Which brings me to forgiveness. There's a ton of it here. Shots low on the face were not penalized much at all. I also hit some off the toe and on the heel side of the face with minimal distance and direction deviations. The most distance I lots was about 8 yards.

I walked away very impressed with this iron and see at least parts of, if not all of the set in my bag. I love the GI performance, the better players looks and just overall goodness of this club.

Tapping away on my Galaxy 2 Note

Question about your fitting. What kind of costs are involved with a fitting? Do they expect you to order a set through them as well?

 

[adamw238]

Question about your fitting. What kind of costs are involved with a fitting? Do they expect you to order a set through them as well?

It all depends on where you go. Golftec and Club Champion are $150. Golf Galaxy and Golfsmith are about $50. None of them expect you to buy, but some with waive the fitting fee if you purchase through them. PGA Superstore is free and well...yeah...it's a free fitting.

I've only ordered one set at the place I was fit.


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[Hole-N-7]

Hit both of these offerings at a recent fitting. I really liked them both. I picked up the JPX-850 forged as my next set. The feel was incredible for me (my 1st time hitting forged clubs). The ball flight was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to get a lower flight then what my game improvement MX-19 irons were giving me. The best part was finding the right shaft for me through the shaft optimizer. After that I was able to find out the best shaft for me was the Project X 5.5. And so I went to order them and the best part was there is no upcharge from Mizuno for a different shaft. To compare Ping was charging a $30/shaft upcharge for the Project X shafts.

Thanks for the update. Preordered these a week or so ago sight unseen, can't wait to get them.

 

[JMN57]

Question about your fitting. What kind of costs are involved with a fitting? Do they expect you to order a set through them as well?

Another data point - I went to a pro who owns a driving range and is a Top 100 Golf Magazine fitter - the charge was $300 but if you purchased, it was reduced to $125. I probably paid more for this and also the clubs than I needed to but, since this was my first ever fitting, I wanted to have a good experience and I felt that selecting someone that had received lots of recognition as a pro & club fitter to maximize that chance. I was very pleased with him, the club fitting process and the outcome so it was worth it to me.

 

[adamw238]

These irons look sooo much better than the 825 pros. Can anyone that has hit these compare them to an MP 53 or MP 54?

Hotter off the face than both the 53 and 54. It looks like they used a similar milled pocket in the 850 as they did in the 54. 850 is a touch bigger in terms of club length, top line and sole. 850 is more forgiving as well, IMO.

 

[dmccrum1]

Sign me up. I like those strong lofts. Especially if the COG issue is better.

Apologies if I'm late to the game and have missed something but what was the previous issue with COG?

I'm very interested in these beauties so just wondered what you were referring to, any info appreciated!

 

[Hole-N-7]

Apologies if I'm late to the game and have missed something but what was the previous issue with COG?

I'm very interested in these beauties so just wondered what you were referring to, any info appreciated!

I have been wondering and searching for the same info but couldn't come up with anything...

 

[Hawk]

JPX EZ Forged and MP54's had quite a few people comment after testing (including myself) about higher than normal launch angles and lower than expected ball speeds, which basically translated to low distance. Even with S300 shaft I was seeing much higher launch angles and lower balls speeds than similar irons in lighter shafts.

 

[Hole-N-7]

Interesting...but then again those clubs were engineered for a higher launch to begin with...the ball speed is a bit concerning however. Through a lot of trial and error I have found that for my crappy steep swing and resulting higher launch and spin characteristics, any type of GI club requires a tweaking of the lofts by a degree or degree and a half stronger to get optimal launch, spin, and ball speed numbers. Hopefully I can leave my 850 Forged alone when I get them, I ordered mine with C Taper Lites. My AP2 have been tweaked 1.5 degrees strong in the long irons and 1 degree in the short and they're pretty much perfect. This makes them match up loft wise almost identical to the 850 Forged.

 

[Hawk]

Just to add to that, not all people observed that issue, but it was one that we heard mulitiple times.

 

[adamw238]

Interesting...but then again those clubs were engineered for a higher launch to begin with...the ball speed is a bit concerning however. Through a lot of trial and error I have found that for my crappy steep swing and resulting higher launch and spin characteristics, any type of GI club requires a tweaking of the lofts by a degree or degree and a half stronger to get optimal launch, spin, and ball speed numbers. Hopefully I can leave my 850 Forged alone when I get them, I ordered mine with C Taper Lites. My AP2 have been tweaked 1.5 degrees strong in the long irons and 1 degree in the short and they're pretty much perfect. This makes them match up loft wise almost identical to the 850 Forged.

The lofts are a bit stronger on the 850s out of the box and explained what I saw when I went for my fitting and hit these and the MP15s. The 15s were about 2* higher and about 800 rpm more.


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[mpeterson]

JPX EZ Forged and MP54's had quite a few people comment after testing (including myself) about higher than normal launch angles and lower than expected ball speeds, which basically translated to low distance. Even with S300 shaft I was seeing much higher launch angles and lower balls speeds than similar irons in lighter shafts.

That was one of the reasons I went for the 825 over the EZ forged. Similar profiles and target players, but I was getting much better launch with the 825. I hit a high ball to begin with, and I was hitting the ball really high with the EZ forged.

 

[Hole-N-7]

The lofts are a bit stronger on the 850s out of the box and explained what I saw when I went for my fitting and hit these and the MP15s. The 15s were about 2* higher and about 800 rpm more.

This actually doesn't surprise me a whole lot...I always see people say that they want a player's iron to keep trajectory down, but even many player's irons nowadays have low CG to aid launch and forgiveness in the longer clubs. (AP2, MP-64, MP-54, MP-59 and 15, S55, Apex Pro, i-25, the list goes on). Couple the low CG with the higher lofts and it can be a recipe for towering shots for me. I rather prefer the lower spin and penetrating trajectory I get with a modest CB design, which is contrary to what almost everyone else on forums says, i.e, blades are low and penetrating.

Ironically the lowest launching iron I ever hit was a standard XHot 6i I picked out of the demo bag and hit about a dozen times on the range one day for giggles. For a guy that usually hits pretty high, it was kinda crazy watching this big GI iron launch these low-mid rockets. I played JDM blades (RomaRo Pro Forged) pretty much all last season and it took 2 degrees stronger lofts to keep them down. They didn't really launch so high as they spun quite a bit. Had a baby girl in January and thus made the move back to more forgiving irons this spring. :act-up:

 

[adamw238]

Ironically the lowest launching iron I ever hit was a standard XHot 6i I picked out of the demo bag and hit about a dozen times on the range one day for giggles. For a guy that usually hits pretty high, it was kinda crazy watching this big GI iron launch these low-mid rockets. I played JDM blades (RomaRo Pro Forged) pretty much all last season and it took 2 degrees stronger lofts to keep them down. They didn't really launch so high as they spun quite a bit. Had a baby girl in January and thus made the move back to more forgiving irons this spring. :act-up:

I have had the best launch with the Bio Cell irons. There's a reason for the stronger lofts and it's not just distance.


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[tgtt]

Not to debate the guy or what he says but just the 1st video I've seen about them:

 

[CRB357]

The trampoline effect is not something that can be debated. If you make the face thinner and add that weight to the perimeter, you have more distance and more forgiveness. It's physics. What I really like about the 850 forged is that the Boron will hopefully make the club a little tougher and ding resistant, which should allow us to play these a lot longer than a normal set of Mizuno forgings, plus not have to check the loft/lie so often to make sure they are correct. I'm really looking forward to getting these.

 

[Hole-N-7]

Was able to hit these Saturday against the H5. Hit both with the CTL S.

I was was swinging really well Saturday and striping both but actually preferred the feel of the 850. As expected with the loft difference and higher launch tendencies of the H5 I hit them higher with more spin and less distance. Also found it very hard to knock down the H5 with that shaft combo. My knockdown was more like a perfect trajectory with the H5 but I'm normally a high ball hitter.

The 850 has a slimmer topline to me but was definitely longer heel to toe as expected. Impact patterns were almost identical and centered so that makes me feel better about choosing these shafts in my preorder for the 850. I wanted to hit these while I still had the chance to cancel my order if I didn't like them but couldn't really find anything to complain about other than the blade length being longer than I normally play. (Recent irons 714 AP2, Cally Legacy Black Stenson model, 2013 ONOFF Forged, RomaRo blades).

GreaT irons and I have no qualms about my order.

 

[Lockman850]

Can't wait to hear some more feedback about these. I'm torn between these and the mp-15. Not sure but as of now not that interested in the mp-h5. How about you guys??

 

[niteowl03]

Can't wait to hear some more feedback about these. I'm torn between these and the mp-15. Not sure but as of now not that interested in the mp-h5. How about you guys??

I keep thinking about a 4 H5, 5-7 850 forged, 8-PW MP15. But I will probably just end up with the MP15 and leaving my SCOR 43&47 in the bag

 

[adamw238]

Can't wait to hear some more feedback about these. I'm torn between these and the mp-15. Not sure but as of now not that interested in the mp-h5. How about you guys??

I hit the H5 and wasn't impressed by it. Ball flight was too high and it felt too soft, if that's even possible. Just didn't feel solid at impact. But that's just my opinion. Love both the 850 forged and the MP15. I ordered a combo set of 4,5 850 Forged and 6-P MP15. I'm also putting recoil 110s in them which has me even more excited.

 

[Bog33y]

I demo'd a 6i briefly with a C-taper 110 in it and as a higher handicapper I was surprised by how easy it was to hit. My swing was grooving well that day and a majority of my hits were center face... smooth and buttery. Feeling wise, I very much preferred it over the cast version I demo'd last week. I already placed an order for Bio Cells so going Mizuno forged will have to wait a while. But when the time comes, budget (ahem wife) willing, I will be targeting Mizuno forged for sure.

 

[golfdawg]

Not to debate the guy or what he says but just the 1st video I've seen about them:

would be interesting if the gains where true vs 825 pro, but same specs

 

[Sjc_81]

I Hit the 850 forged today only 10-15 balls, but I will go back for a proper demo. Put the 6 iron next to my mp60 and looked incredibly similar just a little bit bigger. Enjoyed hitting them possibly because they have a similar look to what I am used to though.


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