UST Mamiya Helium Shaft Review - Specs, Flex, Weight

UST Mamiya Helium Shaft Review – Specs, Flex, Weight

UST Mamiya Helium Shaft

In today’s world of increasingly light shafts, it can be really hard to determine which ones will actually work for your swing.

Traditionally, lightweight wood shafts are severely lacking in stability and are useful only to the greenest of golfers.

UST Mamiya has become known for their lightweight iron and wood shafts even as the market seems to be ballooning.

One reason the company stands out is that in addition to lightweight design, they also focus on stability. A great example of that dual focus is the UST Mamiya Helium shafts.

The UST Mamiya Helium shafts are ridiculously lightweight and are designed to help slower swinging players get more distance.

But is there enough stability and periphery performance perks to make this a viable shaft for you? Let’s find out.

UST Mamiya Helium Shaft Overview

We’ll get into the heart of the specs very shortly but for now, to give you an idea of how light these shafts are, the heaviest one checks in at 56 grams.

Aside from the weight, what you need to know about these shafts is that they are counterbalanced.

A lot of players don’t like the feel of counterbalanced shafts – mainly because they don’t really jive with smaller driver heads.

But with more mass added to the butt section, the UST Mamiya Helium works really well with larger, game improvement driver heads.

The counterbalancing allows for more control over larger club heads so that you don’t get the noodly feeling that other lightweight, non-counterbalanced shafts tend to yield.

Again, this isn’t for everyone but keep in mind that the UST Mamiya Helium was designed for mortal swingers.

Another thing that should give you an idea of who this shaft was made for is that stiff flex is only available for the stiffest shaft in the series.

As far as feel goes, our testers got the sense that they were getting a ton of help in terms of club head speed.

The UST Mamiya Helium loads up and releases smoothly without you having to swing out of your shoes.

There is definitely a kick that occurs just under the grip area; but we wouldn’t call it jarring by any means.

Why is the UST Mamiya Helium So Popular?

UST Mamiya Helium Shaft1

The last thing you should know about this shaft is that it has actually been discontinued.

Still, people are seeking it out and buying it secondhand because it is a great shaft for beginners and high handicappers.

The UST Mamiya Helium is nothing if not a distance-generating machine.

We suspect that people like it so much because it allows them to get the club head going faster than most graphite shafts.

How Does the UST Mamiya Helium Perform?

Let’s talk about spin first to get it out of the way.

Yes, the UST Mamiya Helium yields pretty high spin rates. None of our testers were able to get the ball to spin lower than 2500 RPMs.

In general, our drives were staying in the 2600 RPM range. However, that’s only to be expected with a counterbalanced shaft that is so darn light.

The UST Mamiya Helium absolutely favors a smoother tempo. Many of our more aggressive tempo testers were having trouble with chunking.

However, our smoother transition testers had no problem finding the sweet spot and getting phenomenal carry distance. One thing that surprised us were the launch angles.

We were expecting 14+ degrees but the UST Mamiya Helium stayed in the 12° – 13° range.

They still launch pretty high; just not as high as we were expecting. Divergence was a bit of an issue though.

We were regularly getting dispersion greater than 14 yards on all but the most accurate strikes. Still, the star of the show is distance and the UST Mamiya Helium provided plenty of that.

So long as our testers were semi-accurate, they were getting carry distances in the 260 – 270 yard range. Mind you, these aren’t powerful swingers.

UST Mamiya Helium Shaft Specs

Specs	UST Mamiya Helium
Available flexes	Ladies, Amateur, Regular, Stiff
Weight	43g, 45g, 46g, 52g, 55g, 56g
Tip	.335”
Length	46”

What Flexes Are Available? What Swing Speeds Do They Suit?

Ladies flex would be good for swing speeds under 70 MPH.

Amateur is more for 70 – 75 MPH. Regular is good for 75 – 85 MPH and stiff flex suits 85 – 90 MPH swingers.

What Weights Are Available?

The 40 gram weight class is good for sub 70 to 80 MPH swingers.

The 50g class is for 80+ MPH swingers.

Why is it So Good?

The UST Mamiya Helium is a good choice for beginners and high handicappers because it will add distance to your drives so long as you are moderately accurate.