Hi Guys, Just curious, members from UK, from where do you guys purchase shuttles? The cheapest AS 30/ Victor gold champion I can get is around 18.3 Pounds (including shipping). Are there any places that can do better ? Our club season has just begun and shuttles are the most deciding factor when it comes to cost of running. regards,
Not sure about the Victor shuttles, but AS30 are generally £20 a dozen at best, if you can get them any cheaper than that you will have done very well. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Ever thought to sign a contract with Yonex or Victor or any other brand? Every club I played at had a contract about the estimated amount of tubes per year and depending on the amount you can take for a whole year you get a good price and the guarantee that they don't rise. IMO much better than ordering from different sources in small quantities. I'm not from the UK, but know very well to run a club and if you run a serious badminton club such a contract for shuttles is the bread and butter. Your 18.3 are damn cheap for AS30. UK is normally a bit more expensive than Germany and your 18.3 is an excellent price. Where do you get them at this price in the UK?
If you're willing to bulk buy (25-50 tubes per purchase), contact Ling Mei, and look at either the LM 70s or 90s.
It’s not very exciting. My club refused to change shuttles on principle because fees went up. So much so, they refused to even finish trying the shuttles. I have since left that club because I didn’t feel like there was anything productive I could do, discussions were always held behind closed doors, nobody had a clear idea of everything going on at the club. I don’t have the shuttles to take pictures. When I left I returned all of the shuttles as I had been reimbursed for their purchase; I did not consider them to be mine. What I can say is that the ling mei shuttles were very good. I didn’t notice any real difference between 70s and 80s, so I found 70s and 90s to be the best option to get a good shuttle. The 90 didn’t beat the AS50, but at its price point it doesn’t need to beat it. The shuttles are a good deal, especially if the club is VAT registered, as you can reclaim import taxes. The 70s worked out at like £11 per tube, and are similar to yehlex orange in quality.
That's a shame about your club. I'm still amazed at the amount of clubs playing with AS30. Will PM you for some details about the Ling Mei.
Interesting.. I play with the orange Yehlex atm for £16/tube, so if you say Ling Mei are similar, for that price I might as well give it a go. How much were the 90s per tube, taking postage into account? Do you have a contact email?
I was quoted $14.50 per tube for 90s (currently £11). 10 shuttles per tube. ( = £1.10 per shuttle) EMS was ~$40 (£30.4) for 25 tubes, $80 for 50 tubes. Need to account for VAT/import duty (which can be written off if your club is VAT registered as a disposable sports good), and any difference in cost for the transfer. Everything accounted for, I worked out the Ling Mei 90s at just over £14 per dozen shuttles. You'll have to contact them for more, and then work out numbers for yourselves.
My senior and junior clubs have switched to Sizhuangge No.1 shuttles. Recently new on the UK market, and as good as AS30s and Babolat No.1s for flight quality but they last twice as long. Currently we pay £16.20 per tube of 12, so we're saving a small fortune compared to our normal cost of £20.50 for AS30s from the local retail supplier in Cardiff.
Ooo this is interesting. Recently tested Ling Mei's and although they are good shuttles, but they're probably not worth the risk of variable import charges. I assuming it's from vpc badminton? They describe it as quite light compared to As30? Do you know if they as light as yehlex premiership? Also they're only speed 77, do they fly as fast enough to cover regular 78 or are they slow/normal 77s? Sent from my MI 8 using Tapatalk
Yes, we get ours from vpbadminton (not vpc). I order directly through their facebook page as prices are slightly cheaper through that channel rather than their ebay site. They're very quick to respond to questions through facebook and will chat to you about the specs, comparison to other shuttles etc. Regarding specs we find them to be about the same weight as AS30s. The tubes are foil lined so perhaps they keep their moisture better. They fly well, they're certainly not slow like an AS30 77 speed after a few rallies. We used them in a recent junior tournament and the players had no trouble hitting baseline to baseline. vpbadminton have said the manufacturer have upgraded the shuttles after feedback about the flight path but we had no issues with the original order. I know a lot of clubs in South Wales have now switched to these shuttles.
I believe this is the bird you're referring to: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=562416252499 It's a goose feather + full cork head. i've purchased 5 tubes to test last year and they are definitely a good bird. Some pics:
I've ordered some SZG No.1 shuttles from VPBadminton, so should arrive early next week. Super friendly people and they said as the factory is quite new, let them know about the performance/any issues and they'll relay it back to the factory. I should also have delivered a few Ling Mei 90s by end of January, so I'll do a comparison between all of them in due time.
Quick review of the recent shuttles suggested on here. LM90 good shuttle, flies well and seems to provide a solid feedback. Cork will get deformed from the side after a while. LM70. Now this one was a strange one. Durability better than shuttles around the same price. However the feel was rather light and this shuttle almost flew like a plastic, didn't slow down much and trajectory on drives was rather flat. Lots of complaints about this aspect. Final verdict: LM90 is good, but compared to our current Yehlex Premiership, it's not worth the potential extra cost. If we could guarantee it would be cheaper or same price as our current, then we would've swapped to this. Unfortunately we cannot and we stuck with the premierships. Next we tried 1 tube of SZG No.1. (Recommend looking out for eBay 15% codes and buy it when it next comes up.) Positive feedback. Felt slightly lighter and softer than Yehlex Premierships. Durability was comparable. One flaw though was that these seemed to fluff up more than other shuttles and lose it's speed quicker than our currents. This was a tough one, at £16.20 bulk purchase price, this is a 70-80% no. Premierships seem to last longer in an optimum flying state. There were a couple of times of swapping out the SZG1, because they were flying too slow. At eBay+voucher code price of just over £15, this is the harder question. I haven't asked for opinions at this price point, but I'll have to ask around. All in all, it was nice to see what was out there. Also, I'm surprised that the premiership isn't a more popular shuttle.
Our local club and league only play with AS20 and the cheapest price for us is £18.50 delivered if purchased in bulk. Came upon this thread and decided to try a few tubes of the SZG No1 speed 77 as it would be a no brainer for me to change if they last longer than the AS20. Initially tried a couple No1 shuttles of with some low level players. In my opinion this is the biggest test for longevity as I’ve seen shuttles destroyed as quick as a few hits due to incorrect timing and technique. First impression was that the No1 was slightly faster than our current Speed 3 AS20 straight out of the tube but for me this is a positive as I’ll be using these shuttles for personal games and training. Speed did settle down over the course of the games but flight stayed fairly good and was still playable even after 2 games. We had a local men’s doubles competition the following day so I brought out the No1 for a couple of experienced players to try out for their warm up. Same reaction to the slightly faster speed straight out of the tube but they were very impressed on how well the No1 held up. For me the SZG no1 is definitely an improvement over the AS20 and I’ve already ordered another 15 tubes for my own use. £243 for the No1 as opposed to £277.50 for the AS20 makes it definitely worth while changing over. Everyone chips in for the shuttles when I organise games so it makes sense to play with a longer lasting shuttlecock. I’ve attached a pic of the AS20 (left) next to the SZG No1.
The LM70s were 0.02g lighter than the LM90s when I tried them. Didn't have complaints about trajectory, but they were slower/lighter than expected by a little bit. If you're in a situation where you can order a large quantity (25-50 tubes minimum) and can claim the VAT back, the 70s and 90s are really good choices. It's quite a specific set of circumstances though, hence the caveat of working out the numbers for yourself. The 90s weren't the best shuttles I've ever used, but they didn't need to be at the price per dozen. The durability and flight is good enough to compare to AS30s, in my opinion, with the durability being better in most circumstances; at a lower cost, they make a very good shuttle choice. Again that comes with the asterisk of being in the right circumstance to use them.
Unfortunately, we don't claim our vat back. Not sure on the limitations but I'm pretty sure we don't run ours as a business. Anyway, it's a no brainer if you comparing these shuttles to as30 or as20. Really don't rate the quality of as30 at the price you pay for. You're either paying for the full Cork experience or Yonex brand. But whats the point of full Cork when the feathers are going to break way before a 3 layered Cork going to deform. Sent from my MI 8 using Tapatalk