Japanese Forged Irons

MitchKent · June 21

Hi all,

I've been reading the forum for a while, I'm hoping somebody can point me in a few directions if possible.

I currently play the Kyoei Dual Weight II irons (have read all the stuff about the company on here...!)...had them for a few years, I'm an 8 handicapper, my irons are comfortably the best part of my game.

I'm looking for a second set of irons to have, and would like some recommendations on a soft feel, Japanese forged iron, something with fairly minimal design - happy to buy something off ebay/similar and don't want to buy brand new stock for these. I like the feel of the Kyoei clubs and am perfectly happy with them, just looking for something slightly different.

Any help or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Edited June 21 by MitchKent

Drivingrangehero · June 22

Many of the Japanese brands will have s25c or S20c forging, (older models of Mizuno MP series which were known for there butter soft feel, were 1025 mild carbon which is s25c equivalent, now they are Boron and Chromoly infused 1025E)

Vega, RomaRo, SEVEN, Fujimoto, Honma, PRGR, Fourteen, Miura…… etc! Some are more sleek and some more busy than others

Note, not all “Japanese” irons are forged in Japan, some are forged blanks from China or Taiwan, then heated and shaped in Japan

tsupo · June 22

good alt to these ARE prgr IDBL

minimal offset.

s25s endo

mid sise head with decent sole width.

fuller head so feel is outrageous.

MitchKent · June 22

Could anyone comment on how hard to hit/forgiving the Epon Personal 2 iron, or the Epon AF Tour MB sets are?

Equally anyone got any experience with the Grindworks MB1 irons? I like the minimal design element on these clubs, worried they might be a little too unforgiving for me.

Equally the Bridgestone 241CBs....are these 4 above all Japanese forged?

Have any of these clubs ever been counterfit? I was looking at the Fourteen TC7 irons but I noticed a few pop up on the likes of AliExpress which put me off!

Sorry for all the questions - still learning!

Equally if anyone has any further recommendations, I'm all ears. Probably looking around the 500-800 mark for these irons ideally.

Many thanks

subrew · June 22

As someone who has a LOT of sets of Japanese forged irons, I will say you need to pick a style, then zoom in. Do you want some blades? Or a nice tour sized cavity back? Or something a bit easier to hit with a undercut. Often times they will offer 3-5 different models of clubs in the same year. So you have a lot of options.

If you translate that so say Taylormade, in a given year you can get P7MB, P7MC, P7CB, P770, P790 etc. Someone like a Tourstage will have that same type of range in any given year.

Where I think the JDM brands really do good are on small "tour style" heads, in a cavity back design. You essentially get something small like a P7MB style head size, but in a more forgiving cavity back. Sometimes the cavity will be quite deep, and even have an undercut.

Your budget is decently high enough to get stuff that is only a couple years old. But something else to consider is you can get a lot of really good condition stuff for under $200. I'm currently building these sets:

Royal Collection BBD 706V, PRGR GN502 Tour, Yamaha Inpres X Tourmodel, Tourstage X-Blade 701G. The most expensive set of heads was $150, and two of them were under $100/set. They are in very good to excellent condition. For your budget, you could get something like a blade and a more forgiving undercut cavity back, just so you had a couple options to play around with depending on how your game is going.