Last summer, we had the opportunity to check out the innards of McDermott's G-Core shaft.  Well, thanks to the folks at UPS, we have another shaft to look at - The Predator 314 shaft.  What's interesting about this shaft isn't so much what's inside, but what's not inside it.  As you can see, the end of the shaft is actually hollowed out.

This doesn't run down the whole shaft though, as it only occurs in the front five inches or so.  The rest of the shaft is solid, with the laminated "pie piece" core.

The question of course is why they hollow out the front end of the shaft.  The science behind this is actually pretty logical.  The lighter the front end of the shaft is, the less deflection you'll experience.  Predator pool cues have a patent on this hollowing out process and have shown in independent tests that it does in fact reduce deflection quite a bit.  Other shaft makers use the reduced weight front end, but none do it the same way as Predator.

That's all.  Just thought I'd share, since I thought it was cool.

Edit: There were some folks who wanted to see what the other portion of the shaft looked like, so here's the non-hollowed out cut.