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11six24 Vapor Power2 Review | HexGrit is Legit
Chris OlsonQuick Summary
The 11six24 brings combines full foam core performance with their new HexGrit which is now data backed and shown to last considerably longer than raw carbon fiber paddles. In a test of 100 games, the Vapor Power2 lost less than 100 RPM, while other competing raw carbon fiber paddles lost nearly 300 RPM in the same 100 games. This is a great paddle for people who are addicted to spin and don't want it to wear out quickly and like mid tier power paddles.
Pros
- Proven longer lasting texture compared to raw carbon fiber paddles
- Priced competitively
- Comes in all three shapes
Cons
- There have been reports of paddles delaminating quickly, however customer service seems to be quick to replace these
The Vapor Power2 makes a big promise on grit longevity with HexGrit, and it actually delivers. In this review we've done long term testing to see exactly how it has held up. Lives dive in.
Specs
The Vapor Power2 is only UPA-A certified
Probably one of the most relevant pieces of information you will need before deciding if this is right for you, is that these paddles will only have UPA-A certification. I’m going to try and make this really brief, but it’s worth explaining so people aren’t confused.
There are two governing bodies right now. USAP and UPA-A. USAP is the governing body that most of you are familiar with and the majority of paddles have been certified by until this year.
UPA-A is the governing body for the PPA Tour pro game. Players that play pro divisions at the PPA, have to use a UPA-A certified paddle. So, for about 99.99% of you, UPA-A certification is a bit irrelevant, since local tournaments, APP Tour, and even the PPA Tour for amateurs have historically followed USAPs rules.
Now, the reasons it’s relevant to you here, is that the Power2 only has UPA-A certification. There are some tournaments that might disallow you from using this paddle because of the lack of USAP certification, and if you play in those, you will probably want to know.
Some tournaments that would strictly not allow you to use it would be:
- Any APP Tour tournament
- the US Open
- USAP Nationals
These tournaments all strictly follow USAP rules.
Now the area where it’s a bit murky and more relevant for most of you, is local tournaments. I’ve heard different things all around the country. Some areas only allow USAP paddles, others don’t care as long as it has one of the two governing body stamps. So, if you play a lot of local tournaments, you may want to ask your tournament directors which rules they follow so you don’t get turned away because of your paddle.
In my area, the tournaments don’t care. As long as it has a USAP or UPA-A stamp.
We’ve actually already seen this one time with another very popular paddle about a year and a half ago when the Joola 3S came out, it was also only UPA-A certified, and I saw plenty of people using those in various local tournaments and rec parks.
So, there’s a good chance it’s not really going to matter for most of you watching. But, if you play tournaments, just make sure you know what rules they use. it would suck to spend $200 dollars, just to be told you can’t use your paddle.
Why doesn't the Vapor Power2 have USAP certification?
Now you might be wondering, why is it only UPA-A certified and not dual certified? The reason is because the texture of their paddle is too rough to pass USAPs certification test. This is probably one of the roughest feeling paddles I have ever touched, so if you’re someone who always touches your paddle to see how rough they are, you’ll probably be very happy with how gritty it is.
USAP currently passes or fails paddles based on a roughness test of the surface, and UPA-A certifies paddles based on RPMs measured by shooting a ball out of a cannon at the paddle, and measuring the actual spin rate from the paddle.
So, UPA-A allows you to possibly have a rougher texture than USAP depending on the build of your paddle. In the context of the Power2, it’s simply too rough to pass USAP with HexGrit applied to the paddle. At this time, 11six24 has said that they don’t have plans to make a USAP certified version.
HexGrit spin durability
In my opinion, the single most relevant talking point about the Power2 is HexGrit. I’m not going to repeat all of the information about our testing process, so if you do want to know exactly how we have ran our longevity tests of grit, I would highly recommend you go and watch our Spartus P1 Review where we break all of that down.
Today, I’m just going to give you the results. And before you go to the comments yes, I know everyone still wants results on the other long lasting textures, that is still being worked on.
Our Power2 tested at 2,141 RPM when brand new, and after logging 100 games equivalent between drilling and actual games, the paddle only dropped to 2,071 RPM. For reference, the two raw carbon fiber paddles we have tested so far, the Loco and the Franklin C45, those dropped from the 2,000 RPM range down to the 1,700 and 1,600 RPM ranges.
Which is a bit higher of a drop than what we saw on the Spartus P1, but I think it’s also worth pointing out that when I finished that review, the P1 had 84 games equivalent on it, and the raw carbon fiber paddles and the Power2 all have 100 logged. So, the difference in that drop could just be that the P1 is still missing some games.
But, overall in my testing so far, HexGrit clearly holds up meaningfully longer than the raw carbon fiber paddles we have tested so far, which is great to see. Even just touching it with my hand, there is no area that feels considerably smoother. By this time on a raw carbon fiber paddle, there are usually very clear areas that are showing smoothing.
The things I would say to keep in mind are that these are just my results from where I play with one paddle. While this is great early data, we’re going to need to see these paddles in more locations and more testing to really figure out how they will hold up. Maybe there are certain environments or conditions where it will wear down faster. But in the testing I have done currently, it’s held up great.
How does the paddle feel at ball contact?
Now let’s talk about some of the on court performance aspects of the paddle.
If I had to try and describe the feel of the Power2, I think it sits pretty perfectly between the Spartus P1, and the Bread & Butter Loco.
The Loco is very hollow and stiff, while the P1 is denser and feels more plush.
The Power2 to me, is less stiff and hollow than a Loco, but not as dense and soft as a P1. To me, it sits a little bit closer to the spectrum of hollow and stiffer paddles, it just doesn’t take it to the extremes like some other paddles do.
You definitely feel the ball off the face, this is not one of those foam paddles that is muted or difficult to feel the vibrations getting to your arm. So, if you want a softer more dense feeling paddle, the Power2 might not be for you, but if you like something that is a little bit closer to the hollow and stiff spectrum but not all the way at the extreme, I think the Power2 would fit well.
How powerful is the Vapor Power2?
For power, I would place it mid tier out of the box. I think it’s below paddles like the Loco, Inferno, and Boomstik.
Out of the box it feels pretty poppy, but power on drives and serves felt a little lacking, like the paddle just wasn’t pushing the ball as much as I expected. But once you put some weight on the paddle, I do find that the issue with drives goes away.
If I’m comparing it against something like the Spartus P1, it feels poppier than that, but maybe slightly slower on drives. But a lot of that could easily be chalked up to the differences in swing weight, since the Vapor is 111, and the P1 is 116. So, naturally the higher swing weight would plow through the ball better on drives. So, the trade off with the Power2 is that it is lighter out of the box and you can customize it, but it might not be exactly what you want right away.
Overall I like that it comes lighter, because with paddles like the Spartus P1 starting heavier, you can’t do anything to fix that if you don’t like it. Whereas on the Power2, you can add weight to solve any issues you might have.
The profile I would categorize the Power2 as, is more pop and less power. So, for compact strokes like resets, counters, dinks, the ball comes off pretty quick, and then for full swings, it felt less than some other comparable options currently. At least, out of the box.
I do think that if you’re someone that struggles with paddles that are poppy, this is one you may want to try before you fully commit. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it a difficult paddle to use, I did find myself on dinks and third shot drops struggling slightly more than I normally would.
Even by the end of this review with 100 games, I never found myself fully dialing it in like I have with other paddles.
There was just this occasional inconsistency in thirds either missing lower than I expected, or quite a bit higher, and then for dinks having a similar issue. It wasn’t so bad that I felt like I couldn’t play with the paddle, I just found that I was missing more routine shots than I expected. It’s one of those weird things where I like how the paddle plays, I just found that at times I wasn’t as consistent with it as I would like.
At this point it must just be a preference thing, and less about the paddle, I’ve played with paddles that are objectively poppier and more powerful and had less issues. I think for me it’s more to do with how the ball feels when hitting on those soft shots that maybe trips me up more than some of the other paddles I’ve used like the Loco. Because in just about every way I would say the Loco should be more difficult to control than the Power2.
While soft shots occasionally gave me some issues, I did love it for hands battles. I thought the pop was great and it felt good enough to feel like I could get ahead when I needed to, and once it was weighted, the issue for drives went away entirely.
I actually played this paddle in an open division moneyball, and got third place. So, it’s not like it’s impossible for me to play with, just some small inconsistencies here or there.
I would say, if you excel at the net and love to counter speed ups, or like having a paddle that does a lot of the work for you on resets, then I think the Power2 fits that really well. But, if you’re someone that really struggles with your soft game or having too much pop, than you might want to demo a Power2 before you fully commit to buying one.
Sweet spot
As far as the sweet spot goes, I would say it’s average, but my preference would be to always have weight on the paddle. I just found that in stock form there was a little bit of twisting on resets, and some weight at the head helped with some plow through against the ball.
With everyone doing very similar builds of paddles these days, it makes sense that everything feels about the same in terms of sweet spot size.
I think it’s one of those paddles that people would call acceptable out of the box, but you could gain some extra performance by adding just a bit of weight. We’ve honestly gotten so spoiled by paddles like the Loco and Boomstik that I think the expectation for sweet spot is higher than it has ever been before.
How should you weight the Vapor Power2?
Which, speaking of weight, the final setup that I landed on and enjoyed was taking the 5 gram slyce slyders and placing them at 3 and 9, and then adding roughly a 5” strip of half gram tungsten at the head of the paddle.
I rarely add weight to the head of paddles, but it just felt like it helped with the plow through on the Power2 and made the sweet spot feel a bit more comfortable up at the head.
This took the specs from: a 111 swing weight and 6.57 twist weight to a 119 swing weight and a 7.64 twist weight.
I don’t think most people need to go this heavy in order to get a good playing Vapor Power2, but I found that this setup worked really well for what I wanted the paddle to do. I did try one other setup which was around 6 inches of 1 gram per inch weight from the bottom corners up the sides, but it just felt like it could use a little bit more than that setup for what I wanted.
Most people out there, I think if you just put a bit of weight close to 3 and 9 or just above the bottom corners, it would be plenty to tune this up nicely.
Who is the Vapor Power2 for?
Alright, let’s wrap up this review. On the whole, I think the Vapor Power2 is one of the more interesting paddles you can buy right now. Both Spartus and 11six24 have created grit that is far exceeding the expectations of what we have normally come to expect from raw carbon fiber, and that is the biggest reason you should consider buying the Power2.
Grit wearing down has been one of the most frustrating issues for players, and we are finally starting to see some textures that hold up considerably longer, which is amazing for the consumer. The combination of a full foam core plus longer lasting grit is going to give people paddles that are playable for much longer at a higher level of performance.
Of course, more research is going to need to be done to really know what the lifespan of these looks like, but the early results at 100 games equivalent is looking pretty interesting.
So, the fact that the Power2 can have better texture durability and match the performance of many of the other paddles on the market all while being at a reasonable price, I think that makes it a very compelling option to consider.
For myself, I would definitely place this paddle in my top 5 to consider as my main. I think the only thing that makes it not an immediate main, is just dialing in some of the softer stuff that I was talking about. I think there are a few other paddles for myself that I play a little better with overall, but maybe I just need a little bit more time it.
In the recent flood of foam paddles and many companies barely do anything to set themselves apart, I think 11six24 has found a recipe that is worth considering more than a lot of the options that have come out in the last month or two.
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Chris Olson is an independent pickleball equipment reviewer with a 4.70 DUPR rating, he has tested over 400 paddles since 2021, each with a minimum 10 hours of on-court play time. Companies are never able to pay for or influence a review. Follow his reviews on YouTube and the Pickleball Studio Podcast.
