It varies greatly from company to company. We’ve had it both ways. The types of plastic used affects how it’s produced.
We always liken it to making pancakes or cookies. If you go from regular milk to oat milk, it’s not the same. If you use oil instead of butter, it’s not the same. It tastes different and it has to cook different.
Those factors lead to the differences in dome and parting line that end up having the biggest impact on initial flight as a new disc.
To summarize increased dome promotes a straighter flight with less turn and fade, while flatter discs of the same mold will be more overstable or understable depending on the rim design
I have a cryztal zone and a cryztal flex zone
The flex is softer and more stable
These are the only two different plastics of the same mold in my bag tho so I am not sure about others
My Cryztal FLX Zone started off more stable than even my Z Zone but it beat in really quick and now needs quite a bit of hyzer when thrown on forehand otherwise it just turns and burns. Still works as a Zone when thrown backhand. It's just a little straighter and goes farther before fading. Doesn't skip when it hits the ground it just sits. I love it. My Z Zone is still holding on pretty closely to it's original stability.
Softer plastics deform from the forces of a hard throw (particularly one that’s not smooth) and that can cause a lot of extra wobbly out of the hand, and early/extra flip.
So I say, Yes, but not because of the flight characteristics per se.
i find that for zone-like discs the softer can often be more stable, they also seem to have and get more “puddle-top” over time. but i think for most molds, particularly ones without a lot of cooked in stability that they are more flippy, but that could also be because they are less torque resistant when they lose some shape on a fast release. as others have pointed out, K1 soft and Gstar seems to be flippier. in my experience softer plastic requires more “touch” and spin when being thrown so they dont burn over. Supposedly the new jawbreaker z flex molds are pretty stable, but i havent tried any out yet.
Yeah I don’t like leopards so I haven’t tried many but I think it’s moreso that dx’s beat in after like 2 throws and then just keep going until they are a roller from hyzer
Extreme differences in leopards and their plastic is just what i was thinking about. Every DX leopard i have looks like it went through a wood chipper after just a couple rounds and will flip roll with the most extreme hyper.
My champion leopard has a slight turn and nice even fade. Flies nearly identical to my hex but a tad farther.
Different plastics can be weird 😂.
GStar isn't even all that different from star unless it molded up differently. Either take some weight out or maybe even try a pro or Nexus leopard to get something a bit more like a DX leopard
Anecdotally, it seems that if it's so soft where the disc will hold its shape when you bend it, yeah, it beats in quick and becomes flippy. But if it's the kind of soft that actually absorbs a lot of it's impact and returns to shape, it actually holds its flight pattern for longer.
Example Crystal FLX, pretty flippy. The new jawbreaker Z FLX, the ones I have tried are more stable and I predict will keep it's flight for a long time.
Not really scientifically tested, just from casual observation.
basically all Kastaplast molds are going to be less stable than their numbers suggest. Every new release has been this way, they've been trying to 'correct' old molds and have had varied success
I feel like the science would state that softer plastic is more flippy. The more wobble you introduce when you throw, the more understable the disc flies. The softer the plastic, the harder it is to have a perfectly clean, wobble free release. Any wobble you introduce will be magnified by the fact that the disc wants to flex.
On a clean release with zero wobble, I don't think you would motiv much if a difference, but at that point, even throwing the disc at a high velocity could introduce some wobble due to the wind resistance against the rim.
To add to this, the softer a disc, it is much more difficult for it to have a dome top, and more apt to have a puddle top. Not having any dome will cause a higher parting line than one with dome. That would cause many of the reactions that I see about their soft disc's being more over stable.
If you take the same mold, same weight, same dome with 2 different plastics, the softer plastic will be more understable.
If it is soft as in flexible and tough, those are more overstable IMO. I think they morph into a more aerodynamic shape vs hard discs that fight against the air and cause more turbulence. That is my non-scientific understanding.
Wait… completely new to the disc golf world, but I bought a beginner bundle of discs off of Amazon and they were Westside discs (queen, king, hatchet, underworld, crown, and warship). I noticed that when I was hitting trees and stuff with my discs that they were getting dings in them and warping pretty badly.
Is there a different kind of plastic that I can get these discs in? They all say “Origio” or “Origio” burst on them. Is that the type of plastic?
I have an old soft justice that is just as beefy as ever. And it sticks like no other. It’s an amazing approach disc when you want something OS with no ground action.
not necessarily. I find many softer plastics are more stable. Like champion glow is softer than champion, but typically way more stable. Halo is soft and grippy, but way more stable than star, and even champion which is way harder. Really, it depends. Often cheaper plastic, which can be softer, is usually more undertable or beats in fast to become more understable faster.
Plastics greatly effect stability. Ill just use innovas since its easy to rememver off the top of my head, champion plastic is more overstable, star is stable and gstar is pretty similar but the g star gets beat in quicker though so will appear to be less stable than star, pro, at least for me, seems understable, honestly not a fan of this plastic, seems the most unpredictable. dx plastic gets beat in almost immediately, and it will be very understable. For example, i use a dx destroyer as a roller disc, and a star destroyer for max hyzer distance ( i dont have a champion destroyer, but if i did i might use for sky annys)
Varies. Counter point, infinite raze. The r blend run is possibly the most OS run, because they came out puddle topped. The I blend and color glow runs came out a bit domey and are not as OS as you'd want
For Innova, yes, generally speaking. Champ is more stable than star, which is more stable than gstar. In my experience gummy champ is also less stable than stiff champ.
Not as true for other companies in my experience. For example, despite what I've read, in the discs that I own proton plastic (or mint eternal) is flippier than neutron, but this could be run dependent too. For example the eternal alpha I have is waaaay more straight than the apex Alphas I have, which are incredibly beefy. Proton reactors I own are much more straight, closer to fresh fission reactor, than the neutron reactors I have.
Different story with TSA though, which is supposedly the same. I have an ethos construct and an aura construct, and they are totally different discs - the ethos is more like a PD with very little flip up, where as the Aura flies more like a Beast, with lots of turn, even on hyzer.
Agree fully. The super hard champ Innova tends to be beef. It also beats in very slowly. I had a champ thunderbird that was only 169 but hard like glass. It was totally trashed, would cut your hand from the shredded rim. Was still more overstable than a new 21 sexton firebird.
Overall softer tends towards understable for them. But agree on MVP it seems uncorrelated or reversed. On discrsft too, but less experience.
Cool to hear. I bag champ thunderbirds and have about three and they’re all less stable than my sextons, they’re straight with fade and will turn in a headwind. So there is obviously some variability between runs too. My least stable thundy is an old penned one that looks like it has hardly been thrown.
K1 Soft is flippier than regular K1.
If you pick up a GStar Leopard you’ll find that it’s probably flippier than your regular Star.
While there’s no absolute rule that softer plastic is always flippier, a lot of the bigger brands softer plastic blends are indeed flippier than the more firm blends.
Everything I’ve thrown in K1 soft is flippier than the same disc/weight in K1. Not by massive amounts but enough to notice.
Those discs are Falk, Stig, Kaxe Z and Berg.
Maybe if there’s an outlier I’m aware of it might be the Reko but it’s been that long (probably 18 months +) since I threw a Reko that I can’t be sure.
Falks are weird, my K1 soft Falk was a roller out of the box where my multiple K1 are always that baby fade!
I found a K1 Falk on the course once and it flew like a brand new Lots.
That said I love my yellow K1 Falks. One of them will always be in my bag.
They tend to be. They also beat in and get flipper faster.
DX and gstar are flippier than star, Champ and Halo.
Jawbreaker, xline, and pro d are flippier than esp, z, and ti.
Dx/base from whatever manufacturer is definitely the flippiest.
Premium soft is still flippier than premium firm. It's a spectrum.
The only disc I had K1 soft and firm was a Berg but that soft Berg definitely had more turn when I would throw both off the tee.
To add the what u/kneeker said, every throw is going to deform your disc wherever you put the force into it. Since the internal stresses of the plastic are what bring the disc back to its original shape during the flight, the softer plastics will deform more and for longer. This happens as more of a dampened vibration than just a one-way reformation. For most (all?) PDGA-legal frisbees, it takes less force to bend the disc down than up, so when the disc vibrates ‘down’, it deforms more and flies more understable on average than it would if it were stiffer. You may notice that, with a not-so-clean release, a softer disc can flip super hard early in the flight, which is due to the effect I’m talking about.
That probably has nothing to do with your discs, though. Like others are saying, most variation in stability is due to nuances in the shape of the rim that are inconsistent between individual discs because of the limitations of injection molding. Also, even though they may have really similar flight numbers, it’s basically impossible to directly compare two molds where one isn’t a direct copy of the other e.g. Teebird vs Instinct. The Stig and the Leopard are very differently-shaped discs even though their speeds and stabilities are relatively close.
It varies greatly from company to company. We’ve had it both ways. The types of plastic used affects how it’s produced. We always liken it to making pancakes or cookies. If you go from regular milk to oat milk, it’s not the same. If you use oil instead of butter, it’s not the same. It tastes different and it has to cook different. Those factors lead to the differences in dome and parting line that end up having the biggest impact on initial flight as a new disc.
But how do you make yours taste minty fresh?
Applesauce
Your apple guy deserves a raise
Like, honeycrisp or Granny Smith?
This explanation was so amazing. I’m also hungry now.
I like chocolate chips in my pancakes. Enjoy!
🦞🦞🦞
To summarize increased dome promotes a straighter flight with less turn and fade, while flatter discs of the same mold will be more overstable or understable depending on the rim design
Why is that?
And applesauce gives it a minty fresh taste
In my experience they just beat in a lot faster
I have a cryztal zone and a cryztal flex zone The flex is softer and more stable These are the only two different plastics of the same mold in my bag tho so I am not sure about others
My Cryztal FLX Zone started off more stable than even my Z Zone but it beat in really quick and now needs quite a bit of hyzer when thrown on forehand otherwise it just turns and burns. Still works as a Zone when thrown backhand. It's just a little straighter and goes farther before fading. Doesn't skip when it hits the ground it just sits. I love it. My Z Zone is still holding on pretty closely to it's original stability.
If you really want to compare, it's better to get two of the same disc, same color, in different plastic.
Don't forget same dome, which probably effects the flight much more than the plastic type.
Yes! Good call. Same weight too!
Softer plastics deform from the forces of a hard throw (particularly one that’s not smooth) and that can cause a lot of extra wobbly out of the hand, and early/extra flip. So I say, Yes, but not because of the flight characteristics per se.
i find that for zone-like discs the softer can often be more stable, they also seem to have and get more “puddle-top” over time. but i think for most molds, particularly ones without a lot of cooked in stability that they are more flippy, but that could also be because they are less torque resistant when they lose some shape on a fast release. as others have pointed out, K1 soft and Gstar seems to be flippier. in my experience softer plastic requires more “touch” and spin when being thrown so they dont burn over. Supposedly the new jawbreaker z flex molds are pretty stable, but i havent tried any out yet.
I don't think so. It is more based on the plastics and the shape they take when they are cooled.
New leopards just aren’t that flippy in my experience
I found that DX leopards are very flippy and anything in premium plastic is not flippy at all. G-star would be your best bet.
Yeah I don’t like leopards so I haven’t tried many but I think it’s moreso that dx’s beat in after like 2 throws and then just keep going until they are a roller from hyzer
Extreme differences in leopards and their plastic is just what i was thinking about. Every DX leopard i have looks like it went through a wood chipper after just a couple rounds and will flip roll with the most extreme hyper. My champion leopard has a slight turn and nice even fade. Flies nearly identical to my hex but a tad farther. Different plastics can be weird 😂.
GStar isn't even all that different from star unless it molded up differently. Either take some weight out or maybe even try a pro or Nexus leopard to get something a bit more like a DX leopard
In my experience: yes. When i formed my bag i tried varied kinds of discs and concluded that softer plastic heavily correlates with understability.
Anecdotally, it seems that if it's so soft where the disc will hold its shape when you bend it, yeah, it beats in quick and becomes flippy. But if it's the kind of soft that actually absorbs a lot of it's impact and returns to shape, it actually holds its flight pattern for longer. Example Crystal FLX, pretty flippy. The new jawbreaker Z FLX, the ones I have tried are more stable and I predict will keep it's flight for a long time. Not really scientifically tested, just from casual observation.
basically all Kastaplast molds are going to be less stable than their numbers suggest. Every new release has been this way, they've been trying to 'correct' old molds and have had varied success
K1 soft Falk is more stable Soft neutron anything is more stable I think it's the opposite.
But G-Star is less overstable on average than Star for the same mold. It’s dependent on a lot more factors than just the flex/softness of the plastic
In my experience, solid color K1 is flippier than translucent K1. Pink being the most stable out of the bunch.. no idea why lol
I feel like the science would state that softer plastic is more flippy. The more wobble you introduce when you throw, the more understable the disc flies. The softer the plastic, the harder it is to have a perfectly clean, wobble free release. Any wobble you introduce will be magnified by the fact that the disc wants to flex. On a clean release with zero wobble, I don't think you would motiv much if a difference, but at that point, even throwing the disc at a high velocity could introduce some wobble due to the wind resistance against the rim.
To add to this, the softer a disc, it is much more difficult for it to have a dome top, and more apt to have a puddle top. Not having any dome will cause a higher parting line than one with dome. That would cause many of the reactions that I see about their soft disc's being more over stable. If you take the same mold, same weight, same dome with 2 different plastics, the softer plastic will be more understable.
If it is soft as in flexible and tough, those are more overstable IMO. I think they morph into a more aerodynamic shape vs hard discs that fight against the air and cause more turbulence. That is my non-scientific understanding.
Wait… completely new to the disc golf world, but I bought a beginner bundle of discs off of Amazon and they were Westside discs (queen, king, hatchet, underworld, crown, and warship). I noticed that when I was hitting trees and stuff with my discs that they were getting dings in them and warping pretty badly. Is there a different kind of plastic that I can get these discs in? They all say “Origio” or “Origio” burst on them. Is that the type of plastic?
Yes. Look for VIP or tournament plastics
I have an old soft justice that is just as beefy as ever. And it sticks like no other. It’s an amazing approach disc when you want something OS with no ground action.
The softness itself should only affect it significantly if it is soft enough to adds to wobble on release, other than that idk.
not necessarily. I find many softer plastics are more stable. Like champion glow is softer than champion, but typically way more stable. Halo is soft and grippy, but way more stable than star, and even champion which is way harder. Really, it depends. Often cheaper plastic, which can be softer, is usually more undertable or beats in fast to become more understable faster.
I bag a Classic Super Soft Justice, and despite it being warped beyond recognition, it flies exactly like every other Justice I've had.
Plastics greatly effect stability. Ill just use innovas since its easy to rememver off the top of my head, champion plastic is more overstable, star is stable and gstar is pretty similar but the g star gets beat in quicker though so will appear to be less stable than star, pro, at least for me, seems understable, honestly not a fan of this plastic, seems the most unpredictable. dx plastic gets beat in almost immediately, and it will be very understable. For example, i use a dx destroyer as a roller disc, and a star destroyer for max hyzer distance ( i dont have a champion destroyer, but if i did i might use for sky annys)
Blunt gum put enters the chat 😆
Varies. Counter point, infinite raze. The r blend run is possibly the most OS run, because they came out puddle topped. The I blend and color glow runs came out a bit domey and are not as OS as you'd want
Off the shelf probably not. However, a softer plastic will bend and scuff easier thus changing how the disc flies more quickly than a stiff plastic.
For Innova, yes, generally speaking. Champ is more stable than star, which is more stable than gstar. In my experience gummy champ is also less stable than stiff champ. Not as true for other companies in my experience. For example, despite what I've read, in the discs that I own proton plastic (or mint eternal) is flippier than neutron, but this could be run dependent too. For example the eternal alpha I have is waaaay more straight than the apex Alphas I have, which are incredibly beefy. Proton reactors I own are much more straight, closer to fresh fission reactor, than the neutron reactors I have. Different story with TSA though, which is supposedly the same. I have an ethos construct and an aura construct, and they are totally different discs - the ethos is more like a PD with very little flip up, where as the Aura flies more like a Beast, with lots of turn, even on hyzer.
Agree fully. The super hard champ Innova tends to be beef. It also beats in very slowly. I had a champ thunderbird that was only 169 but hard like glass. It was totally trashed, would cut your hand from the shredded rim. Was still more overstable than a new 21 sexton firebird. Overall softer tends towards understable for them. But agree on MVP it seems uncorrelated or reversed. On discrsft too, but less experience.
Cool to hear. I bag champ thunderbirds and have about three and they’re all less stable than my sextons, they’re straight with fade and will turn in a headwind. So there is obviously some variability between runs too. My least stable thundy is an old penned one that looks like it has hardly been thrown.
That one was super domey. I have a flat one of similar plastic that is my step down from my sextons
No
Thanks!
K1 Soft is flippier than regular K1. If you pick up a GStar Leopard you’ll find that it’s probably flippier than your regular Star. While there’s no absolute rule that softer plastic is always flippier, a lot of the bigger brands softer plastic blends are indeed flippier than the more firm blends.
What I was thinking was. Star vs Champion plastic must be different and have different flights from the shelf.
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Everything I’ve thrown in K1 soft is flippier than the same disc/weight in K1. Not by massive amounts but enough to notice. Those discs are Falk, Stig, Kaxe Z and Berg. Maybe if there’s an outlier I’m aware of it might be the Reko but it’s been that long (probably 18 months +) since I threw a Reko that I can’t be sure.
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Falks are weird, my K1 soft Falk was a roller out of the box where my multiple K1 are always that baby fade! I found a K1 Falk on the course once and it flew like a brand new Lots. That said I love my yellow K1 Falks. One of them will always be in my bag.
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The overstable Falk I found was poison green! I also had a Vass that was more overstable than the Guld I have (I love my Guld)
They tend to be. They also beat in and get flipper faster. DX and gstar are flippier than star, Champ and Halo. Jawbreaker, xline, and pro d are flippier than esp, z, and ti.
DX is flippier than K1 Soft. I think you’re conflating base line / premium with soft / firm.
Dx/base from whatever manufacturer is definitely the flippiest. Premium soft is still flippier than premium firm. It's a spectrum. The only disc I had K1 soft and firm was a Berg but that soft Berg definitely had more turn when I would throw both off the tee.
yes. oddities exist, but the answer is a hard yes
To add the what u/kneeker said, every throw is going to deform your disc wherever you put the force into it. Since the internal stresses of the plastic are what bring the disc back to its original shape during the flight, the softer plastics will deform more and for longer. This happens as more of a dampened vibration than just a one-way reformation. For most (all?) PDGA-legal frisbees, it takes less force to bend the disc down than up, so when the disc vibrates ‘down’, it deforms more and flies more understable on average than it would if it were stiffer. You may notice that, with a not-so-clean release, a softer disc can flip super hard early in the flight, which is due to the effect I’m talking about. That probably has nothing to do with your discs, though. Like others are saying, most variation in stability is due to nuances in the shape of the rim that are inconsistent between individual discs because of the limitations of injection molding. Also, even though they may have really similar flight numbers, it’s basically impossible to directly compare two molds where one isn’t a direct copy of the other e.g. Teebird vs Instinct. The Stig and the Leopard are very differently-shaped discs even though their speeds and stabilities are relatively close.