I decided to give it a go because I was hopeful that one of the major manufacturers would come to their senses and start selling blades at a reasonable price - bad example is Joola with their Vyzaryz series which are probably great but unaffordable. The same goes for Butterfly except their prices are beyond unaffordable. So I was happy to see the Skachkov Carbon and was eager to give it a try.

There was a Russian video on it where the guy measured three such blades and all of them came out to be 83 gramms. He also did a sound pitch test by bouncing the ball on the bare blade next to a Donic Ovtcharov Carbon and the frequency on the Skachkov was audibly lower.

So I got hold of a Skachkov blade and..... I was upset by the quality of the gluejob on the handle. I find it unacceptable for a major brand to sell a blade with a handle that is unstuck on one side along a 4 cm long stretch and over 2 cm on the other at the neck. Anyone who reads this, be cautious about this blade and have a good look at it before buying. I was not in this position unfortunately. Luckily, I have a friend who works with blades and is very likely to be able to fix it for me.

I seriously do not understand how come Donic are so sloppy about what they let out to the market.

This was the worse part, the good thing is that the blade itself without the handlecups looks okay. The handle is very good, smaller than a Tibhar Szocs Signature but thicker than a DHS Fang Bo or Ma Long. What really surprised me is the blade head and the weight.

The headsize is 159x152 and the weight is 82 gramms.

More to follow depending whether my friend can fix it for me or I will be forced to send it back in case he cannot.

My friend managed to glue the handlecups to the blade properly and we got to try it out yesterday. I had glued an MXS and and MXD just before training so these are sort of preliminary observations because the glue was not 100% settled at the time.

The blade has a good feel and it lacks the muted feel of classical ALC blades. The ALC feel is still there but not as pronounced. It is definitely not as hard as a DHS Hurricane Long 5. There was a Victas ZX Gear In yesterday, the Donic is surely faster than that but a little slower than the Gear Out. Also, it is slower than what used to be called Donic Ovtcharov True Carbon.

All in all, the Donic marketing blurb is correct, the Skachkov is really somewhere around a solid OFF- / lower OFF.  The vibrations in the palm provide good feedback and the ALC or whatever weave makes for the extra  stability over all wood blades. It seems like a very spin friendly blade.

The FL handle is rounded, not squarish. Similar to the FL on the Tibhar Szocs Signature 1 but a little smaller. The balance of the blade is a little different from the standard 157x150 but you can get used to it pretty fast.

Too bad about the handle, as I like the squarish handles. 

Any update on the blade? 

I read on a chinese forum that it is quite stable and consistent. Probably much easier to play than a Viscaria.

That forum info matches my findings. I would not say it is much slower than a Viscaria. By coincidence, I have got a 84 gr Viscaria and this 83 gr Skachkov so the comparison is fair.

If the money I could earn by winning my matches was a stake, I would definitely use the Viscaria. Maybe the Skachkov is 85% of the Viscaria speed. It definitely does not feel cheap, the Donic's dwell time is a little longer. The bigger head makes it more cumbersome close to the table and that little delay gives the edge to the Viscaria if your strategy is to play the balls off the bounce.

So overall the Donic is a very good blade, especially for the price but it is more suited to those who let the ball come up a bit and tend to do spinny controlled loops as their main strategy. The Viscaria is for those who want to beast every ball.

I’ve been playing with G1 and p1r. It can block close to the table, chop from mid and long distance with the pips providing good control, and it gets a good amount of reversal! 

With the FH it can attack very well, I like it with higher throw rubbers like g1, rakza z or t05, all of them work well, I did try it with a nittaku factive and it had great control, very easy and consistent to flat hit (would be great for bh if I didn't play with lp).