Oakley CAMO-7K:

Bend: Xtreme Bow

Weight: 550-570 grams

Length: 36.5" & 37.5"

Composition: 70% Carbon 10% Aramid 20% Fiberglass

Power Rating: 8.5/10

Other Info: Touch compound finish to the face, reinforced high impact areas & duel core for shock absorption
RRP: £110.00


Touch/Dribbling
8.5/10
The touch on this stick is superb. The stick is a little bit softer and more forgiving then the sticks that I usually use. That being said the softer feel makes controlling the ball super easy. The small amount of flex in the stick (less then other 70% carbon sticks I have used in the testing for comparison) allows for trapping the ball from a hard pass really easy. The softer feel of the stick doesn’t effect the dribbling, the stick still has a very live feel. Drags are easy to pull off, as are 3D skills with the low bow. Spins and bounce skills are also really easy to pull off. In testing this stick I ran some simple dribbling drills and found the stick made them really easy, easier then with other 70% sticks that I had for comparison. 

Flicking
9/10
This stick has a low bow and a thin head. As you would expect with this combination it is really easy to get the ball into the air, it was effortless to lift the ball the length of the 5 aside pitches I was using to complete this review, and the other testers agreed with how easy it was. Small lifts while moving were also very easy either on open stick or on reverse, be it for a short lifted pass or for a cheeky lob over a sliding goalkeeper (filling in for a goalkeeper we had round bin that we would roll towards the player randomly, worked pretty well). Setting up some targets in the goal, it was really easy to place the ball at pace from the PS spot into the corners of the goal or to clip the top of the backboard.

Hitting
8/10
For a 70% carbon stick you don’t have get some power behind hits. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure that I can get more power when I hit with my LB9000 with the stiffness of the stick, but this stick can still put some force behind hits. But unlike with my LB9000, this stick is so much easier control across all the range of power inputs, its just as easy to put the ball into the top corner from 16 yards with a 50% clip hit as it is with an all out smash. And as hard as I tried I could not seem to miss the sweet spot on this stick, so it must be massive. 

Reverse
9/10
This stick hits so well on reverse, the reverse edge seems pretty thick when ever I set up a reverse. When I was hitting it was easy to direct the ball into all 4 corners of the goal. I did not have any issue hitting reverse passing and also keeping the ball absolutely flat, even when I was being a bit mad and trying to knock the spots off the ball. At the same time when I wanted to lift the ball from the ground when shooting it was really easy. When I was rushing hits at the end of the session, I still got a clean hit with amazing power on pretty much every one.


Dragflick/Aerials
9/10
As I have already mentioned throwing an overhead corner to corner in the 5 aside pitches (around 30 yards) I was testing on was effortless. The shape of the stick makes generating power really easy, this allows you to easily get under the ball and to lift it over a large distance. I will admit that I am used to the extra ‘whip’ you get from the groove on the LB9000 but even without that and the soft curve of the bow on this stick, it is still easy to put the ball a good distance, I put 3 over the 10 foot high fence in the far corner of the pitch, so I would say that would probably be a very easy 50 yard overhead pass.

Again with dragflicking the bow on this stick makes it really easy to fire the ball into the roof of the net from 16 yards. I’m not going to lie and say that its is as powerful as I can flick with my LB9000 but without the added whip of the groove, I was amazed at just how much power I found I could get on the ball.

 

Summary

In summary of this stick, it has amazing hit that is super easy to control across the whole power range. It is really nice to use for reverse hitting and to dribble with. Overheads are really easy to get under and send a good distance down the pitch, and while a specialist dragflicking stick will give you an extra bit of power, as an all rounder low bow this stick really products some amazing results. 

Other
I had a small team ‘helping’ me with the testing, and when they got their hands on the stick it became difficult to get it back to continue the testing. Which I think says a lot about the quality of this stick.

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