Faction 10 or Kästle BMX 105 HP - anybody skied them?

[roQer]

I'm looking currently for a ~105 cm waisted all mountain charger biased towards hard snow conditions. Should be around 190 cm, stable and damp. Used to ski Cochise in 193 cm (the old one without carbon), but there is not really a spot in my quiver for the new one anymore, as it comes to close to my soft snow oriented skis. Two models caught my attention;
Faction 10 in 192 cm and Kästle BMX105 HP in 189. Alternatively, I can get a good deal on a Fischer Watea 106 in 190 cm. This is supposed to be a good ski, but has a tad of old school geometry which isn't necessarily a disadvantage for my needs.
Has anyone been on those skis and can share his thoughts?
My current quiver:
V-Werks Katana for touring (191 cm)
DPS RPC for soft snow (192 cm)
Blizzard Spur for deep days (189 cm)

[Shredhead]

I'm a big fan of Kastle. I ski the MX98 184 and the old MX108 187.
I was skiing with Grant from Stapleton Sports, which is a big Kastle dealer in Aspen.
His favorite all mountain ski has always been the FX104. He was on the 189 BMX105HP and said it was even better.
Super easy to initiate turns with the early rise and yet held an edge.

[roQer]

Fuck it. Bought me, gear whore style, the Kästle. Would be interesting to know how do they stand up against Cochise and the old BMX 108. There is some info on the 105 HP on Epicski but it comes almost exclusively from the guy who sells Kästle at his shop so there might be a lot of bias in his reviews. The 108 truly ripped and I have high hopes that Kästle didn't forget how to make a decent ski.

[Adrider83]

Fuck it. Bought me, gear whore style, the Kästle. Would be interesting to know how do they stand up against Cochise and the old BMX 108. There is some info on the 105 HP on Epicski but it comes almost exclusively from the guy who sells Kästle at his shop so there might be a lot of bias in his reviews. The 108 truly ripped and I have high hopes that Kästle didn't forget how to make a decent ski.

Let us know how it is...I love my FX104, but was hoping to get the BMX105 HP as my resort charger. Have fun!

[pfluffenmeister]

Love the MX98 and MX108.

What's this BMX105HP?
gahhh ...

[smooth operator]

Yes, do let us know. I'm especially interested in the cochise comparison.

[roQer]

After some days on my new Kästle 105 BMX HP in 189 cm I can share some first impressions of the ski. I bought it in a heroical attempt to reduce my quiver to 3 pairs: one for hard pack and variable low tide conditions, one for resort based touring, and one for deep days. The Kästle with a 105 mm waist was obviously intended to take the hard pack/variable conditions spot. First of all I don’t like very much the look and price politics of Kästle. Their products, being placed in the upper price segment among brands like Stöckli and DPS, make evidently rich gapers happy. However, Kästle does make serious skis and there are good deals on their line in Europe in the second half of the season allowing the skis to be affordable not only for Porsche owners or wealthy gear whores. In my review attempt, I’ll refer for comparison to the Blizzard Cochise in 193 cm, Blizzard Brahma in 187 cm, both in the pre carbon tip version, and to Völkl Mantra in 191 cm in the pre continuous rocker version.

Construction
Undoubtedly, the quality is top notch. Solid edges, thick fast like fuck bases, ABS side walls – good ol’ racing ski construction. “HP” stands for 2 layers of Titanal as opposite to the non-“HP” version without metal. The ski has an early rise tip with low tip splay and a very moderate rocker at the tail. The tails are quite beefy, though not as beefy as more traditional hard pack skis. The radius is indicated with 23 m. The flex is on the stiff side with slightly softer tips and definitely stout middle part and tail. The mounting point is surprisingly progressive for Kästle. I mounted my Pivots at +1 from recommend, although 0 or even -1 should be working as well. The skis feel well balanced mounted this way and I see up to now no reason to move the mounting line further then 1 cm from recommended in whatever direction.

Hard pack/groomers
The ski carves very nice arcs on groomers and hard pack. Although it is not lightweight by any means it feels surprisingly light on feet and relatively quick edge to edge. The turn initiation is very good. Skiing short to medium turns at lower speed affords not a hard work, in this regard not much worse then Brahma. Opening it up full throttle with large GS style turns is of course where the ski comes to shine. A small amount of tip chatter is present but the ski feels always stable and smooth. In this regard the Kästle doesn’t feel far inferior to a good narrower waisted All-Mountain carver like Mantra. Because of the fair amount of camber (approximately 15 mm out of the box), running bases flat requires not so much attention like with Cochise. The edge hold is OK. Not exceptionally good but not bad either.

Crud/shit snow
Goes through crud like a decent metal ski should. No deflections, no need to slow down because of the ski being thrown around. The driver is the limit. In this regard very similar to the Cochise. Cochise might be a little better going full throttle through stuff in which line control is crucial, i.e. like straightlining chutes or run-outs after drops. The Kästle inspires a similar confidence, though. With Cochise, I loved the ability to make all kind of turn shapes and shut down speed very effectively if needed. This works in similar ways with the Kästle. As the Cochise felt quite cumbersome in tight spots, I expect the Kästle to be more nimble due to his shorter length. Though, I didn’t take the Kästle to true gnar yet so this has to be confirmed later on.

Powder
Definitely a better performer then the old Cochise. This based on my experience in 10-15 cm deep fresh to moderately packed powder. Almost thought, WTF, no need for a 115 mm ski here. I don’t know about the tweaked Cochise but the old one didn’t exactly put a smile on my face in powder. It appears to me than the Kästle floats significantly better, even been slightly narrower at the waist.

Summary
The Kästle BMX 105 HP is a capable All-Mountain charger which performs well in all conditions inbounds and in side country. I didn’t encounter a situation yet where the Kästle showed an incoherent or unexpected behavior. They may be not exceptionally glorious in any of the particular disciplines. However, very appealing is the nice smoothness with which the skis can be moved through everything the mountain is throwing at a serious skier.


Disclaimer
I have no financial interests related to ski industry. I’m not a good reviewer and English is not my native language. I love skiing so much I can ski with the worst noodle in most shitty conditions and still having fun. So take this with a grain of caution.

[ARL67]

Nice review, thanks.
I have BMX105-HP in 181 -> I live in groomer-land so the BMX is not much use here, but bought them as a OSQ for trips.

PSA: SkiEssentials has Kastle discounted a bit already, and an additional 20% off right now.
While I'm PSA'ing, they also have new Volkl One & Two for $200 !

I also had V-Werks Katana, thought they were a great all'rounder for a 112mm.
Do you find enough distinction between your VW-K and BMX to justify both ?
My pal still has 191 VW'K so I may get on them next week when we head out for a weeks
trip.

[skibrd]

More than one friend skis Kastle BMX HP 105s as their pow ski in Jackson. I've only heard great things about it.

I personally don't like the BMX 108. It was amazing if you were going Mach nutty all the time, other than that, it had a mind of its own.

I'm on the 187cm new Bonafide, carbon tip and tail, almost every day, unless it's crazy deep then I'm on my Spurs. The new Bonafide fixes any issues with the old one. I have a half day, not much I know, in the 185cm new Cochise, and it's amazing. If I didn't have the 193cm Gunsmokes and new Bonafides, I'd get the 192cm Cochise and ski them every single day.

[roQer]

Do you find enough distinction between your VW-K and BMX to justify both ?

If I had to choose just one ski to do it all I'd take the V-Werks Katana for machine and human accessed skiing. For dicking around the mountain and skiing with my kids with occasional laps in the sidecountry I'm perfectly happy with the BMX.
For competitions (although I don't really compete anymore), I'd presently rather trust in Cochise or old metal Katana. Time will tell if the BMX turns out so trustworthy here as well.
I agree that there might be not enough to justify the 200 Eur or so of the Kästle over the new Cochise. However, I like to point out two aspects:
1. For all who are between sizes of 192 cm and 185 cm Cochise the BMX might be the better alternative.
2. Blizzard's flip core doesn't exactly provide very much rebound and feels in this regard more on the dead side of the spectrum. The Kästle is definitively more lively out of the turns, for what it's worth...