ClubTest First Look: Miura’s new PI-401 irons, designed for big forgiveness

Throughout the company’s rich history in club-making, Miura has been known best for its forged irons that have a buttery soft feel and tour-inspired shapes that better players love. Irons such as the MB-101, TC-201 and CB-301 are made with thin toplines and reduced offset, providing discerning golfers the look, feel and performance they desire.

Some higher-handicap golfers have different needs, however, such as greater forgiveness, higher launch and more distance. To satisfy that segment of golfers, Miura has developed an all-new iron, called the PI-401, that has a completely different construction than any of Miura’s other offerings.

“The impression of our products is competition-oriented and athlete models,” said Shinei Miura, President of Miura Giken, in a translated YouTube video. “I believe these are the impressions that people have. However, we would want a wider variety of people to use our products and more people to know our products. This is why we decided to produce this PI-401.”

Miura’s PI-401 irons (PI stands for “Player Improvement”) use shapes and materials to help golfers hit the ball farther and straighter, but without sacrificing that familiar Miura feel. The new irons have bodies that are cast from 8620 soft carbon, and faces that are forged from Premium S35C soft carbon. Measuring a mere 3.6mm, the thin forged faces help provide increased ball speed, even on off-center strikes.

To help provide confidence to players who don’t always hit the ball perfectly, Miura’s PI-401 irons have longer heads and thicker toplines. They also are made with low centers of gravity (CG) for golfers who need more height on their shots, thus creating more distance and stopping power on the greens.

Additionally, the soles of the PI-401 irons have a four-angled design to improve turf interaction from a variety of conditions and lies. The wide soles and unique angles reduce resistance from playing surfaces such as fairways, rough and bunkers, helping the clubs glide instead of dig. For golfers, this means better contact at impact, and shots with higher trajectories.

Recently, we put the PI-401 irons to the test to see what they really do in action. For ClubTest, 8am Golf content creator DJ Lantz (scratch handicap) and myself, GOLF’s senior equipment editor Andrew Tursky (2 handicap), hit a Miura PI-401 6-iron against our gamer 6-irons. Check out the video at the top of the story to see the full results.

Miura’s new PI-401 irons (4-PW, GW) will sell for $330 per club. The irons become available for pre-sale on February 16, and they will hit retail on February 22.

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