The Cobra King F8 irons are the upgrade to their King F7 distance iron that aims to build on their multiple head construction approach by designing each head according to what they think players need from it.
The King F7 Cobra had four head constructions, but in the King F8 that is down to three with the Half Hollow design of the mid-irons making way for the Hollow head to extend from 4-iron down to 7-iron.
The aim is to get the CG lower and to this end the F8 hosels are shorter and the faces shallower than the F7.
The hollow head design focuses most of the weight low and back in the sole of the club behind the cavity which now has a carbon medallion in the back to reduce weight, improve the sound and give it a hollow head look.
The PWRShell cup face insert is now 7 grams lighter and has a variable face thickness of between 1.9mm and 2.4mm to enable it to flex more at impact and deliver a little extra speed. The 4 to 7-irons also have narrow V-shaped milled grooves to reduce spin
Comparing the two 7-irons on GC2 with Pro V1x balls and at the same 88mph swing speed the King F8 was flying higher with less spin and adding an extra 6 yards.
The average smash factor was also up from 1.30 to 1.32 so the face is generating more ball speed, so you would have to say, good job Cobra.
The longer irons had a much larger unpolished section on the sole than before and initially it seemed to give a bit more friction, but it soon settled down.
In the 8-iron to PW the head style changes to a cavity back with wider milled U-shaped grooves and the idea of this is to create a higher mid CG iron, as the ball will be hitting the face higher up due to the additional loft.
This should help the accuracy as the getting the CG point behind the sweetspot creates more consistent launch conditions.
The feel from these was pretty good and whilst the sound was a little different to the longer irons it still did not sound like you average cavity back thanks to that carbon medallion.
Finally in the Gap, Sand and Lob wedge we move to a more traditional blade style look that still has a small cavity on the back for the medallion and tigher spaced wider grooves on the face.
It's maybe a little unusual to see a set with these more lofted clubs in them these days, but I like it as if you want to keep the consistency of brand and set style through your wedges you can do so.
The Gap wedge is 49° so I would probably continue the set through to this club as it comes with Cobra's usual versatile sole grind so you can use it around the green easily too.
The King F8 comes with the Cobra Connect Arccos shot tracking sensors built into the grips as standard, plus they will also give you additional tags for the rest of your set so you can track them too.
This is a free system and the batteries in the sensors will outlast the life of the grips, which do make the club feel slightly longer as you effectively grip down a little further from the top, but the shafts are all standard lengths otherwise.
If you to try the One Length version of the King F8 with the shafts all the same length then these are available again at the same price and you can read the ONE length review here.
Looking over the full set, the three head styles again don't really help the flow of the set, however I have yet to come across a multi-style set of irons that does, so let's just call it work in progress.
The 5 and 6 iron felt a little on the heavy side to me, as did the Gap wedge, but the 7 to PW felt pretty good and better than the same clubs in F7.
Overall I think that the mid to longer irons of the King F8 are an improvement on F7 as the performance is better and right up there with some of the longest irons in this distance category and combined with a competitive price would be worth checking out if you are in the mid to high handicap category looking for more distance.