11SIX24 Hurache-X Jelly Bean Review: The $80 Control Paddle

Updated October 7, 2026

Buy the original 11SIX24 Hurache-X Jelly Bean if you are a beginner or a 3.0–3.5 player who wants a soft, control-first paddle with raw carbon on the face and a long handle, and you want to pay $80 for it rather than $170 for the paddle that replaced it. Skip it if you are a quick-hands player who lives at the kitchen line: with Pickleball Effect measuring its swing weight at 122, this is one of the heavier-swinging paddles under $100, and no amount of forgiveness makes up for being late on a counter. Skip it too if you want offense from the paddle rather than from your arm; its firepower sits in the 37th percentile of Pickleball Effect’s database.

We have not played this paddle. What follows synthesizes measurements and testing published by Pickleball Effect, Pickleheads and Pickleball Science, along with 11SIX24’s own published specs, which we label as the brand’s numbers wherever we use them. Our method is set out on how we evaluate gear.

Why an older paddle is suddenly the value pick

The Jelly Bean spent two years as the default answer to “what’s a good control paddle under $100.” Then in August 2026 11SIX24 launched the Jelly Bean 2 at $169.99, moved it to a full EMA foam core and its HexGrit face, and chased UPA-A certification for it rather than USA Pickleball approval. We reviewed that paddle in our Jelly Bean 2 Vapor review. The consequence for the original is the one that matters here: 11SIX24’s own store now lists the Hurache-X Jelly Bean at $79.99, down from a $99.99 list price, at time of writing. Teal and pink are in stock; cornflower blue is sold out.

So the question is not whether the Jelly Bean is a good paddle. Three years of reviews settled that. The question is whether a last-generation honeycomb paddle is worth $80 when its foam-core replacement costs more than double.

Construction and generation

The Jelly Bean is a 16mm polypropylene honeycomb core, thermoformed into a unibody with foam reinforcing the edges, under a three-layer face 11SIX24 calls CFC: two sheets of raw Toray T700 carbon over one sheet of fiberglass. Pickleball Science, which put the line through its own bench testing for a June 2025 review, confirms the honeycomb core and the two-carbon-plus-fiberglass layup.

In the Gen 1 through Gen 4 convention the industry uses loosely, and that no certifying body defines, this is a Gen 2 build with the edge foam that became the Gen 3 signature. Gen 1 was the cold-pressed sandwich, honeycomb glued between two face sheets. Gen 2 is the thermoformed unibody. Gen 3 injects foam around the perimeter to float the core. Gen 4, which is where the Jelly Bean 2 lives, replaces the honeycomb with foam entirely. Depending on who is counting, the original Jelly Bean gets filed as Gen 2 or Gen 3; the accurate answer is that it sits on the line between them.

The difference you feel is in dwell and sound. Full-foam Gen 4 paddles are plusher and quieter; a thermoformed honeycomb paddle like this one is a little crisper on contact. Pickleball Effect classes the original Jelly Bean’s feel as soft and dense, which for a honeycomb paddle is about as far toward the foam side as the construction allows. The fiberglass layer in the face is doing some of that work.

The shape is the Hurache-X: 16.5 inches long, 7.5 inches wide at the top, a longer handle than most, and a curved profile. Pickleball Science measured the face at about 7.0 inches wide at the bottom and 7.5 at the top, which is how the paddle gets an elongated footprint without a boxy head. 11SIX24 lists the handle at 6 inches, which is long, and long enough for a full two-handed backhand.

Specs

Two numbers deserve a pause. First, the swing weight gap. 11SIX24 claims 115–118; Pickleball Effect’s bench got 122. That is a four to seven point difference, and at 122 the paddle is heavier through the air than nearly every paddle we cover at this price. Vatic Pro’s Prism Flash measures 114 on the same bench; the Jelly Bean 2 Hurache-X measures 116. We explain what the number means for hand speed in swing weight vs twist weight vs static weight, but the short version is that 122 is a plow-through paddle, not a flick paddle, and both the brand and the bench put twist weight at about 6.3, which is average stability for an elongated 16mm.

Second, the PBCoR figure. USA Pickleball’s paddle-ball coefficient of restitution test caps the trampoline effect at 0.43 under the limit in force since November 2025. Pickleball Science reports the Jelly Bean at 0.41. That is comfortably inside the limit, and it also tells you the paddle is not built to be a cannon.

What independent testers found

Pickleball Effect: soft, dense, and not much offense

Pickleball Effect’s lab data is the most complete set of numbers on the original Jelly Bean, and it now appears as the comparison row in its Jelly Bean 2 write-up: $99.99 list, soft and dense impact feel, 2,040 RPM, 122 swing weight, 6.36 twist weight, and firepower in the 37th percentile of the roughly 480 paddles in its database. The site’s Jelly Bean 2 review is explicit that the new Hurache-X, with 116 swing weight and 53rd percentile firepower, is “the most offense in the series,” which by implication makes the original the more purely control-oriented paddle of the two.

That 2,040 RPM is worth reading correctly. It is a high number on Pickleball Effect’s own rig and it is the original CFC face, not HexGrit. The Jelly Bean 2 measures 2,101 on the same rig, so the spin gap between the two generations at day one is small. The durability gap is not: Pickleball Effect rates HexGrit as its top tier for grit longevity, and raw T700 is the surface that wears. Our grit durability piece goes through the published wear testing on those surfaces.

Pickleheads: still a top beginner paddle

Pickleheads’ August 2026 Jelly Bean 2 review, which is the freshest independent word on the original we could find, is brief on the old paddle but pointed: it is “still one of the best beginner paddles on the market thanks to its large, forgiving sweet spot,” and it is the one the site recommends for players newer to the game, with the Jelly Bean 2 positioned as the step up for anyone who wants the softer foam core and the longer-lasting grit.

Pickleball Science: predictable, and heavier than it looks

Pickleball Science’s 2025 review took the three Hurache-X paddles, Power, All-Court and Jelly Bean, through its own stiffness and impulse-response testing. Its summary of the Jelly Bean is “predictable performance and good control,” which is exactly what you want to hear about a control paddle and not much else. Its one caution applies to the whole Hurache-X line: the paddles “will feel heavier than the average paddle,” which agrees with Pickleball Effect’s swing weight measurement and disagrees with the brand’s.

Reconciling them

On feel and role there is no disagreement. Soft, dense, controllable, forgiving for its shape, and short on power. On weight there is a real one, and it is between the brand and the testers, not among the testers. Two independent sources say it swings heavy; 11SIX24 says 115–118. We would plan around the measured 122. Sample variance on an 8.0–8.3 oz range can move swing weight a few points, and the heavier end of that range is where it lands on the benches.

The forgiveness claim needs one qualifier too. Pickleheads calls the sweet spot large. Pickleball Effect’s 6.36 twist weight is average, not large, for a 16mm elongated paddle. Both can be true: a heavy swing weight with the mass out toward the tip makes a paddle feel stable through the ball even when its twist weight is ordinary. That is a forgiveness that comes from plow-through, and it disappears when you are stretched and swinging late. Beginners rarely notice; 4.0s do. If sweet spot is your whole reason for buying, our largest sweet spot paddles list is built on the twist weight number, not the feel.

Certification

11SIX24’s product page states the Hurache-X Jelly Bean is USA Pickleball approved, and Pickleball Science reports a USAP PBCoR result for it, which is the test only listed paddles go through. We could not query the USAP database directly for this article, so before a sanctioned event, search “11SIX24” on the official approved paddle list and match the model name. Two cautions specific to this brand. The Jelly Bean 2 is UPA-A certified and is not on the USA Pickleball list, so the original is the one to buy if you play USAP-sanctioned amateur events. And 11SIX24’s Power 2 page presents USAP approval as implied by UPA-A certification, which it is not; the two lists are separate, as we set out in the 2026 certification guide.

Two alternatives worth pricing against it

Friday Original, $69 or two for $99. Same construction category, a thermoformed 16mm honeycomb with foam-injected walls, at the lowest price in the market, and USA Pickleball approved per Friday. The tradeoffs run the other way on almost every axis: Friday’s face is a coated print rather than raw carbon, so it wears sooner; Pickleheads and Racket Royalty both score its forgiveness 7 out of 10 and report mishits; and Friday’s own swing weight figure of 116 makes it the quicker paddle, if you take the brand’s number. Cheaper and snappier, less forgiving, shorter-lived grit. Our Friday Original review has the full picture.

11SIX24 Jelly Bean 2 Hurache-X, $169.99. The paddle that made this one cheap. EMA foam core, HexGrit face, 116 swing weight, 6.06 twist weight, 2,101 RPM and 53rd percentile firepower on Pickleball Effect’s bench. It is softer, quicker, more offensive and will hold its spin far longer. It also costs $90 more and is UPA-A rather than USAP certified, which rules it out for sanctioned amateur play. If you do not play tournaments and you plan to keep the paddle two seasons, the extra money buys real durability. If you do, the original is the only Jelly Bean you can enter with.

The rest of the sub-$100 field is in our paddles under $100 roundup; most of that bracket is really $99–$120 with a code, and the Jelly Bean at $79.99 without one is one of the few true sub-$100 prices left.

Verdict

At $99.99 the original Jelly Bean was a fair control paddle in a crowded price band. At $79.99, with raw T700 carbon on the face, a 6-inch handle, a measured 2,040 RPM and USA Pickleball approval, it is the best control-first buy under $100 for a beginner or a 3.0–3.5 who wants a paddle that does not surprise them, and it is the only Jelly Bean that is legal in USAP-sanctioned play. Pickleheads still names it among the best beginner paddles, and nothing in Pickleball Effect’s or Pickleball Science’s data contradicts that.

Don’t buy this if you want a quick paddle. A measured 122 swing weight is heavy for the price bracket and heavy full stop, and a 4.0 who counters at the kitchen will feel it on the first fast exchange. Don’t buy it if you need the paddle to supply pace; 37th percentile firepower means your arm does the hitting. And don’t buy it expecting the grit to last the way HexGrit does. Raw T700 spins hard on day one and fades; if that bothers you, the Jelly Bean 2 is the answer and it costs $90 more.

Buy it for what it is: a soft, stable, sanctioned-play control paddle at $80 whose only documented flaw is its weight.

Check 11SIX24 Jelly Bean pricing on Amazon · 11SIX24’s own store ($79.99 at time of writing)

How we review gear — including how we get the paddles we test and what the money never touches — is documented in our review methodology.