I was looking at the specs of the irons I play, Callaway X-Tour from a few years back, and two set I'm thinking about buying, Mizuno MX200 and Nike Full Cavity VR, and I noticed that the Mizuno lofts are about 2degrees stronger, but the shafts are about a 1/4 of an inch shorter, while the Nike has the same shaft length as what I play not but with 2 degree stronger lofts.

So (in theory) I suppose the net distance effect of the stronger lofts will be counter-balanced by the shorter shaft in the Mizunos? Do they do this you think because the shorter shaft will make the club a little easier to hit?

Were as in the Nike, all things being equal, they should result in more distance?

Scott,
There are two ways to get more distance with your irons.
Longer shaft and stronger loft.
The best way is with the shorter shaft and the stronger loft because you get more accuracy with the shorter shaft and the same distance with the strong loft.
When you see someone on tour hitting a 180 or 190 yd. 9 iron, they probably have tweaked their 9 iron to 8 or 7 iron loft. When I played all the time, I used to tweak my irons. I don't anymore because it doesn't matter.
Bill

Scott, I don't think you will see any noticable loss of distance with 1/4" shorter irons. Think about it? How much distance would you lose if you choked down the same 1/4" on your 9 iron? I doubt you could see ANY difference. For me, I have to chole down at least 2 inches to get half a club worth of distance change with my irons. Meaning it takes at least two choke down on my 8 iron to hit half way between an 8 iron and a 9 irons. That's half for 15 yards for me,or about 7.5 yards with a at least two inch choking down. This tells me a 1/4" short irons will not be noticeable in terms of distance.

Also might want to look at the loft gap between those irons, If the difference in loft from a 9 to an 8 is say 4 degrees, you chould expect to see 1/2 a club length gain with the new irons compared to your current set.