Burton Straight Chuter Review

Board: Burton Straight Chuter

Price: $839 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride

Flex Rating: Mid-Stiff

Flex Feel: Mid-Stiff (7.5/10)

Rating Score: 85.3/100

Compared to other Men’s Freeride Boards

Out of the 40 Men’s Freeride snowboards that I rated:

Overview of the Straight Chuter’s Specs

Check out the tables for the Straight Chuter’s specs and available sizes.

Specs

Who is the Straight Chuter Most Suited To?

The Straight Chuter is best suited to someone who wants to bomb and carve up groomers when there's no powder and then when it's a powder day, leave the groomers are float all day. 

Not a freestyle oriented board in the slightest and prefers straighter lines down the mountain compared to tighter turns. But it's not so much so that you have to ride the crap out of it the whole time your on it. But it does prefer to be ridden aggressively. 

Not for beginners and even intermediate riders might struggle a bit. 

THE Straight Chuter IN MORE DETAIL

Bindings angles: +12/-9

Stance width: 22″ (560mm)

Stance Setback: 1.5" (40mm)

Width at Inserts: 10.51" (267mm) at front insert and 10.39" (264mm) at back insert.   

Tester: Fraser

Rider Height: 6'1"

Rider Weight: 180lbs

Rider Boot Size: US9.5 Adidas Tactical Lexicon ADV

Bindings Used: Burton Malavita: M

Weight: 6lbs 4oz (2840grams) 

Weight per cm: 17.86 grams/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.59 grams/cm*

*based on a sample size of around 200 models that I’ve weighed in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 & 2023 models. The Straight Chuter was a decent amount lighter than normal on the scales. On snow it felt ever so slightly lighter than normal but pretty much normal.  

Powder

Whilst we had some fresh snow around it was far from champagne powder! But it did give some indication. And that plus the specs of boards indicate that the Straight Chuter would be very good in powder. 

It has a healthy amount of taper and setback as well as a rockered nose. That plus the tail is shorter than the nose, helping it to sink and raise the nose up. 

Carving

Really decent on the carve, which was no surprise. Excelled particularly at longer drawn out carves at speed. Definitely likes to track pretty straight. 

Turning

Ease of Turns/Slashing: The torsional stiffness isn't ideal for easy turning, but it certainly wasn't hard - and that short tail helped to whip around slashes. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds (nimbleness): Felt pretty normal - not lightning quick but not slow either. 

Skidded Turns: Was a little catchier in the nose but not so much the tail. A little surprising given the rocker in the nose.

Speed

Felt super stable at speed. Gave it plenty and it held strong. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: Smashed through crud with ease. Didn't get thrown off line and felt like it would take quite a lot to knock it off course. 

Trees/Bumps: Felt pretty normal. Didn't excel, but was fine. 

Jumps

Not ideal for landing switch or tail heavy but you can still have some fun on it.

Pop: Felt like a normal amount. Not oodles. You had to put it in to get it out. Not a lot of easy access pop, but decent when you did wind it up a bit. 

Approach: Nice and stable and when you did need to make adjustments was maneuverable enough. 

Landing: Can land fairly nose heavy and get away with it. Less forgiving if you land tail heavy. Overall pretty solid landing platform.

Side-hits: Was good without being overly exciting for them. The way it was able to smash through crud made it good when there was crud on your path or on your landing. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: Capable of all sizes but with the slightly sketchiness of landing tail heavy felt like I preferred smaller jumps on it, when the consequences of getting it wrong are less. 

Switch

Not ideal, given how directional it is. Felt a little wrong riding this one the wrong way. 

Butters

Not unbutterable but feels weird with the differences between nose and tail. Tail was easy to press. Nose was a bit awkward to press. 

Burton's Family Tree Straight Chuter is very much a one-direction board that likes to bomb and carve up groomers, smash through crud and would be a great tool on a powder day. 

It's not ideal for playing around or slashing or riding slow, but it's not unbearable when not being ridden aggressively.