ok boys and girls re: braid

[Gazza]

here is the reply I got

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your email.

The breaking strain of all fishing lines really depends on which market they are aimed at. Typically the US market expects a line to be strong and they don't care about diameter, one US line boasts their 20lb line is the strongest in the world (cause its what we would call a 40lb line). The Japanese on the other hand and to a lesser extent European market expects a line that is thin and generally Japanese line consistently break under their stated breaking strain (but they are thin, their 20lb line is what we would call a 17lb line).

So where do we sit? Our IGFA rated lines Pretest, Lo-Stretch will break just under the stated breaking strain as if the line is used for catching record fish and it breaks over the class, say 10kg the record will be disallowed. Our non IGFA rated monofilaments usually break around 10-15% above the stated breaking strain. When we first released our Super-Braid, 12 odd years ago we used the same rule of thumb as we did for monos 10-15% above actually breaking strain, we were overwhelmed with complaints. People had been using Spiderwire and Fireline tried our line and said it was weak and rubbish. Puzzled we tested the Fireline etc and found that the breaking strain was overstated by up to 200%! We re labelled our line at 50-70% more than actual breaking strain so that we were closer to the US lines and not \"weak\".

Now that Japanese lines are becoming popular people are starting to tell us that our line is too thick! We can't win or can we? Platypus Super-Braid is breaking strain is overstated, similar to the US braids, Bionic Braid is more like a Japanese braid, but still breaking over that stated breaking strain (10-25% overstated).

Sorry for the long reply, hope this answered your question.

Tight (Aussie) lines,

Stewart McPherson

[Rocket75]

Very interesting indeed.

Rocket

[viperon1982]

Haha.. let's jus use sewing threads for fishing then!

One thing thou, if a line breaks over its class, shouldn't that be a case of it being understated than overstated? Overstated would mean exaggeration - that the line actually breaks under its class, no?

Don't mean to get anal about it, jus thought i'd point that out. hehe..

[werewolf]

Viper I agree with you mate!:dry:

Interesting letter though. THanks for that Gazza.

[Feral]

I thought a lot of braids were much stronger than their rated strength because of their poor knot strength?

[jeff f]

1've vgot 40 pound braid that i cant break, even wrapped around the gaff handle4 and lean on it, it wont break

[Gazza]

I see it as purely a marketing ploy so anglers can say they caught a 20kg fish on 2kg braid

but all in all I still like braid

just need to fish smaller breaking strains HMM do they make a .25lb braid

Gaz

[chubbstar]

:woohoo: A very good read, thanks Gazza. mmmmm with my 30lb braid I could tie my boat up, emergancy anchor rope?:dry:

I would give ya some good karma but I've got none:blush:

IOU good KARMA Gazza, Will pay asap :woohoo:

[shamus]

and here I was thinking that 20lb breaking strain meant that the line will break at roughly 20lbs?

[mackmauler]

the knot strengths are its big downfall and the fact wear is hard to pick up, random bust offs happen with braid and it has very bad abrasion resistance around rocks.

unreliable would be how id sum braid up.