Breaking Gear Part 1 Basic Rigging
It has been a new tradition here at USM to welcome in the weekend with a fresh growler of beer and hypothesizing about gear, rigging, gun setups, aaaaaaaannnnnnd all the fake BS ratings and theories out there in the market. Well it finally came to the point where there was enough talking and it was time for action.
Test one was basic 400lb mono crimped with burned/ mushroomed ends hooked to a mid gauge tuna clip mounted on Rob Allen foam Filled float line.
The supposed individual ratings of each component are:
3/8 Foam Filled Floatline: 1100lbs
Black Swivel: 1000 Lbs
Tuna Clip with swivel: Deformation at 330 lbs failure at 385 lbs. Swivel fails at over 1000 lbs.
Lingen Pitman black mono with brass 2.2 double barrel Crimps: 400lb
By just looking at this rig the mono was the obvious weak point, and the issue with mono is generally the crimp becomes its weak point. Crimping is a science, on this test we made sure the edges of the crimp where flared and the end of the mono burned to help protect from slipping.
The Test:
We slowly increased the pressure on the system. There was an initial stretch of the float line and tuna clip but they did not continue to deform.
The initial crimp slip happened around 183 lbs as the mono stretched and its diameter became smaller from elongation. This is the exact reason burning the ends of your mono is so important.
The next slip happened on the same end of the mono at 220 lbs. You can see from this picture how much mono will stretch as the one loop is now out of frame on the left.
The third slip happened at 248 lbs on the loop closest to the tuna clip as the other crip had bottomed out.
And finally failure. If you scroll through the above pictures you can see the extent of the mono stretching. When looking at the lbs of pull keep in mind that a max inflated 3 atm float will provide approximately 100 lbs of lift.
Final point of failure mono inside crimp. The left lower side of crimp shows the original cut end that was burned and mushroomed.
We tried an addition 5 tests with various crimping orientations, the above crimped method seemed to be the strongest average.
Ultimately to put 248 lbs of load on a system would be typical of a shock load on a big fish most likely on the reef where the fish can put purchase on the line or a large pelagic making its initial run. This also shows the importance of a bungee in your system to relieve that shock load.
There is a massive variety of mono on the market, we use Lingren Pitman for its durability and ability to stretch without failure.
Next Test will be snap clips and pigtail swivels.
If you have and recommendations on a test or a piece of gear you would like test please shoot us an email at UltimateSpearfishingMedia@gmail.com.
