How Does 832 Stand Up to Sudden Impact? It Might Just Make Your Day (continued)

Strength (30 Possible Points): The strength rating most commonly relied upon by anglers with regards to braided line is right around fifty (50) pounds. This is usually the rating we choose to run our tests. However, during our data collection process, all we had on hand to test in Sufix 832 was a spool of 40 pound. The average diameter of 832's 40 pound is 0.332 mm. Our sample selection of six other products in 50 or 55 pound test had diameters averaging between 0.282 mm (55lb Daiwa Samurai Braid) to 0.369 mm (50lb Sufix Performance Braid) for an average of 0.324 mm. That's quite the range, but our 40 pound 832 was right in the middle, so we stuck with it.

Daiwa's Samurai braid is less round and had diameter deviation measurements of up to 6.4%.

Sufix's other superline, Performance Braid in 50lb test had the thickest average diameter of the seven lines we used to gather our initial data (0.367mm).

Knot Strength (KS): With BPI, we run the same knot strength calculations as with our FPI scoring against both the rated and actual tensile strength numbers. Braided line has very poor knot strength. Sufix 832's proprietary Gore fiber does nothing to help in this matter as we tested this line to an average value of 21 pounds with an overhand knot tied in the middle of the length of line to be tested. That's 51% of the line's rated strength. Average value in this category across our 7 sample lines was 49%, so 832 is actually right around the average.

Impact: Ask a group of fisherman who rely on braid as their primary line what the most important factor of that line is to them and the likely response you receive will be resistance to a sudden impact of force - like on a hookset. Thanks to the Machine, we've devised a method to measure a line's strength in this regard. We were surprised to discover that of the seven products we had on hand for our initial data gathering efforts, not one broke below its rated strength during our impact tests.

A line with good resistance to impact is important down in the Amazon!

What we did discover is if we ran an extra long sample of line, and repeatedly retied the longest remaining section after a break, it would take less and less force to break the line. This tells us that braided line does not break at just one spot in these situations, but strands break in several places through the length of the line subject to the force. So with each hard hookset or pull, you're weakening the overall length of the line. But what about those times you break off on your first swing of the day with a batch of freshly spooled line? Our answer to that.. remember our knot strength numbers?

But whenever you're fishing with braid, be sure to check your knots often.

Sufix 832 Braid in 40 pound test broke on average at 143% over its rated strength during our impact tests. That's equates to 57 pounds for those who like whole numbers. To determine a product's score in this category, we move the decimal point over a spot by multiplying it by 10 and simply add this number to the product's BPI. This is an important characteristic of the line, so as with abrasion in our FPI, there is no theoretical limit to a product's ability to score well in this category, however, the average across our seven baseline products? 142%.

Surprisingly, Daiwa's Samurai braid performed very well in our abrasion tests.