About 3 years ago, after buying yet another 'wonder' hook link mono that turned out to be rubbish, I decided to build a line tester that would give me repeatable results. All lines were tested un-knotted & dry with six tests on each sample. Virtually every line I tested differed from the makers claims. The hi tec lines were nearly always thicker than claimed (sometimes by as much as 30% or so)but usually around the claimed BS & the standard mono's were nearly always stronger than claimed - some 3lb lines breaking at over 5lb. I tested all the accumulated odd spools of line that I had - including the freebies that had been given away with the comics. I also tested some brand new lines that had been purchased recently. During these tests I noticed that some lines (from different manufacturers)that looked similar, were apparently the same line, although having different diameters & breaking strains from those printed on the spools. I was intending to do some more testing on brand new lines but abandoned the idea due to the cost. The final results (from about 30 spools of line and about 10 or 12 different makers)Were graded by comparing measured breaking strain with measured diameter. Generally lines from the same manufacturer had a similar score throughout the range tested but some were wildly varied. One manufacturer had line of the same diameter labelled as different BS. The two lines that I had the most spools of (Tectan & Daiwa Shinobi) scored pretty well considering that they were all old stuff that I'd had around for years. Some of the brand new lines fell far short of claims. The most surprising of the lot was a spool of 2.2lb Bayer Perlon at least 10 years old that scored very highly. The main conclusion drawn was that the Dam Tectan that I'd used until it became virtually unobtainable would probably have scored best of all if I'd had some new spools to test. I have sinced turned from match style fishing to return to my old love of Pike fishing so much of the data is now of little interest to me. However, just lately I've been considering upgrading the rig to enable me to test much stronger lines/traces/swivels etc..................
Barry Kneller
a.k.a 'the Essex Anorak'