This is one of my biggest pet peeves…
If you use snaps eventually you'll have a problem. I suppose if you use a 250# three inch long snap that it might not fail but if you use normal size stuff it will break. Yes, I said break not open. I'm not talking about a snap that has been weakened from opening and closing. Snaps because of their design can get wedged and will simply break from the stress.
Split rings will NEVER fail – period.
True, they won't fail, but they're still a pain the……………… I've done the spit ring thing. What I found was that titanium likes to slide into the ring, and flourocarbon won't even go and gets chewed up by them. Unlesss you have two spitrings, one welded and one not. Then you have two pains in the……………..I've never had a stringease fail. If you have then you've opened and closed it too many times and that doesn't happen to me before the rest of the leader has gone to pot. Too each their own, I guess.
I made some 5 oz. spinnerbaits for trolling up north. Bought some s.s. split rings from Stamina, both triples and the standards. The standards fight to go on the loop on the bait, and they seem to stay open abit too. Triples are thinner wire and seem to spring shut after I have spun them on. The standard rings are h.d. ones, and I'd like to use those, but the opening of them after installation worries me. Bruce
fin – There's lots of junk out there, Bucher rings are the best and will handle being opened and closed many, many times with only a minimal loss of strength. If the tow eye is very heavy I'll put a split ring on the tow eye and attach to that.
Steve – A split ring can be used wrong, they need to be used with a solid ring. I've been doing it for many years and can change lures just as fast if not faster than someone using a snap. As I was saying and I'll probably have to post photos… it's not the opening and closing of the snap that makes it break in many cases. Snaps can get wedged into a tow eye and then they will just break.
Designed in Canada made in Korea as far as I know, the larger ones are easy but the 100lb I use for Pike flies are tricky when cold. Never had one break but I guess you'll get some now and then. The round ends are nice and let baits move better than regular snaps. Best 'fish' on one of our Ti leaders a 220lb Mako Shark of the coast of Borneo.
I used to use the Stingease snaps all the time and still use them occasionally. I feel more comfortable with split rings but have never had a failure with the snaps. I had one snap that I used a whole season (purposely putting it to the test) and caught a pile of fish using it and it still seemed quite strong (even with all the paint gone). I am using split rings on almost everything now though just for piece of mind I guess. I do use floroucarbon leaders with Sampo swivels and connect them to the bait with Bucher's split rings. I use the Stringease snaps on baits that have thin wire eyelits (like a Vibrax) because the spit ring can work its way off the bait.
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