I have a question for you veteran rod builders concerning the installation of a fighting butt. My reel seat is 35/8 inches long. The insert for the fighting butt extends 7/8 of an inch into the butt of the reel seat. Because the diameter of the FB insert is larger than the hole in the rodblank, this will mean that the reel seat is only sitting on approximately 2.75 inches of rodblank. Now, is that enough to form a secure anchor for the reel seat and the fighting butt???Or do I need to find a longer reelseat to accomadate the fighting butt insert? Thank you in advance-gb-

I built a 9' 7wt fly rod with a fighting butt and had the same problem. It was a two piece rod, and as a result the sections were not the same size. I have two piece manufacture rods with fighting butts of equal length! Should I have cut a segment of the butt of the blank off to make the two piece rod fit in a 9' rod case? Not trying to over shadow your problem Gene but you may run into the same cituation

Either way is acceptable and I've built rods both ways. You get a little extra length to the rod if you don't trim the butt on the blank, but it does make the two parts different in length, and it might not fit in some rod cases. Depends on the case.

A funny? thing happend once:
I was installing a fighting butt on a 3 pc. blank. I decided to cut the butt section to make the sections closer to equal length. After careful measuring and cutting, I found I had cut the middle section by mistake! Luckly the rod was for my wife and she was more concerned about the thread color.

I should have said this at the onset; this is a four piece 6 wght blank so I am not concerned by the extra inch and a half butt section as it can be removed if needed. My concern is whether or not moving the reelseat back 3/4 of an inch to accomodate the Fighting butt insert will weaken the reelseat and the accompaning fighting butt. The ones I have previously installed were easier because the FB insert fit nicely into the hole in the rodblank. Since this one does not, I thought maybe someone else had experienced this??????-gb-

Again, not to diminish the importance of the original question...I have had issue with the model of fighting butt that I like to use (REC 1.5). It made the handle section of my 9' four piece about 1.5" longer. The issue is that I had to use a rod case for a 10' model and the sections sit lower in the case and sometimes slide around. I have another rod where the blank goes stright through the butt and the only added length is the concave plastic butt cover at the end. 1/8" - 1/4" at most.

My question is this..will the rod's hadling or action or castability change if I trim the bottom of the butt so that the rod nets out to 9'? Is there too much risk to get it to fit the cases that I like or should I just think of it as the same as using a butt where the blank goes all the way through to the end?

Thanks.