Hi all,

I'm looking to grab a 7'3 or longer blank for 1/8-5/16oz (mostly 1/4oz) jigs/shaky heads/swim jigs/t-rigs and other medium fast-ish angles. I feel like a medium fast rod should be rated something like 3/16-5/8 give or take a sixteenth or so. It will be a casting rod for open water/sparse cover. Maybe on the beefier side because we get some nasty weeds as the summer kicks in. Perhaps a heavy medium or a light medium heavy?

I was thikning of the NFC X-ray MB764 or SB 724 - anybody familiar with those blanks?

What IP range would be considered a medium? In general I mean, I know there is no actual assigned designation. I know there is no standard, I know his medium and her medium might be different. That's perfectly fine, I welcome the disagreement in the name of discussion and growth.

For YOU - when you pick up a "medium" blank - what IP do you look for or have tested and concluded to yourself "I'd call that a medium"?

While we're here - what would you consider the IP range for the 5 main rod ratings we see on a shelf - Light, Medium light, Medium, Medium Heavy, Heavy? Lure ratings to go with those?

I know CCS is not the same as saying MH F or M MF - but I'd like to know what you would consider the modern rod speak translation. Thow in your AA translation if you're feeling up to it too - is an AA of 68 Fast or Moderate fast? Something else?

And I know there's Mag medium and Mag and Mag etc. but those would fall within greater ranges we can parse out later if people are interested.

Feel free to copy and paste this as a template to share your thoughts:

Light - IP from
Medium Light - IP from
Medium - IP from
Medium Heavy - IP from
Heavy - IP from

Moderate - AA from
Moderate Fast - AA from
Fast - AA from
Extra Fast - AA from

I don't have enough experience to have much of an idea for the ranges, but looking at CCS data and its general range I feel like a medium would fall right around IP 500g.

Any input and thoughts would be appreciated!

Grace and Peace,
El



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2023 07:42AM by El Bolinger.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

PB731MLF
Length: 7 ft 3 in
Action Angle: F • 63-degrees (RDA) • 73-degrees (CCS)
Power: Med Light / 490gr (RDA) • ERN 20.6 (CCS)
Weight: 1.76 oz.
Butt Dia: 14.15 mm
Tip Size: 1.93mm (5.0)
Lure Wt: 1/4 to 5/8oz
Sugg Line Wt: 8-12lb mono
10-15lb braid

PB calls it ML, but most would consider it M. I have the seven foot PB701MLF and it fits what you want perfectly. This one has the same ERN. I personally would go with the seven foot one for better balance and a faster action. Faster action at the same power means a softer tip so should handle the lighter end of the lure range a little better. PB's have very high TNF numbers.


PB701MLF
Length: 7 ft
Action Angle: F • 65-degrees (RDA) • 77-degrees (CCS)
Power: Med / 410gr (RDA) • ERN 19.8 (CCS)
Weight: 1.76oz.
Butt Dia: 14.16 mm
Tip Size: 1.56mm (4.5)
Lure Wt: 1/16 to 3/8oz
Sugg Line Wt: 8-14 mono
10-15lb braid

You already have my opinion on correlating subjective descriptions to CCS.

@ Steven - thanks, I have a number of posts within that thread and Mick was the only person to share his thoughts on IP conversion to common rod shopping language. Are you saying you second him and agree that he is spot on with his suggested IP to English conversion exactly?


@Mick - thanks for the detailed suggestions! I've been back and forth on how fast I was looking for, but again I'm still not sure what these numbers look like on the water. I have a Light Medium Heavy Extra Fast Kistler and the top 6 inches move and that's it. I haven't had a chance to nab a good number of fish to recall how far into itself it'll bend during the fight, but I remember thinking wow they really mean extra fast. I trust your recommending faster to handle lighter lures better, how far down those blanks will they bend when fighting a fish? Also, I am still waiting for a sale on PB to grab one. I'd love to grab one based on all the high marks they get around here, but NFC is having a sale right now and I think I need to get something to fit that medium slot that I'm lacking. I pretty much follow the sales haha,

I have searched pretty well through this thread trying to gather thoughts on IP to rod speak - it is scattered and I've only found like 2 mentions of a specific IP being called a common power. I'm hoping more people will chime in so we can get a feel for an average conversion so people who are new (like myself) can join this site, shop for a blank, and when we see that CCS data log understand it terms we have been using our entire lives when talking about a rod.

If somebody wants to shop for a blank for their first build (or first few) they can't trust the companies rating or CCS numbers because it might as well be another language to them. Generally speaking most rods/blanks with similar ratings are close enough (in general) so that if somebody says they want a medium blank/rod most people who have fished for a couple years have a pretty good idea what that means - and have a good idea that some companies medium is more like a medium heavy. Even in Mick's example above with PB ML being more like a medium, look at all the PB data in the CCS log, they are all relatively higher in IP than other companies with the same ratings. But if you tell me that an IP of 400-600 is a reasonable range for a medium blank then now I can shop with more confidence.

Can I feel a difference between an IP of 432 and 497?

But seriously, what do other people think of IP ranges for how we all talk about rods outside of this site? There's definitely a handful of people on here who have been doing this long enough and handled enough blanks to have a pretty solid idea about this.

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

Away from the numbers for a minute:

I build redfish rods to through 1/8-1/4oz lead head grubs. 6’9” to 7’6’

Here is my list of favorites

NFC DS 721. MB 733
Thrasher. 7801
CTS. Air
St. Croix 570
Point Blank. PB 691 MXF


Mike

There is no "medium" in the Common Cents System. Dr. Hanneman did not correlate any power rating to a subjective term. The CCS numbers are intended to replace subjective terms. If you're going to try and correlate the two then which "medium" are you going to try and match? A bass "medium" or a popping "medium" or a surf "medium?"

...........

>>"Can I feel a difference between an IP of 432 and 497?"

Yes, easily.

>>"If you're going to try and correlate the two then which "medium" are you going to try and match? A bass "medium" or a popping "medium" or a surf "medium?" This is exactly the problem we are facing with subjective descriptions. And why we are obviously displeased with the system, and trying to fix it.

You can't fix it from the subjective end. You will have to change the manufacturer's own rating systems. St. Croix, Lamglas, Loomis, etc., etc. are not going to acquiesce to any 3rd party's definition or standards to match their own terms to. Waste of time. You're not even on their radar.

There were no less than 10 rod and blank manufacturers represented at this past weekend's Expo. About 7 of them were staffed by the people who actually own the companies or engineer the blanks for them. How many did any of you talk to about any sort of new or revised rating system?

..........



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2023 09:51AM by Tom Kirkman.

@Tom - I acknowledged that in my initial post,and gave specifics on the type of fishing in referring to. I'm not trying to ascertain Hamnan's correlation to medium.
I'm sure you've handled more than a few rods labeled medium, from your experience Tom, would you say a medium is more like an IP of 250g or 650g? If somebody new to the forum asked you specifically for a blank recommendation looking for a bass rod for open water sparse cover that was medium fast would you tell them you can't help them or that they need to first buy a bunch of blanks and test for themselves to find a medium fast blank?

This post isn't even about fixing the sporadic and inconsistent rating systems - it's about Rodbuilding.org helping new builders have a better understanding of CCS without having to build and use 10-20 rods to understand what it all means on the water. If I asked about fish size we could have the same argument, your big fish is not that same as mine. But if I asked generally speaking across the country what would you say a big fish weighs I feel like people would be able to share their thoughts and nobody would say we can't call that a big fish only speak of fish in terms of their actual weight. Their would be discussion about average size in certain parts of the country and some people would say 7 pounds us a big fish and others would say double digits but then we could all come to our own understanding of what we think a big fish is.

There are people on here who have been building for decades, who have built hundreds of rods - have none of them thought about what CCS looks like on the shelf at Basspro? I'm sure plenty of people have an idea of what a medium or medium heavy feels and fishes like and I'm sure they'd be able to say an IP between 200-300 is "x" in terms of a power rating.

Just talking in general here folks, not taking away from CCS or Hanneman's work - just trying to use familiar terms to help understand an unfamiliar topic. I respect that you're trying to preserve Hanneman's work and not change it - but that's not what I'm asking anybody to do.

Almost every bass fisherman has held a rod labeled medium fast - its the common tongue. Does anybody else have any thoughts on what that looks like in IP?

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

Also @Tom - I just bumped into this quote of yours (from [www.rodbuilding.org]) "I designed the casting weight range formula for the CCS." and that's essentially the same thing as saying you have designed a formula to label CCS data with English rod speak counter parts. Again, everybody has a different medium, it could be 1/4-5/8 or 3/16-1/2, but you have determined a way to figure out correlating lure rating which is essentially the detailed version of saying medium or medium heavy etc.

Would you mind sharing that formula you have to calculate CCS data to lure rating?

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

High 400s to low 500s are what I consider medium powered blanks. IMHO.

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> There were no less than 10 rod and blank
> manufacturers represented at this past weekend's
> Expo. About 7 of them were staffed by the people
> who actually own the companies or engineer the
> blanks for them. How many did any of you talk to
> about any sort of new or revised rating system?
>
> ..........

I did talk with I think (7) of the blank manufacturers represented at 2023 Expo. I asked it they had any interest in participating in providing any CCS numbers to add to our thread/database we have been documenting at this thread: [www.rodbuilding.org]

I did not get a single taker. Several were aware of CCS but seem to be satisfied with how things are categorized currently. Looks like that may be up to us.

As an example of how the CCS was useful to me: Before I went to the Expo I asked my son if he had any rods on his "wishlist". He gave me a few. In December/January we measured all of our current factory rods so that we knew the CCS numbers. One of the rods on the wishlist was a shallow crankbait rod and he said he liked the power/action of his current rod but would like lighter/newer build. I went to the CCS spreadsheet and filtered down to find blanks that very closely matched his current crankbait rod and bought one with very similar measurements but lighter weight. I am 99% sure it will meet his needs. THAT is the beauty of CCS in my mind. In those scenarios, I just won't buy a blank from a company that we don't have CCS numbers on. Simple for me.

@Matt thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the matter, definitely helpful!

@Kevin - and I guess @Tom too but I'm sure you've been in the business long enough to know, most companies do not have any interest in actually providing accurate quantifiable data for their blanks or rods because it would lead to informed consumer purchases and less sales in general which means less profit. The more confused consumers are the more they spend trying to find what they're looking for. I think blank manufactures will benefit more so from providing CCS data in the long run, but its still a double edged sword to a degree - especially if multiple companies start doing it adding to informed consumer competition.

But I'm certainly with you on my blank purchases right now, if I don't see the CCS I'm very unlikely to buy unless it's a crazy deal worth the gamble. What was the rod he liked and what blank did you go with?

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

El Bolinger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What was the rod he liked and what blank
> did you go with?

The rod he liked was a Cabelas TZXC-71M-MOD. Not sure who actually made the blank for Cabelas? The blank I bought was Rainshadow Eternity ETES72ML-SS. Interesting that the Rainshadow is marketed as a spinning blank but I'm going to make it into a casting rod. The blank won't mind I don't think :) Thankful that Batson provided that info for the CCS database and as a result they got a sale out of it.

Mike Hubbert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Away from the numbers for a minute:
>
> I build redfish rods to through 1/8-1/4oz lead
> head grubs. 6’9” to 7’6’
>
> Here is my list of favorites
>
> NFC DS 721. MB 733
> Thrasher. 7801
> CTS. Air
> St. Croix 570
> Point Blank. PB 691 MXF
>
>
> Mike

I share Mike’s build philosophy. I’d personally pick the MB733. I think a rod fishes so much better if you can build it for the weight of lure or jig you use rather than going considerably heavier for cover. I usually decide what weight I’m most going to fish and pick a blank that’s upper weight rating is just slightly above that. If I mostly plan on 1/4 jig, I’m probably going to look for a blank that is rated for 1/8th to 5/16ths. I might go 1/8th to 3/8th’s if I think going just a little heavier is an advantage. In this case a blank rated at 5/16ths is rare, anyway. Either way, I want to be at at least the midpoint of the weight increment on blanks realistically rated. Some are rated conservatively, probably to protect the manufacturer from breakage claims from snap casting users. It’s also worth weighing a jig or lure if it’s your framework for a build. Six of the “5/8ths” ounce spinners I use for coho all weighed much less. They ranged from 14.2 to 14.4 grams (1/2 ounce = 14.175 grams). This kept me from selecting a rod rated for a 3/4 ounce max, which wouldn’t load and cast as well.

Hey, El!

Here's my take on a few of the issues you brought up:

Converting CCS to Industry Nomenclature and Vise-Versa:
* The link you received from Steven Paris was a Proposal from Mick for a very General Translation of CCS to the currently used language to describe power. (Might be nice if others chimed in for a discussion about dialing it in if
desired.) As many of us now know, the numbers are far more accurate and consistent than the words. I think Mick was trying to build a bridge between the two worlds to get us over the hump.
* It is a conundrum of sorts, in my mind, to use the current industry language/definitions to describe or translate CCS. Admittedly, I often think in terms of the old vocabulary. This is the back-and-forth part. The conundrum: If I
don't know what the numbers mean as they relate to the words, and I don't know what the words mean as they relate to the numbers, where does that leave me?.
I feel you there.

My own solutions and approaches to making this work best for me:
* As Kevin mentioned, measuring a blank I already like with CCS gives me a great starting point to match it, or go above or below it in IP and/or AA. Granted, that only works when I have a good sample size of CCS data to
compare. (Keep that data coming in everyone! And more HUGE thanks to Kevin for the work on the CCS spreadsheets!)
* I have a rod-building buddy that likes different rods than I do. I can try his rods when on the water, and he can try mine. If I like the way his blank performs, I get the data on it. He would let me take it home and CCS it.
* When I didn't have a building buddy or much of an inventory of my own blanks, I came here (like you) and searched around for past and present recommendations. I made a fat, three-ring binder of lists of recommendations
for everything salifish to sunfish in relatively short order. Over time, I got a feel for the people who did my kind of fishing, I trusted, and gave extra weight to what they said.
* Familiarity with certain manufacturers gives me a good starting place because I know what they mean by "Medium" and "Fast" in general. A Portable CCS Express device would be handy to clip on a blank at the store.

Lastly, there is always some risk involved when I am buying things sight-unseen. The risk can be mitigated but never eliminated. No one wants anyone to be unhappy or disappointed, but everyone here has been before.
And if I get something that doesn't work for my specific purpose, I can change the purpose of that rod....or gift it to Ol' Uncle Bill who will show it off more than ever fish with it.

To be succinct: Matt Ruggle's and Mick's CCS numbers seem right in that Medium ballpark to me. (And these gentlemen are a couple heavy hitters, IMO.)

El Bolinger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also @Tom - I just bumped into this quote of yours
> (from
> [www.rodbuilding.org]
> 56#msg-551356) "I designed the casting weight
> range formula for the CCS." and that's essentially
> the same thing as saying you have designed a
> formula to label CCS data with English rod speak
> counter parts. Again, everybody has a different
> medium, it could be 1/4-5/8 or 3/16-1/2, but you
> have determined a way to figure out correlating
> lure rating which is essentially the detailed
> version of saying medium or medium heavy etc.
>
> Would you mind sharing that formula you have to
> calculate CCS data to lure rating?


El

Ratings such as medium, heavy, etc. relate to power, not casting weight range, which is typically listed under its own heading on most commercially made rods. I reverse-figured the equation for the CCS from casting weight ranges on rods where I knew the range to be accurate. Even still, it is not a guarantee beyond certain rod categories. While it works OK for most common freshwater uses, it fails once you get to heavier rods and applications.

..............

I am willing to adapt to any blank rating system that is consistent and accurately represented. I’ve got a blank for which the manufacturer listed three different sets of specifications in their various sources. The vendor published a fourth. It’s stunning to me to see tables where light rods have heavier ratings that the otherwise identical medium-light model in the same series persist year after year. It’s not helpful when line and lure weight ratings don’t correlate, such as 6 to17Lb mono for 1/8th to 5/16th ounce lures (real example, not a jigging blank). I do understand why relationships between rating components vary by action and length. Two or three companies spit out data with variances that can’t logically be explained, though. How hard can it be to have the designers, or a knowledgeable builder when the designers aren’t fluent in English, check each table? I usually build on St. Croix, Rainshadow, and United Composites blanks. The first two of these are consistent relative other rods in same series. I never get surprised. The latter company tends to be conservative on lure weights and a little faster in action than most rods with same ratings. There is enough errors and variations in tables and what the caliper and scale reports to add more uncertainty. It’s the old accuracy versus precision paradigm. I appreciate predictability above anything else in ratings.

@Kevin - I'm pretty sure Gary Loomis had a hand in some BPS and Cabelas rods, depends on when they were made. That Eternity blank was moderate or the Cabelas blank was not?

@Kendall thanks for sharing part of your process for picking a blank. And I agree, more consistency would go a long way for some of these companies.

@Les - thanks for sharing. I was part of that discussion Mick started, I think it makes sense for the consumer but not for the manufacturer which is why it'll never happen. And what you say is a conundrum is only such until we have this conversation (changing the minds and published rod ratings aside), so that we as builders - even just personally - can have a better idea of how we correlate these numbers and terms. There absolutely is a correlation (we could even say on the scale of known IP ratings that the middle is medium, then divide the available IP range by 5 and that would give us our ML,L,M,MH,H ranges based subjectively on available data. Could somebody make a rod with an Ip of 5000g? sure, it would throw a wrench in the system, but I'm not proposing we have some hard and fast 100% rating to IP setting - just something to help us think about and talk about all this in relative and well know popular terms, which makes it more accessible to new builders. so there is correlation when one is designated. If one million builders say that an IP of 200 is medium heavy, that will be considered medium heavy at large. There is no right or wrong, just what we're comfortable accepting or not.

There are some musicians who have platinum records - a million people bought their medium heavy IP200 garbage. But not me, I think their album @#$%&! But there is this other artist who says that IP 550-750 is medium heavy. I buy that album and I think its pretty good, but there are a couple songs that I'm just not diggin. So for me MH is IP 600-825. Now we can all listen to that album and share overlapping appreciation, but we can still have our own dissenting opinions on what songs particularly we like.

When somebody new shows up we can recommend a good song, we might all recommend different songs off the album, but they'll have a good base to start with.

And think about this - EVERYBODY on this site who follows CCS already does this correlation if they have recommended a blank to somebody that asks for a MH MF of ML XF blank - I have seen many posts asking for blank recommendations. If somebody says they're looking for a ML F or XF blank I see tons of recommendations, and many of the recommendations have CCS data alongside the blank... they literally just said "oh you're looking for a ML blank, okay sure I have some CCS data that makes me want to recommend this blank because its ML according to the CCS numbers I have.

Some people might say there is no such thing as a ML blank, only a blank that has an IP that you have to measure in order to know if you got a blank that will suit your purposes, but there are plenty of people here already correlating these numbers and sharing them in tiny pieces. I'm asking for what that range is, and that we can all talk about it and discuss why we think IP 200 is medium heavy or not.

@Tom, there is still a correlation to the casting weight range and power, look at this discussion and then look through the 20 years worth of posts in this forum. The vast majority of people who buy rods and build rods would say that a MH power rod is rated something like 1/4-3/4 or 1/4-1 (give or take a sixteenth or so) and nobody ever says "whoa whoa whoa hold on - you don't mean that, those are two totally different unrelated rating systems on those rods your buying.If you buy a rod that's rated 1/4-3/4 it might actually be a Mag heavy that can only cast 1/4-3/4." - nobody thinks of those two rating systems as mutually exclusive, but most people think they are a numbers system and English system of saying close to the same thing. Plus we all see how those random rating systems seems so random that they mean very little to us who know better. People here want to know the CCS data before buying a blank or a rod - but the average consumer sees MH F on 50 rods and buys 4 - and they all say 1/4-3/4 but their IP might be 675, 700, 843, and 1042 - the ratings mean nothing now including the casting range.

You don't have to share how you calculated your correlations, and perhaps when those two rating systems were devised they meant something different, such as power and casting range, but nowadays people think that the casting range is impacted by the power and that the two run hand in hand. There is some variation naturally, but people across America have very similar ideas on what those numbers mean in terms of power - the problem is that the power might be an IP of 650 or 1050 because of the different companies rating systems. The issue here is finding a more precise way to define a range of acceptable correlations - not that it'll make its way onto the shelf at BPS ( which would be good for consumers and bad for busniess), but at least so we here can relate to each other and new comers in terms that help them assimilate into CCS.

Like I said, people on this site have already been sahring CCS to rod rating correlations for years - they've just been doing it one blank at a time - how about this:

Everybody recommend one rod for each power rating and we can analyze the average and decide our own range from their.

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

EI

What about a "medium" power surf rod? Or a "heavy" power popping rod? This is the problem with all these subjective ratings - they apply differently depending upon the rod category you're talking about.

Even though it's not part of the system and is only being applied by individuals, correlating the CCS power figure (ERN) to any subjective rating only further bastardizes the system in the eyes of many. It creates additional confusion which at this point has rendered the CCS pretty much useless in terms of thinking any manufacturer will ever adopt it again.

....