A good friend of mine is a custom rod builder and I am going to have him start building my rods for me as I am tired of store bought rods. He suggested the MHX line of blanks from mudhole, my question is, for those of you who have built on these blanks, how do the powers and actions compair to what I am familiar with? For years I used St.Croixs, and the last few years I have been "wandering in the woods" using all sorts of different things. We're going to start with a build that would be one of my most used rods, something for light duty flipping and pitching in moderate weed cover with 1/4-1/2 oz. jigs and t-rigged plastics with 30lb braid, and 15-17lb fluorocarbon leaders. I have narrowed it down to two possible blanks from the "regular" MHX line. Both in the mag bass taper. Either the 7'3" mh/f, or the 7'3" h/f. I want this blank to be close in power to what a St. Croix Mh/f would be.... So what are your suggestions? Thanks.

I have a few rods I'vebuilt on MHX blanks and am very happy with them generally. I have 7ft 2 piece mag bass blanks in M, MH and H. I would say they're a bit lighter power than my St Croix one piece blanks, but not a whole power. The one piece versions, and 7'3" versions may be different though.

Not to steal a thread, our blank designer was ST Croix's product guy for over 17+ years! Our blanks will be very similar to what your looking for. 

MHX and Rainshadow are both fine blanks. St Croix powers run on the heavy side compared to others. An MHX H/F (4power) will be comparable to St Croix's SCIII (Avid) in MH. Stick with the standard MHX for heavier casting tackle and jump up to the Hi-Mod for spinning and finesse stuff. You'll be happy. The Rainshadow definition of MH vs Hvy is closer to St Croix's. They all have nice sensitive tips with plent of backbone. 

MHX and Rainshadow are both fine blanks. St Croix powers run on the heavy side compared to others. An MHX H/F (4power) will be comparable to St Croix's SCIII (Avid) in MH. Stick with the standard MHX for heavier casting tackle and jump up to the Hi-Mod for spinning and finesse stuff. You'll be happy. The Rainshadow definition of MH vs Hvy is closer to St Croix's. They all have nice sensitive tips with plent of backbone.

Thanks. That helps a lot. One of my all time favorite rods for doing what I want this new custom rod for was an Avid 7'MH/F. So it looks like the 7'3" H/F MHX blank is what I am going to go with for this application.

Not to steal a thread, our blank designer was ST Croix's product guy for over 17+ years! Our blanks will be very similar to what your looking for. 

 

Not bashing on MHX, I've built on a few and like them.

But if you like St Croix rods its hard to not bring up rainshadow.  Their blank GURU was St Croix.  Worth a look at least.

Not bashing on MHX, I've built on a few and like them.

But if you like St Croix rods its hard to not bring up rainshadow.  Their blank GURU was St Croix.  Worth a look at least.

 

 

I love MHX but you should look at Rod Geeks also.  They are St Croix designs.  Plus you can get them painted.

I love MHX but you should look at Rod Geeks also. They are St Croix designs. Plus you can get them painted.

I love the geeks blank I built I'm about to order a few more at the end of the month

I've only built on 3 MHX blanks, a MXF, MF and MHF. I couldn't discern between the 3 without looking at the labels. Not a fan. I still have a Gen 1 HM MLXF to build. It feels different.