17 hours ago, Texas Flood said:

Woooooooow. I have enough stock to get me through this season but this is going to seriously force me to reconsider how I fish and what I use going into next year. What a shame. This was all completely avoidable too.

A real shame for conservation too. I'd assume all of us on here are fairly serious about this hobby and try to follow the letter of the law as closely as we can, but the casual angler is 100% going straight back to lead with prices like these despite any local lead laws. A lot of the Loon populations by me have made a real comeback with the implementation of those laws.

On 4/7/2026 at 1:02 PM, Tackleholic said:

While we are on the subject, I'm going to ask another question. Are there different qualities of tungsten, and is it possible for a product which is labeled as tungsten to be only part tungsten? My suspicious mind has wondered about this before?

This is probably an important thing to bring up now. Especially since people are probably going to be scrambling to stock up on "deals" from some of the overseas bulk distributors.

There are two "types" of tungsten weights. One is a polymer with tungsten fill, with a density of around 10g/cm^3, closer to lead. This is the "cheap route" some brands go while still being able to advertise their product as tungsten. Then there is sintered tungsten which is a tungsten powder that is sintered together, with a density of about 18g/cm^3. This is the tungsten that gives you those truly special properties we seek out, and also the one that is about to become completely uneconomical to manufacture for fishing products. So if you see a "deal" that's too good to be true, it probably is. At that point you might as well be buying lead.

3 hours ago, MassYak85 said:

Woooooooow. I have enough stock to get me through this season but this is going to seriously force me to reconsider how I fish and what I use going into next year. What a shame. This was all completely avoidable too.

A real shame for conservation too. I'd assume all of us on here are fairly serious about this hobby and try to follow the letter of the law as closely as we can, but the casual angler is 100% going straight back to lead with prices like these despite any local lead laws. A lot of the Loon populations by me have made a real comeback with the implementation of those laws.

It's pretty insane with these prices. I also stocked up before the price hike but will also have to do some thinking when they run out.

I've already gone back to lead jigs like Greenfish and Dirty because I cant justify the price of Beast Coast ones at the moment. Hopefully the pricing will go down someday.

Maybe we should all switch to gold. It's slightly heavier and it's cheaper. 😆

Another reason I went to straight braid whenever I can get away with it. I can't afford to be leaving $5 weights and $2 hooks in the water. My friend thought I was crazy for buying Gamakatsu. I told him my hooks are years old. I haven't depleted the three 5-packs of superline EWGs I bought in different sizes years ago. Gamakatsus stay sharp and hold a good occasional sharpening.

On 4/7/2026 at 4:15 PM, GetFishorDieTryin said:

Yes, there are differences. Tungsten by itself is a very dense metal and has properties that make it difficult to retain its shape as it cools. As hard as pure tungsten is. it has a tendency to become brittle after cooling. There are several formulas different manufacturers use to make tungsten alloys. The higher quality tungsten is generally 95-97% tungsten with a 3-5% mixture of nickel and or iron.

Lesser quality tungsten or tungsten compounds remain brittle and have poor tensile strength. JIgheads or jigs made of lower quality tungsten/ tungsten compounds that have collar on the shank, are prone to shattering with sufficient vibration of the hook or when the shank has enough pressure on it to flex or bend slightly. As much as I like Keitechs products the micro jigs and super round jigheads shatter often.

Tungsten naturally has a reflective surface. Unfortunately paint doesn't bind to it very well and has a tendency to chip very easily. Although it cost a little more money to produce, heating tungsten to extreme temps and immediate quenching in very cold water will produce a matte finish that is incredibly resistant to chipping or scratching. I think you can also add some kind of powder during production, that results in a matte finish.

Being that tungsten is incredibly hard, the interior of tungsten bullet weights that lack an insert can damage line easily if there is a burr or sharp edge that wasn't polished out.

Weights with inserts dont translate vibration as efficiently vs weights without inserts. I've had a few weights that damaged line, although it very rare, like 3 weights out of hundreds. 2 of them were from the same brand, but I cant quite remember which one it was. The shop only carried a few brands and I know i wasn't a R2S or Picasso, pretty sure it was Eco Pro or TD.

In terms of quality, there quite a few good companies. I really liked Swagger and was saddened to see they are no longer available on TW. I think Reins and Picasso have the best tungsten Ive used. Never had any issues and the weights are exactly the weight they advertise.

A bunch of companies offer tungsten with inserts. I know Picasso does and I think Reins all have inserts. You can even make your own inserts. There are a bunch of videos that show you how.

I hope it wasn’t eco pro. I bought a bunch of them years and years ago when they were considered one of the go to tungsten weights. I don’t like weights with inserts.

On 4/30/2026 at 10:27 AM, MassYak85 said:

This is probably an important thing to bring up now. Especially since people are probably going to be scrambling to stock up on "deals" from some of the overseas bulk distributors.

There are two "types" of tungsten weights. One is a polymer with tungsten fill, with a density of around 10g/cm^3, closer to lead. This is the "cheap route" some brands go while still being able to advertise their product as tungsten. Then there is sintered tungsten which is a tungsten powder that is sintered together, with a density of about 18g/cm^3. This is the tungsten that gives you those truly special properties we seek out, and also the one that is about to become completely uneconomical to manufacture for fishing products. So if you see a "deal" that's too good to be true, it probably is. At that point you might as well be buying lead.

This is very interesting. How can you tell which is which?