250# swivel holds< 200#

[onaga]

How much should a 2/0 250# swivel hold? I was load testing some wire crimps the other day and to my suprise the swivels (2/0, 250#) failed with less than 200# of load. The leader was 170# wire. Do I have a bad batch of swivels? Am I missing something here? I'm an engineer and this doesn't seem to add up....

[woodboy]

I think your drag may be a little to tight.

[jcft2007]

Hi!!

What Kind of swivel are you using and for what purpose??

The swivels I like are sold by SPRO in the yellow package. They have ball bearing and the regular type(i.e crane or McMahon: I'm sure there's other terms), but my preference is one that the barrel has a pretty tight hole towards the connector of where the clip enters it.

I found in years past, depending on your use, to go larger than needed on the swivel. For example: if your using 200# mono, use a rating of 300#. Wire still has a lilttle stretch before it breaks so you may need to adjust as needed.

Tight lines, Joel

[pijon]

I think it would be interesting if you did a load test on several swivels of different makes. We are at the mercy of what is printed on the package and some mfg's may be more accurate than others.

[Chesapeake]

I am interested in the failure mode.

Did the wire cut through the swivel eye?

If the wire cut through the swivel eye then I wouldnt consider that to be a swivel failure. Also if the wire elongated the swivel eye causing it to pull out of the barrel/bearing section that too might not be a swivel failure.

I'm sure when they test the swivels they load the swivel with a large diameter rod through the eye that is close to the eye diameter preventing the eye from deforming/elongating under load.

Its kinda like how they test everything. The rating simply means thats the rating under thier test conditions. It may have little or nothing to do with actual conditions under use.

Braided lines will also cut through swivel eyes.

[onaga]

Retested just the swivels. Swivels with large diameter pulls did not fail at 250#. Origional test had wire elongating the swivel eye then cutting through the swivel. Conclusion: Berkley McMahon swivels did not fail at 250# loading with large diameter pulls. Thanks for the input.

[Spoonplugger]

Good info! I learned a thing or two.