Ceramic Bearing Test

I've gotten lots of questions concerning the new ceramic bearings I am carrying (TG's Rocket Bearings). Therefore, I decided to do some real world testing. I went out to a nearby lake today and did a bunch of casting tests. Here�s the equipment and conditions used for the tests.

Equipment and Conditions
1	Custom St. Croix rod built on an Avid 3C66MM blank (equivalent to an AC66MM).
2	Abu Garcia Pro Max 3600 reel with 6.3 gear ratio. I chose this reel for a couple of reasons. Mainly, it's the only reel I own that takes 3x10x4mm bearings (the only size of the ceramics I have in stock at present). Secondly, I'm so familiar with this reel that I can literally change the bearings in one minute.
3	30# test McCoy braided line.
4	All casting was done from a seated position using a 2-hand overhead cast.
5	All casts made in the same direction to eliminate any wind differences.
6	To minimize the effects of exceptionally long or short casts, 10 casts were made with each combination and the results were averaged.
7	Lures used were a 3/8 oz spinnerbait with 1 gold willow leaf blade and 1 silver Colorado blade and a 1/4 oz spinnerbait with tandem silver Colorado blades.
8	Distances were measured in handle revolutions since I had no other way to measure the distance.
9	All testing took place within 1 hour.

I did everything in my power to make things equal in the tests. I used a set of stock Abu Garcia P/N 5230 bearings, a set of ABEC7s randomly selected from my stock on hand, and a set of the new TG's Rocket Bearings. All three sets of bearings were soaked in lighter fluid to remove any residual grease or oil, and then lubed with one (1) drop of Yellow Rocket Fuel per bearing.

Here are the results:

Bait	Stock Abu P/N 5230	ABEC7	Ceramic
3/8 oz Spinnerbait	40	46.6 16.5% improvement over stock	47.7 19.25% improvement over stock 2.4% improvement over ABEC7
1/4 oz Spinnerbait	36.7	41.3 12.5% improvement over stock	43.5 18.5% improvement over stock 5.3% improvement over ABEC7

Conclusions

1) You DEFINITELY have to tighten down your cast control cap when you install the ceramics. The cast control cap on my reel needed to be tightened about 3/8 of a turn!

2) There is a large improvement in casting distance over stock when using the ABEC7 bearings. There is an additional improvement when using the ceramic bearings.

3) The ABEC7 bearings were a tiny bit smoother than the stock bearings on the retrieve. You could still feel a bit of roughness with the ABEC7s. However, the ceramic bearings were unquestionably the smoothest of the lot by a huge margin. They felt as smooth as a baby�s rear end. They are undoubtedly the smoothest bearings I�ve ever used in a reel.

These are only my experiences -- your mileage may vary. Are the ceramics worth the difference in price - $16/pair for ABEC7s vs. $35/pair for ceramics? Only you can answer that question.