How Does 832 Stand Up to Sudden Impact? It Might Just Make Your Day

Total Score: 7.62 - GOOD

Introduction: In a our Superline Shootout of 2010, we pitted three popular but higher end braided lines against one another to see how they compared in an extended, on the water evaluation. That was nearly three years ago! Truth is, without some true, qualitative data, we just weren't happy with our own line reviews. Well, with the establishment and build out of our lab space, all that has changed. If you read the piece about our new FPI (Fluorocarbon Performance Index), you already know we've reformatted and standardized our line review metrics per line type, and today we debut our BPI (Braid Performance Index) with a look at Sufix's popular 832.

Background: In that Superline Shootout of 2010, Sufix's Performance Braid took top honors, so we thought it only fitting we introduce our new braided line metrics with this brand's newest offering. Debuted at ICAST 2010, Sufix's 832 is an eight strand braid with the unique feature of having a proprietary Gore fiber as one of those strands. This fiber was introduced to increase abrasion resistance and, more importantly resistance to sudden impact force breakage. The theory is this proprietary Gore fiber acts as a cushion and lubricant to the other seven, Dyneema fibers keeping them from cutting one another in situations of high impact - like a hookset. Was Sufix successful? Let's find out.

Is 832's proprietary Gore fiber a true benefit? Let's find out.

Quality (18 possible points): Our BPI is built similar to our FPI with some tweaks and adjustments to the categories recognizing that braid has different value adds than fluorocarbon. Our evaluation of initial quality of a braided line involves its coating, consistency of diameter, and the accuracy of the line's rated breaking strength.

A cross section of 832 reveals a round-ish profile with a 1.79% deviation in measured diameter.

Coating: The first metric in our Quality matrix has to do with whether or not the line has a coating and if so, what is the resulting feel of the line due to this coating. Our pet peeve with braided line is how stiff and waxy some of them can feel and how those that have heavy coatings tend to shed that coating all over your equipment and boat during the first hour of extended use. Recognizing this characteristic is strictly a matter of preference, we don't weight the category very heavily. Just the same, we award 3 points for no coating, two points for a coating that does not impede the softness of the line and one point for one that is waxy.

Diameter: For the line's diameter, we use the same method of calculation from our FPI and that is to measure the line's diameter at five different points along the length of a line off the spool, calculate the standard deviation, and subtract that percentage from the number 5. Braid varies greatly in this department and we even receive negative values in this category for some lines with greater than 5% deviation in their diameter!

Tested Strength vs Rated Strength (TS v RS): Another area of widely varying numbers with braid? Tensile strength versus rated strength. We've found most other lines vary within a few pounds of their rated strength. Braid can vary as much as 38%! So to determine a product's score in this category we take the percentage over, or under it is from its rated strength, move the decimal over a ten spot and subtract the value from ten.

It's all pretty cut and dry and as you can see in the table above, Sufix 832 scored 13.92 points out of a possible 18. That's 7.73% and a "good" on our rating scale of 1-10.