I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

[Texasmark]

Was reading the 175 entry Ron G tune up report just now on this forum and noticed the Ballistic bashing.<br /><br />Well you guys know as you were there and I wasn't. You were running the rigs and I was out of it for the last 10 years.<br /><br />So I buy this 17' 3 step, padded, tin BB (boat wt is 750# dry) with a 90 Merc (with Merc Instruments) on it (300#) and it has a Ballistic prop that's way too low in pitch. So I pitch up (takes 2 props to get there, but....) and decide to stay with the Ballistic for 2 reasons; the radical design must have something going as I never saw it before, and to change mfgr's would just add one more variable). Engine anti cav plate is 1" above the pad.<br /><br />So while it was cool, this year, with the new prop and me (250#), 3 batt's and 10 gal of gas, I hit 52 repeatedly at 5600. Now that it has warmed up into the 70's I'm down to just over 50.<br /><br />Just goofing off I throttle down to about 4500, then immediately get in a hard turn and stomp it. It cavitates up to about 5800 and stays there (little chine walk, porposing) till I straighten out then after a couple of seconds it down shifts and away we go. (prop is not ported).<br /><br />Hole shot is nice and smooth, good solid power, reasonably fast (fast enough considering the other end) with no appreciable bow lift; no blow out period. Very acceptible performance.<br /><br />So what's so bad about that?<br /><br />How can this Ballistic be so horrible?<br /><br />Maybe, since my rig is light in weight it works for me and doesn't work on heavy assended big rigs. I dunno. <br /><br />I have been surfing performance reports from boat/engine mfgrs and haven't found a tin lizzy in the same category that is within 10 mph of this thing. <br /><br />Open for comments. <br /><br />Thanks,<br /><br />Mark

 

[Dhadley]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

What pitch did you end up with?

 

[walleyehed]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

Mark what gear ratio do you have????

 

[brownies]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

Any prop is better than none?

 

[walleyehed]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

24P....<br />I come up with 7.5-8.5% slip<br />That's about 10% less slip than any of the ballistics I ran on my boat.<br />I personally told a rep at MWC, the ballistic has problems when compared to alot of other SS props..his response was "yea, we know...we're working on that and they were that way when we bought the design"...<br />Maybe they've changed???????

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

I've never ran a newer one since MWC's acquisition. Maybe they HAVE changed. The old ones were also poor quality stainless. I couldn't find one prop shop who was willing to even attempt to rebuild one. All claimed you could not weld on the stainless if you needed to add diameter.<br /><br />I tested roughly 8 SS props on my old Forester 16' V hull fiberglass boat. I had a '91 120 Evi hung on the back. The Ballistic performed the poorest of all props I tried. Holeshot, top speed, and cavitation were all measured and judged. I did experiment with jack plate positions for each prop to maximize performance.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: I know I'm hard headed, but I just don't understand.

Prop is a 13 1/2 x 24. Gear box is 2.3. Prop is meticulously polished and gorgeous ss. Zero machining marks, and casting marks. Really beautiful.<br /><br />Only thing I would comment on is the cup is not that much (in my opinion), but on a prop of this pitch, maybe you don't want a lot of cup....dunno....but it's enough to hook up in a couple of seconds of cavitation from my turns.<br /><br />I figured the slip at about 8% and on this light rig and that seemed realistic.<br /><br />The nice thing about the funny geometry of the thing is that they whacked off the rear of the blades just before the end of the prop hub so that I only had to do minor corrections to the trim tab to get it to spin.<br /><br />Now I could take this to a prop shop and have them whack the tail off perpindicular to the hub and have myself a cleaver prop; but this seems to be just fine.<br /><br />Now this is an XL which is in the higher pitches and there is a lot more blade area on this than there is on the regular units like the 13 1/8 x 21 predicessor I initially bought.<br /><br />Thanks guys, appreciate your listening to me. Hopefully someone else out there is watching and listening and getting some lift from this.<br /><br />Mark