Matzuo Inconsistent Tempering?

[duffy]

I wondered if anyone else had run into this? I ordered some Matzuo sickle hooks from Barlows and had poured a few up and liked the way they looked. Just for the heck of it I took a #1 and tried to bend it just to see how tough they were and it snapped like a piece of glass! I took my needle nose pliers and could very easily just snap off small sections all along the hook all the way to the point. Grabbed another one and it simply bent like most other hooks. So now I wondering how many of those that I did cast up are like the first one that broke so easy and do I have to go through the whole bag and test them or was that just a fluke or a problem with just that size? I was going to order some more but now I'm not sure.

 

[hookup]

I toss about 5% of the Matzuo hooks I buy. Their quality control needs help.

But for the other 95%, they are money.

 

[Fatman]

I know they had a problem with #4 black chromes breaking at the 90 degree bend, in May 2013. They actually replaced mine and many others. Is there a date manufactured on the box? If they're bad send them back and have them replaced.

The ones they replaced I checked every one just to make sure.

 

[LedHed]

got really tired of dealing with the inconsistencies with Matzuo' QC

I switched to EC Lil Nasty hooks - they work extremely well for us in SoCal

 

[joe]

It sucks to do after you paid good money for them, but I'd toss 'em. Ran into the same type of issues with some Tiemco fly hooks in various sizes (Tiemco 100) and some EC circle hooks. Ridiculous amount of hook breakage on even small fish with light lines. Near impossible to bench test every one in a batch to see if there are bad ones, most of the time they'll pass only to break on the water.

Folks will often say it's "from clamping too hard in a vise" which is a bunch of BS most (if not all of) the time and something companies spew in defense of a bad quality run. The circle hook issue proves that and the area of breakage on others has nothing to do with clamping area. Funny thing is, it seems to happen in a size range on some hooks where certain sizes and smaller get brittle.

I dumped them by line or even brand and eliminate future problems, there's so many options these days.

 

[duffy]

Well I'm glad I didn't buy a pile of them, just some 100 packs in various sizes. Last night I sat down an sorted through a couple of packs, gave them the once over and tweeked some. Found a wide array of problems from crooked eye's, some soft like butter with very little or no plating, some hard and brittle, and a couple that when I tried to bend them a little bit the black chrome popped off. A couple of them looked like they were twisted when they formed them and the barb was on the side. I don't know if the bronzed ones would be any better but this is frustrating. I've had problems with Mustad and EC but nothing like this. Most of the others were simple things that you could easily spot or fix, like an open eye or just a dull point. Good thing I'm not dealing with thousands of them for retail and just doing a few for myself. Anyway, lesson learned again, you get what you pay for and sometimes not even that.

 

[Bucko]

I'm with LedHed. I bid farewell to the inconsistencies of Matzuo and went with the eagle claws. It sucked throwing out a few thousand hooks but people thinking I make a shotty lure is far worse. I had problems with all sizes 8 all the way up to 4/0.

 

[Kdog]

Last batch of 1000 I got before the inrto of lil nastys had a terrible yeild. somewhere ~ 80 not castable. Never got much into the brittleness but lost a lot of jigs that year due to broken hooks. Never lost a fish on one but maybe I was lucky or maybe just a different angle of deflection.

I still like the matzuo but stick with EC or Mustad and will do Gammis upon request. I did try some VMC and liked then but not popular with my buddies. I do use Owner super needle point hooks for a crappie tourney competitor friend. Given most vendors reluctance to include lot codes with their product, it is hard to say if you have old stock or new stock which is sad. I'm sure some vendors dumped their inventory on unsuspecting wholesalers/remarketers or whatever you want to call them. I'm told that matzuo has upped their Quality but it remains to be seen. Reports like this lead me to think lip service aimed at helping market share is in play.

 

[Fatman]

After I tested all the replacments I bought the EC Little Nasties too. I still have LOTS of old stock Mustads and they still work good.

 

[Hawnjigs]

In order to meet their price point (cheap) Matzuo had to lower their QC standard over the years. Older mfg Sickles were a quality hook, but at some point when mfg. defects ranging from annoying to fatal became common I bailed. Don't have much use for sickle style light wires, but if I do in the future will probably try Lil' Nasties.