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Investment cast 17-4 stainless steel, solution heat treated to 1875 degrees Fahrenheit followed by oil quenching then reheated to 925 degrees for one hour of precipitation hardening to between 42 and 44 on the Rockwell C hardness scale( known in the trade as the H900 treatment). This results in a tip that is effectively impervious to reef impacts with usually only minor touch up needed on a grinding wheel. The body was designed overcome many weakness observed on other tips. The thick skirt at the adapter interface overcomes the weakness exhibited by the Alexander tip where the adapter cavity deforms or cracks on reef impact. The cable attachment is both stable and field maintainable . Note that a single removable stainless pin holds the cable stop in its chamber. This tip is more prone to slight rusting than its BLUE-WATER cousin, however for the reef hunter it's the one to get.
The cable is easily changed and made by the owner of the tip. You can in fact have separate cables for your various guns and move the tip from one gun to the next by simply changing the cable. Take a careful look at the chamber that holds the cable stop in the tip. There are bosses cast into the tip that keep the cable stop trapped in the chamber - it is these bosses that take the majority of the stress in a 'big fish run' - furthermore these bosses are structurally part of the major tip body - the pin is only there to keep the cable snug in its retaining chamber. Floppers are both obtainable and changeable. The floppers are sold separately - you can get them most anywhere and put them on yourself - or you can run the tip 'flopper free' as a streamlined tip.
The adapter interface design was pioneered by Steve Alexander - it is now being employed on these tips and some Alexander klones (the reason is easy - it is simply THE BEST). The design shows the genius exhibited by Alexander who pioneered it and works by having a sphere or ball on the front of the adapter and a taper or cone at the rear. The adapter cavity has a tapered outer ridge and an inner chamber formed by two cylinders. This forces a solid alignment - tapers are a standard alignment principle used in the machine tool industry. In fact, the chuck on a typical drill press is attached to the movable quill drive by a tapered shaft. The taper principle has a downside with respect to spear tip alignment however - the longer the taper the better the alignment but past a critical angle the taper through friction is also a drive attachment mechanism as well ( the whole power of the drill press is transmitted through only the friction of the tapered quill). A tip designed with only the taper principle at the adapter interface will tend to jam (if too long) or wobble (if too short) or both (as the Ice pick tip exhibits). The Alexander break-through in tip design was to use a self-aligning ball on the tip end to have an effective long taper alignment without the drawback of drive jamming. Note that almost all the forces upon impact get transmitted through the taper on the adapter to the skirt on the tip - hence we make a substantial skirt on our tip. The adapter portion is manufactured through a computer numerically controlled machining process. It is made from H900 heat treated 17-4 stainless steel. It has a .25 inch shoulder so it fits virtually any shaft with a 5/16 by 24 thread per inch end such as Alexander, Reidel, or Riffe. It is knurled for ease of application and removal and the heat treatment makes it able to withstand both the angular or direct forces of reef impact as well as the punishment it receives from the direct reef impact on the 'hole run' of a just shot large grouper dragging your shaft-adapter combo by the cable with the tip toggled in him across the rocks.
Cast from the same mold as the REEF-MASTER, this tip is made from 316 stainless steel. This is the same material that quality dive knives are made from. It is extremely impervious to the salt environment. If you just hunt blue water - this is the tip to get.
