Round Tungsten Firehole Stones™

Round tungsten beads sized true, drilled clean, and weighted the same bead to bead. The head of the fly should be the part you never have to think about.

At a Glance

• Pack: 24 beads. 18 at 4.0mm, 12 at 4.5mm
• Material: 95% tungsten alloy (W/Ni/Fe)
• Density: About 18 g/cm³, roughly 1.6 times lead
• Bore: Clean and uniform, no thread fraying
• Sizes: 2.0mm to 4.5mm
• Colors: 23
• Finishes: Polished, matte, plated

Ties Well As

• Classic nymphs
• Pheasant tails and hare's ears
• Midges and micro-nymphs
• General attractor patterns

From the Bench

Round beads want a straight or slightly bent shank. They will not clear the bend on a jig hook, which is what slotted beads are for.

Round runs 0.05 grams at 2.0mm up to 0.69 at 4.5, within a few hundredths of a slotted bead the same size. Round starts at 2.0mm; below that, 1.5mm is slotted only.

The Stone Stack has every weight, and how these stack with Bug Bands and Tear Drops.

On the Metal

Tungsten beads are made from tungsten heavy alloy rather than pure tungsten: tungsten powder sintered with a few percent of nickel and iron. Pure tungsten is brittle and difficult to work, and the binder is what makes a bead you can handle without it chipping.

Ours runs 95% tungsten, which puts it at about 18 g/cm³, roughly 1.6 times the density of lead. The category generally sits between 90% and 97%, a spread of about a gram and a half per cubic centimetre. On a 3.0mm bead that is a difference of about two hundredths of a gram, where going up one bead size is twelve hundredths. Size moves weight roughly six times harder than purity does.