After wearing out an X-line, I went with Amsteel on my 9.5ti and it works very well. Regardless of the rope, it needs to be taken care of. Use some hollow nylon webbing as an abrasion guard. I keep 3 pieces on my rope and move them where they are needed. I haven't broken the Amsteel rope yet and I've had some very hard pulls on it. I believe I'm running 3/8 inch.
As for wire rope being 5 -10 times the cost of synthetic, I think that is a little high. Maybe twice or three times as much, but safety wise, rope is worth every penny. If I were winching myself up a vertical cliff day in and day out, I'd probably want wire, but for 98% of my winching, rope works just fine.
Also, you need some empty space on a drum in case you end up in a position where all the rope wants to wrap itself on one end of the drum. Too much rope can cause problems too. I use my old X-line pieces as extenders as needed and only put 100 feet of rope on a drum that normally carries 125 feet of wire rope.
My .02.
Adam
As for wire rope being 5 -10 times the cost of synthetic, I think that is a little high. Maybe twice or three times as much, but safety wise, rope is worth every penny. If I were winching myself up a vertical cliff day in and day out, I'd probably want wire, but for 98% of my winching, rope works just fine.
Also, you need some empty space on a drum in case you end up in a position where all the rope wants to wrap itself on one end of the drum. Too much rope can cause problems too. I use my old X-line pieces as extenders as needed and only put 100 feet of rope on a drum that normally carries 125 feet of wire rope.
My .02.
Adam
