I was using tungsten electrodes as spike weights before they actually formed one into the shape of a bullet weight.

So Roland has been a closet metallurgist in his spare time? ...and a production engineer? LMAO! I would imagine that the weights we use are NOT a unique-to-fishing tungsten formulation; the application just isn't that critical. We need something dense and hard, which can be satisfied by many formulas. Which exact one gets used by each supplier is likely a cost/availability matter. A unique "metallurgical formula" for such a tiny volume production of material would drive the price up to be like space shuttle parts. Design? Aren't they just each supplier's rendition of a bullet weigh shape in general? Are we concerned with aerodynamics for Mach 2 performance, or maybe an extreme temperature range? Is there a specific shape that only works if the material is tungsten? The examples revealing the ridiculousness of the stated claims can go on and on.

Maybe Roland thought of looking for a higher density material, and discovered by talking with others that the answer to that was "something made of tungsten" is what you want. I don't know either way, but I would find it very very far-fetched and odd that he "drove" the technology.

How many of you actually believe an angler designed a rod? (Design = choose actual materials, resin, wall thickness, arbor size & taper, lamination pressure, etc.) Anglers might say "I want a rod that bends like blah blah" and then they try what the supplier brings them. They'll try that prototype and say something like "it needs a little more power" or "it needs to bend more into the backbone" etc.....and then the supplier updates the design and delivers yet another prototype for testing. In general, anglers TEST; they are not designers, nor production engineers.

I still can't believe they killed that 19 lber.....

It may have been the flying lure but the one that would glide away from you on slack line worked for me a couple of times in getting under docks.