United Composites Challenger Platinum Conventional Rods

The Challenger Platinum Series (CP) from United Composite has long been one of my personal favorites. Here’s the background, the CP series was originally designed by Peter Williams from United Distributing in Australia. It was exclusive to the Australian market until Peter purchased UC and allowed me to buy blanks, which we turned into custom rods. Now that Randy Penny owns the firm he also saw the benefit of bringing these blanks to market as finished rods – THANK GOODNESS!

Here’s why we like the CP’s so much, and what’s different about this series in comparison to the US and Elite Series from United Composites (formerly known as Graphite USA). The CP series rods make use of upgraded carbon fiber, again used in the proprietary dual helix form, AND uni-directional fiberglass. The rod transitions to ‘glass at the tip. These rods are not nearly as light as the US and Elite series – they are more like a fiberglass Calstar in terms of weight – but they are strong, hard pulling, high use and abuse fishing rods. The blanks are the strongest made in my opinion, nothing else on the market like them in terms of design and inherent strength given the production materials and design. For light weight, go Elite –  no doubt about that. But for the most demanding conditions the CP’s are the best in the business in terms of lifting power and overall strength. These rods are also a bit “faster” in terms of their bend. The Elite’s offer a bit more parabolic action, and that’s great for many  applications and most fishermen. The CP’s are faster, put a bit more power in your hands and more control of the fish on the other end of your line, too. For the experienced angler who really likes to leverage a fish, the actions of these rods will be helpful in accomplishing greater control, but you will be a greater part of the fight since your strength comes more into play. That’s one aspect of a faster action rod to consider.

These are for the hard pullers out there, faster action (meaning you get good flex at the tip and then the rods shut off earlier than the US or CE series). The CP’s make use of Dual Helix construction plus uni-directional fiberglass. There is a transition to greater ‘glass towards the tip, but the dual helix construction extends butt through tip. CP’s incorporate higher end woven carbon fiber through the mid section of the rod. Five to six patterns are used in the build of the CP series, 1 fiberglass, three different types of carbon in four to five patterns.