Buying a Stainless Steel prop?

[wiperhunter2]

Kent, my finger didn't hit the "t" key hard enough, I guess.

Aluminum props shatter if they hit a bubble, apparently. That's the main advantage of going to stainless steel. The generic factory prop on my Merc 50 has a pitch of 11" which doesn't account for boat types, weight, etc. There are several "prop calculator" sites on the web, and when I plug in the numbers for my boat, I get 12" or 13" as better choices. Also, when I went to wide-open throttle, the RPMs went to 6100, which is a bit high. Every inch of pitch changes top end RPM by about 200, so I should now be under the book redline by a comfortable 300 RPM or so. That matters more to me than max speed.

Rocky, did you take our altitude here in Utah into consideration when you ordered your prop?