[fishing bum wannabe]

I have been using 1/16" 302/304 stainless wire for 2 years now. I got a 5# roll from McMaster Carr. I also have a small coil of 1/16" 308 1/4 hard wire that I find tough to bend, and therefore don't use. I haven't had any issues with the softer 302/304 other than the tail loop bending slightly when I bang it into rocks. The harder 308 is a lot more work to make a nice tail loop with. If I were only doing one plug at a time it would be fine. But when you are trying to form a dozen or more tail loops in a batch, the softer wire best meets my needs.

If you use 308 or 316 and have to heat the wire to make it soft enough to bend, the hardness is lost anyway and the grade of the wire that you start with doesn't make any difference other than possibly better corrosive resistance.

For 25+ years I used common brass hobby wire for plug making. This stuff was really soft, much softer than any stainless, but it was all I could find. I caught a lot of large bluefish on those plugs, some to 20#s. The blues bent the loops around, and in a few cases pulled hard enough to actually close up the tail loop a little. What it didn't do was fail. I never had it break, or pull apart, or did I ever lose any fish because the brass was soft. Many of the older commercially made lures were made with brass wire that seemed much softer than comperable stainless wire we see now.

Sears has decent Craftsmen round nose pliers for $9.99. And you don't have to worry about wandering around in a craft store with all those women. However, I find all kinds of Plug making and fly tying material at Michaels.

What is the deal with the nose loop! It is the tail loop that is the challenge. Get a pair of round nose pliers, and a pair of slip joint pliers with grooves perpendicular to the jaw. Make the size loop you want using the round nose pliers. It doesn't have to be perfect. Keep the loop in the jaws of the round nose pliers and using a pair of slip joint pliers grip the wire tight to the round nose jaw using the grooves in the jaws to allign the wire and squeese. The wire will be drawn tight to the round jaw forming a perfect loop each time.