BEST CHOICE MAGNETS 500 lbs — Worth the $14?
The BEST CHOICE MAGNETS 500 lbs fishing magnet is a budget single-sided magnet with a 500 lb pull rating at $13.99 — a near-identical price point to the Niuknow, just with a lot less sales history behind it.
Thirteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. That's it. That's the pitch.
The BEST CHOICE MAGNETS 500 lb magnet exists in this weird space where it's priced exactly like the Niuknow — down to the cent, basically — but without the sales rank to back it up. That gap matters more than people think.
If the Niuknow's out of stock and you need something this weekend, this is the call. Otherwise, I'd read on before you add it to your cart.
I want to be straight with you about something before we get into this: the BEST CHOICE MAGNETS 500 lb magnet is not a product I went out of my way to find. I ended up with it because the Niuknow was backordered on a Friday afternoon and I had plans to hit a canal bridge on Sunday. You know how it goes. You make a decision, you live with it.
So Sunday rolls around — mid-October, air was cold enough that my breath was fogging up but not cold enough to feel heroic about it — and I had this thing tied off to my rope with a palomar knot, dropping it into water that was probably eight feet deep and dark enough that I had no idea what was down there. First few pulls, nothing. Then something heavy, that satisfying dead weight that makes you think you've got something good. It was a chunk of rebar. Probably three feet long. The magnet held. I was honestly a little surprised.
So it works. That's the first thing.
The 500 lb rating is, as with almost every budget magnet in this price range, a ceiling — not a guarantee. Real-world pull on wet, corroded metal through a rope angle that isn't perfectly perpendicular is always going to be less than what's stamped on the packaging. That's true of the Niuknow too, so I'm not singling this one out. What I'm saying is: 500 lbs on paper, somewhere south of that in practice, and that's fine for most of what you're actually going to pull out of a river.
The threaded eyebolt felt okay. Not great. I've seen tighter tolerances on more established brands — there was a slight wobble when I first threaded my rope hardware onto it, the kind of thing that makes you add an extra half-turn just to feel better about it. Could be nothing. Could matter eventually. I didn't fish it long enough to know for sure.
Here's the thing that actually gives me pause though: the BSR. The Niuknow is sitting around #3,182 in Sports & Outdoors. This one? #22,869. That's not a small gap. Sales rank isn't a perfect proxy for quality, but it does tell you something about how many people have bought a thing and — presumably — not returned it in bulk. With a product that has almost no review history, you're just flying blind on consistency. One magnet might be great. The next one off whatever production line made it might not be.
That's the actual risk here. Not the magnet itself. The variance.
If you're brand new to this and you're buying your first magnet, I'd steer you toward the Niuknow first — same price, more proven track record, easier peace of mind. But if someone already deep into this hobby asked me "hey the Niuknow is sold out, can I just grab the Best Choice one?" — yeah, probably. Just check that eyebolt before you tie off over anything you'd hate to lose gear in.
I got my rebar. The magnet came back in one piece. Make of that what you will.
