When lead was banned we started to use tungsten shot, which was not so dense but also harder, and therefore sharper.
In those days we were fishing wagglers on mono up to about 2lb bs and the fear was that the locking shot would weaken the line. Consequently we used to put silicone tubing on the line and put the locking shot over that. It protected the line but the shot often worked off and were lost.
Was looking at a video of Steve Mayo and Dave Harrell talking about locking pellet wags, and they had a device which was like a big shot, but even that had to be locked on the line with an AA or SSG shot. They did this by biting the shot onto the line directly. Now for pellet wag, the mono is going to be something like 5lb Maxima so it may not be so damaged by the shot. Even so, for pellet wag, with all that casting and hopefully with loads of carp, its going to take a lot of hammer.
So, my questions are, do we need to protect the line from the anchor shot? Or is this something that’s only necessary with lighter lines?
For the record, I use Anchor double-cut shot and mostly use Ultima and Maxima for waggler fishing.