Personally I always find lighter laccy is best for shalla fishing, less resistance etc etc. Unless you are fishing upto snags or near them I can’t see anything better than black hydro tbh.

theres a feature in the anglers mail in the next week or two, that could help

preston 11h “red” for open water, great stuff! and the 17h “yellow” for snaggy far bank work.

No mention of the size of fish being targeted. Black Hydo I would say is bang on for fish 3lb upwards. On Preson red, in open water, large lumps can bottom it out whilst the fish still has the momentum to break 015 /017 line, the green would be my choice.
Of course with heavy elastic you are going to load the pole especialy if you set it tight.
Unless you were up against snags I cant see why you would need to do that, I would only ever consider this with a power kit. Black hydro in match kits is fine, even with pullers.

I use soft set doubled up no8 original Preston Slip for 80% of my shallow fishing for carp of all sizes from 1lb double figures!

I find I lose less fish using a solid No2, best used in conjunction with a pull bung. 😎

Does anyone on here use doubled up elastics with pulla kits ? is this a viable set up /

Middy 18-20 solid !! Dont mess about.

I tested eight elastics of similar rating for this properly some years ago including the Middy, which while good for some applications I found too unforgiving in an open water situation and resulted in bumping some fish on the take. The best on this score of the ones I tested was Black Hydro… of course there are a few newer elastics on the market that I have not tested and I have never tried doubled up elastics which some swear by.