Best powertech prop for Maverick HPXT

Not sure where your at, but if you can find a good prop shop locally that is my suggestion, this way you can get face to face with someone and hopefully they can help you get what you want out of it. Setting up a boat / prop for optimal performance is not black magic. For many it has required hours of trial and error and on the water testing. For some they have been able to duplicate and benefit from what others have found success with. One thing to keep in mind, optimal to me may not be optimal to you. I have spoken with Jack and Ken both and I can tell you they both know their business and are super nice guys that like talking boats.

I am personally in the process of setting up a new boat, to my knowledge it will be the first to run a short shaft motor on this hull. I did a ton of research, found a guy who was willing to share his experiences, has a reputation for making small boats perform optimally, has extensive experience with the outboard I will run, and the credentials to back it all up. I will drive 30 miles past two good prop shops to get to the best guy I could find in my area. I say all this to say what is good enough for one guy may not be the solution for the next. Also I draw on several years of experience (30 years ago) of running duck boats with outboards in very shallow water. I may not be a prop guy, but I know what I want one to do.

RJTaylor said:

How is stating he talked to me like I don't know how to run a boat bashing him? I didn't criticize his work, or say anything derogatory.

PT will recommend a 4 blade if you aren't running a jack plate. They recommended a 3 blade heavy cup on mine, because I have a jack plate.

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I know Jack personally and the only reason I ever heard him talk to someone like that is because instead of letting him know how they want their boat to perform they tell him how to do his job. I hang at his shop and hear how he talks to his customers. Nothing pisses him off more than a guy that tells him what prop he needs instead of asking. He is THE shallow water prop man on the Gulf Coast. He’s in his mid 60’s and has been running skinny water longer than most of us and our fathers. If you second guess his expertise he will talk to you like a misbehaving grandchild, if you respect him and what he does you will get the best prop for your rig and some of the best boat driving advice out there.
His custom props are $695 because they are twice the prop a shelf prop will ever be. The blades on mine are about twice as thick as those cheesedick shelf props that everyone thinks are so great because they are about $300. If you can cut cheese with your prop it’s going to need to be reworked in no time due to cavitation erosion and every day running. Mine looks like the day I bought it and I run the hell out of it. There’s a reason good boat builders use Jack’s props and why main stream builders buy shelf props and don’t recommend taller transoms to offset the depth of a tunnel and build boat with tunnels and rig them without a jack plate because the only time they ever ran a boat in 6” of water they ended up pushing it out because they dug a trench and shut down.

Here’s a shallow water prop with about 250 hours on it rigged right. 34 plus mph, jumps on plane in half a boat length and runs with the hull bumping bottom all day. Notice my transducer is flipped up, it stays like that right now because it hangs down too low. I’m about to remove it.