Viper. Thanks for info. I would have thought the 27 in XTRs would be great in trail/mud but not as appropriate in desert. Do you think XTRs are a better dirt/rock tire than Big Horns.

 

Of course this is only my opinion, but for an off road vehicle that spends most of it's time going relatively "slow" over irregular (especially rocky) terrain that it would be to your advantage to keep your wheel diameter as small as possible, then if you want to increase the diameter of your rolling stock do it with the tire and not the wheel. The only advantage of increasing the wheel diameter that I see is possibly to reduce weight and to reduce tire sidewall flex (since the amount of sidewall is reduced for a set diameter). This would be important for high speed cornering applications. However what you gain by keeping your wheel diameter smaller is better shock absorption (there would be more tire space to compress before you get to the hard wheel) and better wheel protection (from rocks) at the expense of a little more tire sidewall flex...

 

Those are some good points, but the reason most of us widen our tires is that a narrow tire with IRS is extremely tippy, the wider tires give us a better base and help stabalize the machine

 

Yes, that is true about putting on a wider tire. It definitely improves the stability of the machine and on top of that, I think it makes powersliding easier as well. I've found that a flatter, wider tire tread profile slides more predictably than a narrower rounded profile...

 

I find the Swamplites to be EXCELLENT tires in every terrain

 

OldTurtle,
The XTRs are too aggressive for deep sand, such as Sahara desert like sand dunes. They are also a little floaty feelilng at high speed (60 mph) on hard pack gravel roads, because at those speeds there is relatively little rubber in contact with the road. Other than those two extremes I think the tires are great. The ride quality of a radial tire more than makes up for the shorter sidewalls of a 14" rim, and cornering is great.

I've had ATRs before, and they were better in pure sand, but were not aggressive enough for the loose rubbly rock surface that covers most of the desert mountains. The ATRs tended to just spin instead of biting in and getting traction underneath the loose surface layer.

I have not owned Bighorns, but a friend of mine had a set on his Rhino back when I had a Rhino with XTRs. On those two machines I thought the Bighorns were a bit better overall in the mountains and valleys, but the XTRs were better on the steeper loose rubbly rock covered terrain. I'm talking about loose dirt that is completely covered by 2" to 12" diameter rocks, that are so close together that there is no dirt in between the rocks. It's pretty much like driving on ball bearings, and once you spin the ball bearings out from under you there is really loose dry dirt. A tire with big tread lugs works well if it is flexible enough to roll over the rocks. A set of Interco Vampires, at 2 - 3 psi, actually sets the standard for being the best tire I have used for this terrain, but they felt even more loose and floaty at high speed on hard packed roads. The XTRs seem to be a pretty good compromise tire for around here; they are acceptable on roads, and in sand, but still aggressive enough to get through the tough stuff.

 

Thanks Viper. At my relaxed pace and usually very easy terrain I think I will stay with the stockers for awhile longer. I just turned 800 miles on my 700 and all is well with not much wear yet on stock tires, just minor rounding of edges.