Pure Nickel String Setup Wierdness?

[Danley]

So I've been playing my Soloist most lately, which has made me weird :p It's set up with nines and super-low action, whereas I've only ever had my Jaguar strung with eleven guage Slinkies (or higher).

On top of the fact that the nines on my Jackson sound excellent (all while being attached to a Floyd, not as much of a tone-sucker as some have said it should be... Quite the contrary), I've grown to prefer the subtle feel of the lighter strings, and it's had an impact on how I play. Also, I wanted to see if I could exaggerate some of my Jaguar's plinky nature.

So... Picked up a set of Pure Nickel Rock and Roll Ernie Balls, in ten guage, slapped them on my Jaguar. A few observations:

-What's up with the low/wrapped strings? Pre-cutting the strings at the same length that I do the Power Slinkies, results in strings that barely wrap around the posts once (ok, I wound up with a couple that don't wrap around, at all. Not like I was going to pile on winds for break angle, and they're the low strings in slot tuners, so doubt they'll slip). Intuition is that lower guage wire would have more wraps for equal amounts of length. Are nickel strings less stretchy than a regular set?

-What's up with the high/un-wrapped strings? They're taking forever to stretch... Whenever I bend, the thing detunes. It doesn't seem to be un-wrapping/slipping on tuners, in fact with the smaller guage the high E now misses the vibrato plate screws entirely. Are pure nickel strings MORE stretchy than a regular set?

Sound/feel is great though; adds some plinky decay characteristics and chime, while not spiking up the tone too much (the reason I went with nickel was the supposed mellower tone). Why do I need sustain after all, I have a Jackson for that Also occurs to me that my neck is very stable, relief stayed pretty much identical post-switch. Nice. Still wondering if these are peculiarities of nickel strings...

[andy_tchp]

-What's up with the high/un-wrapped strings?

I don't know; they're plain steel, exactly the same as what you were using previously.

[Verbian]

Cut your strings 2.5 tuning posts ahead for the wrapped strings and 3 posts length ahead for the plain strings.

And these strings still have a steel hexcore, only the wrap is nickel which means you shouldn't be getting much different behavior.]

Do you pre-stretch strings before you tune them? Give them some good yanks/tugs sideways before you tune up.