The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I have measured my two rods to determine the tapers. All measurements are in inches with a vernier caliper The butts were both measured from the extreme of the rubber button. The tips were both measured from the end of the male ferrule.
BUTT
Distance Carp Avon
30 .467 .430
36 .456 .405
42 .430 .398
48 .412 .380
54 .387 .363
58 .370 .352
TOP
4 .335 .286
10 .311 .270
16 .293 .252
22 .270 .239
28 .243 .223
34 .229 .209
40 .207 .191
46 .195 .174
52 .168 .157
58 .152 .146
I am sorry but the vertical columns have bunched together! I hope the data is understandable

I tried to also measure a late B. James England Carp rod but gave up due to the varnish and close whips. The measurement of the butt 30" up was .489 and generally the rod was considerably 'beefier'!

It does make your head spin a bit looking at columns of numbers. Clearly they are different sized rods and the little article I found suggesting the 'tapers were the same' was either wrong or easily misinterpreted

Is that last weekends lottery results Bob?

I suspect if I go looking we have Walker MkIV taper here. A mentioned I think my Carp is lighter in the tip than Walker's but with bit more guts lower down when playing a fish.

I seem to recall that when Weavers took over the Sharpes name and were building the rekindled Sharpes Carp rod they marketed it as 'not quite a MkIV'. That's why I think originally Sharpes had the taper for a Salmon spinning rod and thought that it was close enough and good enough for the job and so just dressed the rod to appeal to the coarse angler.

SeanM kindly posted this, Walker's MkIV taper for comparison:

18" .250
24" .233
30" .220
36" .207
42" .197
48" .186
54" .175
60" .165
66" .154
72" .145
78" .136
84" .122
90" .121
96" .115
102" .104
108" .092
114" .075
120" .060

Dimensions are half the flat to flat in inches.

Now if I'm reading this correctly the whole Carp rod taper is marginally smaller that Walker's but this becomes slightly more pronounced in the tip.