Bullrock Red Turtle Bar Vs ATE Red Falcon Bar: 2 Best Cerakote barbell in India

Even though cerakote coating is probably the best for protecting your bar against any kind of permanent damage, your barbell can still rust, if you live in one of those southern states or if you’re in a state that has humidity issues. 

Your barbell will rust no matter what.

What do I mean by ‘no matter if you buy a cerakote barbell it will rust?’ 

It doesn’t really matter where you go. You can’t just set it and forget it. You will have to maintain your barbell.

If you’re looking for a barbell that requires less maintenance you could get Hard chrome coating, stainless steel bars. 

Otherwise, Bullrock Red turtle bar the cerakote option requires some maintenance but it is the best one out there.

It’s a little bit more than the other ATE red falcon bar in India, where ATE bar costs you 20000, bullrock bar cost you Rs 28000 approx on Amazon. But bullrock bar does rate high in Tensile Strength: 210k PSI so it’s pretty much made indestructible. 

But ATE barbells are no behind.

I’ve never had any issues as far as build quality goes or bending with the ATE barbells despite all of its barbells being priced lower than bullrock barbells.

So you really don’t have to worry about it.👍

The biggest deciding factor between Red Turtle Bar Vs Ate Red Falcon Bar is how well the cerakote finish/ or coating is done.

The depth of coating decides the knurling feel since the cerakote coat is a thick finish often due to which the knurl gets diminished which takes a carryover on the entire barbell feel in hands. 

So which company takes it right is a thing we got to see. (Currently, I don’t have both the barbells at my place to show you a representation and state a clear winner, but as soon as I do I will UPDATE this blog!)

But generally speaking, I have talked to both companies and they know the problem and claim it isn’t a problem in our barbells. 

👍 So thumbs up to the knurl feeling of both ATE and bullrock barbell. 👍

Rest apart from this, the Bullrock Red Turtle barbell has a few good things when compared it directly to the ATE Red falcon barbell, which you’ll find as you read till the last.

What do both have?

✔️ ATE: 10 HK needle bearings (5 per sleeve) and 2 bronze bushings 

✔️ Bullrock: 8 NK needle bearings (4 per sleeve) which bullrock says is equivalent to 16 HK and 2 bronze bushings.

HK – Drawn cup needle roller bearings. There are various classes of bearing and it gets too complicated to understand them. Let this leave to the company to decide. 

But know 1 thing, NK bearing is better than HK bearing, even if they are less in number. So Bullrock is a WINNER here. 

You can expect both barbells to spin exceptionally well, but Bullrock Red Turtle bar takes a slight edge. 

What do both have?

✔️ ATE: 200K PSI Tensile Strength rating and a Max Load of 2000lbs. 

✔️ Bullrock: 210K PSI tensile strength rating and a max load of 1800lbs.

The formula to calculate tensile strength is: s = P/a 

Where, s is the tensile strength P is the force required to break a is the cross-sectional area.

These bars are tested under load to determine their tensile strengths figures in PSI. The more tensile strength means the higher capacity weight can be put on them, till it manages to not break/ or bend. 😮‍💨

Here Bullrock barbell again WINS, after having 210K PSI but 200K isn’t bad either. A 10K difference is not significant, but still, a position is taken by bullrock. Sorry ATE! 

One thing to note is that the max load of ATE bar is 2000 lbs despite being less in tensile strength than a bullrock barbell which is only 1800 lbs. 

No it’s not a mistake.

Let me tell you, it is decided by the quality of steel used and what material properties are added. (Secret of companies which they don’t tell anyone.) 

So both barbells are a SOLID option. 

The most important thing is what connects you to the iron or urethane or crumb rubber or whatever types of weight plates you’re using is the KNURL. 

This is what is your connection to the bar and the better it feels in your hand, the better things are going to go overall for the most part and that’s really where cerakote to me number 1 far and away has the biggest disadvantage. 

While it does look nice and while it does have high corrosion resistance, it is one of the worst offenders of killing the feeling of a barbell. It is true that some companies can do cerakote right, but it’s really inconsistent. 

When you hold them, the possibilities are 2 barbells of the same company have a completely different feel.

The reason is:

– Filling in the knurl: Depending on how thick you lay it on it can really tend to mute the knurl and in some cases, companies might sandblast before cerakote, and again it makes a tremendous difference.

✔️ So YES you can get some really cool colours when buying a cerakote bar in India. But it really comes at the cost of the feel which to me is the most important factor to take into note.

Now another issue with the cerakote can be depending on which kind you get, in which colour? For me Red, I think it looks really cool. Most people really wanted a red barbell, and that’s the reason they turned towards a cerakote-coated barbell.

❌ But upkeep on these can be pretty difficult as well the lighter colour that you get whether it be white or red. 

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👍 For instance, the bullrock – Red Lady turtle bar is also available in a perky pink colour that wear very badly. 

They show wear and dirt a lot more than bare steel or stainless steel or even black zinc or black oxide might in some cases because the dirt can show up on a lighter surface and that can be a problem because keeping these things clean is not the same as you would do with like a bare steel barbell.

Barbell clean up is a simple process: just get a rough metal brush and clean it with some 3-in-1 oil or something similar. But with cerakote, you have to take a little bit of a different measure to do so. 

Now it is true you can still clean these but I found that brushes don’t really work as well because typically the brushes you use you’re also using to clean your other barbells. 

This means they probably already contain some other dirt or contaminants and if you’re using it on a lighter shaft it is going to show when you actually try to rub that brush on it. 

👉 Note: Only use a nylon brush to clean the cerakote coating barbell. 

So instead what I typically recommend for cleaning cerakote barbells is to use something like rubbing alcohol and maybe a microfiber cloth but if you have somewhat aggressive knurling and if the company actually did this error code right.

Then too, the cloth rag is still going to get caught up and chewed up and it’s going to be hard to kind of dig into some of those peaks in order to get it really clean so keeping these things clean can be a potential problem.👎

Be Aware: Using cheap cast iron plates on the ceramic sleeve can chip off the coat too.

Even though I mentioned that cerakote barbells are corrosion resistant it’s not. 

In fact, if you take a look at some companies’ scales of corrosion resistance they put cerakote right under stainless steel. That’s still not to say they aren’t immune to rust and when they rust things can go pretty bad. 

If the application of cerakote wasn’t consistent, you might get patches on your bar where you see stuff rusting or fading or chipping and it can be a potential problem.

If you use it in and out of a rack or even when you’re trying to go from maybe a squat or to a bench position and it’s a loaded barbell. 

When bringing it down a few notches many have the tendency to sometimes hit the uprights or maybe hit the lever buckle on their belt. 

Over time it results in chipping away a little bit at the finish and that could be a potential issue versus again if you had something that was like stainless steel or bare steel you wouldn’t see chipping/ scratching of finish as easily.

In addition to the knurling and the cleaning process is just the overall cost typically outside of stainless steel. Cerakote tends to be the most expensive which is again it’s harder for me to recommend given the other factors we’ve already covered.

➡️ Red Olympic barbell options:

1. ATE Red Falcon Barbell
2. Leeway Cerakote Barbell (Cheapest of all)
3. Bullrock Fitness Red Turtle Bar

Red barbell mostly means a cerakote bar (a finishing done on the barbells.) Though cerakote finish can be of any colour, and not limited to only red. But most of the bullrock barbell and ATE barbells in India which are red are all the cerakote barbells.

• On a Hard chrome coated bar one can use a Brass bristle brush to clean the rust. 
• To remove the magnesia (chalk), dirt, and other dry materials from the bar with a plastic or nylon bristle brush.
• Always use the Nylon Brush on Cerakote, Powdercoat, and Zinc finishes otherwise it would scratch the coat.  
• Only use the stainless steel brush on stainless steel bars.

➡️ The phrase nylon brush refers to a wide range of brushes constructed from nylon filament. Nylon brushes are used for scrubbing, dusting, surface finishing, rough surface preparation, cleaning, and eliminating contaminants.

➡️ To keep your barbell away from rusting, you have to focus on buying the right coating for your bar keeping in note the conditions you live in and the way you use the bar. Stainless steel bars top the ranking on an oxidation scale. But they came at a higher cost. 

So the ideal option is to go for other coatings like Chrome, Nickel, Hard chrome & Ceramic that provide good-to-excellent oxidation resistivity and require the least maintenance.

➡️ The multipurpose barbell is a bar that can also be used for different disciplines, like as a powerlifting bar, weight lifting bar, CrossFit bar and specialises in none. These bars are best for people who don’t focus on a single training style but want an all-purpose bar that serves every exercise equally. They are normally found in gyms to be used by the general public. 

In India, a 20 kg Olympic barbell with good spinning sleeves, good tensile strength, and good knurl would cost around Rs 14000 to 25000. Depending on what coating bar you buy, and what quality you are getting. 

➡️ ATE barbells make the best barbell in India which can be checked on their ateonlineshop website here.  

➡️ Most gyms use an all-purpose barbell or commonly called multipurpose bars because they’re unsure of the public visiting the gym and what their likes and dislikes are. You also may find specialty barbells in their closet, like squat bars, deadlift bars, and safety squat bars but the chances are highly unlikely.

➡️ A deadlift bar is a specialty barbell that is made just for doing deadlifts to your max potential. It is made longer in length than any Olympic barbell, it has bigger collars, a longer shaft length, and a thinner shaft of 27MM just to make an arc/ bend when you lift the weights up from the ground. This has its own advantage which none of the other stiff bars/ or power bars could provide.