Here's what little I know about beads. I maintain a fleet of tour buses in Alaska (About 350 of them) We run a 315R/22.5 tires on most of them. I have a tire balancer so I prefer hammer on lead weights. That being said, many of my locations do not have a balancer machine and have to rely on beads.
How do beads work? Vehicle stopped, beads at the bottom of your tire. Get up to 35-40 MPH and the beads settle into the position they need to be to help true the tire. (lots more science inserted here....)
Lets talk brands of beads. Equal vs. Counter-act. Equal does pretty much what I just mentioned.
However, Counteract is a glass bead that when it rolls inside the tire creates a static charge to the imperfections of the tire, which is really cool, because when the vehicle stops the bead still clings to the imperfection, regardless where in the tire rotation it may be! You (in theory) will have a balanced tire even at 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 MPH! OK, now why I hate this stuff! If you EVER plan to dismount your own tires, HAVE A SHOP VAC HANDY!!! This junk it 10 times worse than walking on marbles on your shop floor when you dismount a tire!!!! Break one bead, suck it all out of the tire and finish dismounting the tire! Also this product is very expensive.
Neat stuff, but I like my old school lead! Good luck!
