Gorgeous ring. I put a 5mm hematite bead in place of the rubber ball and it matches perfectly.

Oh man I wish I has tried these from the very beginning of my 10g captive ring journey lol. These are a million times easier to close and feel much more secure. Definitely hoping for more sizes soon!!

niobium with rubber bead! what more can you like about them super easy to install and remove!

I purchased two of these (8g 7/16" and 8g 1/2"). The rubber bead doesn't look awful, but I prefer the look of a hematite bead because it better matches the finish of black niobium. Purchased a couple hematite beads from BAF (5mm fits for the 2 sizes I purchased, even though SM316 uses 5.5mm beads for this size), along with a bead reamer on Amazon, so I could alter the bead dimples to fit more snuggly in the ring. I couldn't be happier with the end result. It looks like the smaller gauge niobium CBRs that SM316 sells. Just throwing some ideas out there for people who love niobium but don't like the rubber bead. You've got options!

Great Item

My partner ordered these on our last order and he wears them constantly. He wanted the rubber ball beads for ease of jewelry changing so he ordered the 12g, despite previously wearing a 14g and had no difficulties with the slight stretch (on a couple year old pair of well healed snakebites). I'm probably going to order a pair myself cos they are super cute; I normally don't wear captives because I hate fiddling with ring pliers and errant beads, and I love black/dark jewelry so these are a win-win in my opinion. One thing of note is we ordered them in 2018 and as I write this in early 2020 they don't seem to have faded much if at all - or if they have it's been gradual and even enough that it's not really noticeable. They're kind of a shiny dark slate grey black and I am pretty sure they always were, and that's what the picture shows too. I mean, I can't say they won't ever fade - sometimes even really good jewelry does after several years, but they've held up really well especially considering they are in his lips. Also fun to kiss, lol. <3

It's an incredible piece of jewelry; however, it keeps rotating in my septum more so than other captives that I've worn. I believe this is due to how light the rubber bead is compared to the niobium, causing it to rotate. Aside from that aspect I absolutely love it

I love the color and quality of these rings. Sadly - and upcoming is a warning for all those folks like me who react badly to nitrile - after a day I had a pretty bad skin reaction where the rubber ball touched my ear. So unless you have an allergy to nitrile these rings are awesome; I'll be looking for replacement beads so I can wear these rings properly.

So much more light and comfortable than my original steel CBR. It seems to irritate my septum less in general than the ring I was pierced with. Looks good and matches all of my black jewelry, to boot. I'm in love.

It's the first black captive bead ring I have. It's absolutely the perfect diameter and color. It's also great that it has a rubber ball.