7x7 is forty-nine strands, and it lets a lure swim

What the notation comes down to

A wire trace title carries a pair of figures, and they describe how the wire is made up rather than how strong it is.

1x7 is one bundle of seven strands: stiff, cheap, and perfectly good behind a static bait. 7x7 is seven such bundles — forty-nine strands — and it is supple enough to let a lure swim as it was designed to. 1x1 is a single solid wire, and on this shelf it is titanium.

The corpus shows all three, priced within a few euros of one another, and it shows the strength figure printed separately as a breaking strain with a length.

What it does not promise

It does not state a strength. That is the declared strain, and it comes with a length because a trace is sold made up.

It does not promise resistance to kinking, which is a property of the material rather than the construction — and a kink ends a trace whatever its build.

It does not promise a crimp. A trace made up at home needs crimps, and one listing sells the wire with twenty of them for that reason.

And it says nothing about the swivel and clip fitted at the ends, which almost every ready-made trace in this corpus has and which are what actually connect it to the line.

Where it shows up on this site

On the wire trace shelf, beside the material — steel, titanium or tungsten — and the strain and length pair. On the carp rig shelf, where the same logic decides a hooklink: braided, fluorocarbon or leadcore, each for a different lake bottom. And on the hard lure shelf, because a stiff trace in front of a small wobbler kills its action.

How it is read here

A page prints the construction as the maker printed it, says what it gives in suppleness, and puts the declared strain and length beside it. It does not infer a strength from a construction, and it does not treat a supple trace as a stronger one.