not new to boating by any means and I have owned numerous boats and purchased numerous propellers,
mercs props are no different , the variance in the blades are just as bad or maybe worst, the only way you will get them perfect is by labing.
as explained on the below video at the 40 second mark

I was always nervous using the 5 blade props, acceleration was great, mid range was great, lost a couple of miles on top end, I stuck with the 4 blades for the most part.

My understanding the Hydromotives perform better on straight bottom V hulls,
For the most part all the older straight bottom Fountains came from the factory with Hydromotives, but once Fountain went to step bottoms they switched to Bravo 1s

They switched to Bravo props because Reggie owed Mercury and they put the pressure on. Or so I have been told.
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Hydromotive has two five blade props. If I remember correctly the X model is bow lifting.

Padraig

Again, Hill is less consistent than most, and this is well known, at least among us outboard folks.

I remember a thread in some discussion forum some 20 years ago where Ron Hill described winning a race in his youth with a propeller with varying blades. Ron was no believer in precision.

My oppinion:

More slip you have less important it is consistency, less slip you have more important it is.
CNC clever for 20% slip is an unnecessary investment, but for 5% it is a necessity.
For 15+% slip it is probably Signature as good as any super matched prop with same shape.

that's what I thought but apparently not true. About 10 years ago. I caught up with Reggie down to Key West during the races and he was kind enough to have a lengthy conversation with me and that was one of the things that we talked about as i asked his opinion because I was looking for better propellers for my boat because I thought my slip numbers were hi,

he told me to stick with Bravo 1 props,
he said the reason they switched to bravos was because of the step bottom and the bravo simply grip the water better

you do know Ron doesn't own the company and he hasn't for many years His son Chad owns and runs the company.

Is it possible that chad has a different philosophy? Lol

I believe you are referring to Brad at BS propellers,

I have in the past send my props to him, and I can't say I noticed much of a difference after I got them back, but he is supposed to be the outboard prop guru

safe to say you won't be ordering Hill marine props anytime soon,LOL

Interesting because a lot of the step boats came with Hydromotives, The first time I started seeing Bravo's were on the side by side twin step 35's. They also were spinning out rather than in.

Maybe I should try bravo's again but in the past they did seem better in the mid range but pretty much made the boat want to propose and lost 2-3 top end. Mine is a single step.

I had a 2000 32 fever with the larger step and it came with 26 bravos when I bought it, I like you had heard that Hydromotives were the props use. I asked the seller if the boat always had bravos and he said no ,he told me when he bought the boat new it came with Hydromotives but somebody stole them and he bought 26 bravos because he couldn't find anyone local to him that stocked hydromotives but like the bravos better, well I can't leave well enough alone so when I brought the boat home, I bought a set of Hydromotives because I thought it would be faster, I use them a couple times and I took them off and I put the 26 bravos back on because I thought the boat behaved better