Sorry, this may of been asked before but how imperative is the quality of cassette being used on the the free hub body.
I have a new SRAM PG980 to go on on a new PRO2 hub, the cassette has the the 3 largest rings mounted on a carrier but the other 6 are not. On my last set of PRO2's i used an XT cassette where the 3 smallest rings were separate - it did mark the cassette lightly but had not cold welded like a lot reports i have read.
Yes I know i should go for XT but I got the PG980 for half the price.
cheers to STW massive!
Swapped to pg990 on my pro2's - good deals around, paid £45...
The freehub will be made from a soft alloy aluminium. You will find that after use the steel sprockets will leave permanant marks on the freebody. I would go for the XT which has most the sprockets mounted on a alloy spider. This will not damage the freehub. Note the damage will be cosmetic but will not help the resale value...
There are some threads on other forums talking about using carpentry staples to protect the freehub, but it seems to be relatively tricky. And as you pointed out, even XT cassettes don't have all the sprockets on the carrier (and unless it was swapped out for an alloy one, the supposedly steel freehub on my Hope XCs is also looking a bit scarred).
So realistically, long term I guess you kinda have to accept that there is likely to be damage to it, and eventually you may have to replace the freehub (at which point you could swap it for a steel one). FWIW I'm running a PG980 on my Hope XC rear wheel, and will shortly be shifting it over to a Hope Pro 2.