Joey, I'm guessin that you have little experience with coils. I highly recommend you read up on building them and watch some videos. If you want to use thicker wire, 28g is easy to work with. The lower the number the less resistance of the wire and the more wraps you'll have to make to get the same resistance. You can have major problems, especially with non regulated mech mods. You can damage your mod or even yourself. Not sayin that's gonna happen, just advising you to be safe.The bad hits you got with the original coil was probably more the wick material than anything
Thanks for the advice Bike