Not sure on the silk at the ball end, I'll tell you in a few hours when I get back home from work and check.
I'm pretty sure they redesigned the strings once or twice over the last year or two so that might cause some confusion. I've read on talkbass that five string sets have red wrap but sets I had never had any.
The only other info I can give you is that the five string sets are stated not to match 5 in a row headstocks, and overall the individual string length is long enough that you still need to cut the excess with pliers but not silly long like on some more pricey manufacturers. Doesn't affect anything at all, and I can confirm that wrap is long enough to pass the nut on the 35" basses. I can also confirm that using the 5 string set for BEAD (or in my case, CFA#D#) still has the strings have enough length to be wound on the tuning pegs with enough wraps around the post. I've initially been suspicious about actual manufacture quality of the strings and I expected them to break, but it's now been almost a year since I've started using them and I never had a string break. I use all 3 sets available for different basses and different tunings (40 for standard, 45 for one full step down and aforementioned fiver set for half-step uptuning from BEAD).
