Last October, I looked for some advice regarding regarding a first conventional set up for the canal, etc. The consensus from most of you was to go with the Abu 7000 - find a version marked "made in sweden" (not "assembled in sweden"). Preferably the BG7000CL. Some of you also indicated the Penn 525 Mag was a good choice.

Problem is - there seems to be too many versions of the Abu 7000 out there - HS and HSN, CT, C3, etc. I seem to run into everyone but the CL.

Also - the one I was looking at yesterday was the 7000 "Rocket" which was "made in Sweden".

Can anyone lend some insight into the variations.

Also - when I looked at the 525 on a St. Croix 10-11 foot, it seemed awfully undersized. Am I incorrect in that thinking?

Thanks again to all for your advice.

The black BG7000Cl is what you want IMO. hard to find now (you could still find them last october , very rare now). Stay away from the newer gold BG reels. junk IMO.

The Abu 7000 Sports Rocket you mentioned is a good one.

the Penn 525 is a "hot' reel. very fast for casting but its non levelwind and you need an educated thumb to control it. Penn also makes some International casting reels. i think its the 975? Some people like them. They are gold colored. .

Look at Newells if you can't find the black BG 7000CL.

I'm not happy with my Penn 975's corrosion resistance, or lack of resistance. If I didn't know better I would think I bought a cast iron reel. Other than that, it is pretty nice...

I would look up Ebay or check with some of our sponsors. There might be a few still on dealer's shelves. I think CCT was out but I think he had some recently and might get more in... The 7000CL is a sweet reel - I have 2. That Sports Rocket seems nice too though I do not own one.

I'm not a big fan of the Penn Internationals either. Level wind pawls wear out WAY too quickly, and the freespool button on the 975 has a nasty habit of popping up at the start of a cast :mad:

I think the 7000 CS Rocket has 2 bearings :confused:

2 would be a strange number wouldn't it Mike? Seems like it should have 2 spool bearings and an anti reverse bearing (3 total) ?

Have to go with Mike on this one.. ;) the 7000 family has an AR pawl.

I have an older red made in Sweden 7000 and I replaced the bushings with bearings and that is a nice solid reel easier casting than some smaller reels.

An AR Pawl? Oh No!

I just picked up a 6500 CS Chrome Rocket and believe it has 3 bearings total...one being anti-reverse...not a pawl.

-spence

All 6500 and smaller Abus have been IAR (one way roller bearing) for awhile now. The 7000/7500 reels are still using the pawl anti-reverse.

The third bearing in the 7000/7500 C3 and BG 7000 series reels sits in the drive train, on top of the drag stack. Some of the older two bearing reels, like the 7000C, the SEVEN C, and the 7000C Synchro use two spool bearings, and a metal or plastic bushing, shaped like a top hat, in lieu of the drive train bearing. I think the 7000 CS uses that same two bearing, one bushing arrangement.

I'd like to see the Abu business plan. Hmmmm, let's make 50 base reels with 65,000 variations spread across 200 countries :uhoh:

Our potential customers will be paralyzed with fear and unable to buy from the competition :rollem:

-spence

It's even worse than that.

We'll make a series of reels called the Big Game. In the 7000 series, we'll call the level wind version the 7000 even tho it has a 5.3:1 retrieve, where every other reel we call a 7000 has a 4.1:1 retrieve. But, we'll call the non level wind version the 7500 just to keep it in line with the rest of the 7500s which all have 5.3:1 retrieves. Then, we'll discontinue all of them, and come out with new Big Games and call all of them 7000s even tho they all have 5.3 retrieves. We'll just add "HS" to the end of the number and leave it to the customer to figger out that HS means "High Speed". But, we'll also put "High Speed" on the reel's decal on all of our other 7000 reels.

Then, just for kicks, we'll come out with a bushing reel and call it a 7200. We'll leave people wondering whether it has the 4.1 or the 5.3 retrieve (it does have the 5.3)

We'll call all of our non level wind reels CTs. But, we won't have any uniformity for our level winds. We'll call some of them C3, some of them CL, and some of them CS.

My Finnish wife has been telling me since I met her that dey be something a little "#^&#^&#^&#^& wid dem Swedes. :D :nopain: