Pfueger President

[silverside]

I was interested in buying my first president reel. While browsing on the internet I was disappointed. Many of you have given this reel high praise. The reviews say that the newer Presidents now use plastic gears and fail pretty quickly. Anybody have similar experience?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[Dollfly]

I like mine really well. First time I've heard of plastic gears. Time will tell. I've had one of mine close to eight years and no problems yet.

[Schmoopie]

I was interested in buying my first president reel. While browsing on the internet I was disappointed. Many of you have given this reel high praise. The reviews say that the newer Presidents now use plastic gears and fail pretty quickly. Anybody have similar experience?

I have a Pressp20x (the current model), which is the smallest in the series. It's around the size of a 500 or 750 in other brands. Here is a photo of the internals. I'm not going to say that the gears are made out of unobtainium (feels like pot metal), but not plastic. It also has a 6 pound max drag, so it's an ultralight reel and isn't meant to pull in huge cats on 30 pound mono . Here's a link to a video of a guy cleaning what appears to be the pressp series reel as well (not me). YouTube

[silverside]

Definately not plastic. I think that I will get one for jigging. I usually use Okuma, Lews, or shimano but wanted to give this one a try also.
Thanks fellas as I now feel like it would be worth the money.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[BobC]

I have 2 of the 20s. Both are for pans/crappie and have performed perfectly. I think they are a good value for the money. The gears don't look plastic to me.
Bob

[kyfishman]

I use the President Underspin reel for myself and my clients when fishing for bluegill or jigging or slip-floating for crappie and LOVE them. So do my clients. The ease of use makes fishing fun for folks from 8 to 80. I own 14 of the reels, including 5 new ones and as far as I can tell, no one of the gears are plastic. I never have problems with them.

[SeaRay]

I was interested in buying my first president reel. While browsing on the internet I was disappointed. Many of you have given this reel high praise. The reviews say that the newer Presidents now use plastic gears and fail pretty quickly. Anybody have similar experience?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

I designed gears for Smith Corona years ago.( 68-70) One of our breakthrough designs was to change from metal (steel) to Delrin, a new high strength plastic on the market.
Not only was it quieter and self lubricating it outlasted our current metal one by a good bit in life tests. The tolerances on the delrin were tighter too.
We had our own model shop in the engineering dept so we did all the testing yourselves, so we were comfortable with results.
Just a bit of experience I thought I'd share from my distant past.

[USMA65]

SeaRay gave a great answer. So many times we fault "plastic", yet the reality of the matter is usually a challenge to our "old school" way of looking at things. Fact is the SR 71 spy plane was covered with a composite skin.....many would call it "plastic" !!!

And I might add that I own 6 Pfluger Presidents and have nothing but high praise for them....including the pink one ;-)

[SeaRay]

I forgot to add I have several Presidents from the 20 to 35 and love them. Never had an issue .

[Special K]

Heck, I know plastic is tough. I don't know about you guys, but I about need power tools to get into some of this blister packaging that everything seems to be wrapped with nowadays.
While I certainly admire the toughness of these types of plastics... even as a type of store security measure... I still find this type of plastic packaging exceedingly aggravating to open.
Also, just look around you at all the things (pretty neat things) that are being made using 3DPrinters... even by kids these days.

I completely agree with the quality of the Pflueger President. I also fully expect to see a CDC member making "high tech" plastic lures with one of these printers sometime soon.