Reel internals. Which material is better? Stainless, brass, alloys?

[xfreemanx]

Reels come in all forms and sizes and are made of different materials too.
For the reel body, aluminum is preferred over graphite composite materials as it is stronger.

What about its internals (pinion, main drive, oscillation gear etc.). Which material is stronger, durable and better?

[sprtsracer]

I prefer stainless. Stronger by far, unless you go to the extreme and get titanium, but I don't know of anyone using titanium in their reel guts. As an example, a lot of the Penn conventionals such as Jigmasters, Squidders, etc and many of the current reels as well, use a brass main gear and sleeve. The UPGRADE for that is stainless. With the brass sleeves, over time, the sleeve tends to round out at the top where the handle fits on, making it kind of sloppy.. Not that much of a problem with the stainless upgrade. Also, most of the better spinners use stainless shafts, some thicker than others to withstand the higher drag forces that come with using braid. Then again, I can think back to my younger days using a Johnson spincast reel and much to my surprise when I took it apart, the gears were plastic. Found that out the hard way when I hooked into a lunker large mouth and the gears stripped!

[HellRhaY]

stainless

[basstardo]

The brass sleeves definitely round out in Abu's. That's one of the main annoyances with those reels for me. I have two sets of gears that have messed up shafts. I don't know if they make a stainless upgrade for them, but I'd sure buy them if they did.

[eric]

i find a mixture of both is best.

if you go straight soft metals. yes the reel is smooth, but only for a short while.
then itll lose power in cranks

all hard, rough reel. but durable like a mother* not to mention noisier
reel will outlive your grandkids

a mix. quiet, semi durable. semi smooth.
o so nice.
the reel would still outlive you. and maybe you first kid