The New Wong reel

I'll just add a couple of photos I got from Daryl. I haven't seen the reel in person, but I have one on the way.

My reel just arrived, and I installed it.

In my case, the gun originally had an Aimrite with the base set flush in a routed out pocket. When I installed a RA Composite, Daryl had supplied a spacer to fill the pocket and mounting holes in the reel base to match the spacing of the Aimrite, and I just used longer machine screws to get through the spacer to the inserts. The mounting holes for this reel were drilled at the same spacing, and I used the same spacer and machine screws. But the reel also came with a couple of wood screws and rubber washers to use on a gun with no prior holes.

The reel shares a couple of features that I like about the Rob Allen. In the Aimrite reels, there was a little pin that went through the axle shaft into a slot in the drag bushing to keep it from spinning when the spool turned. If you neglected to put the pin in, then the drag either tightened or loosened, depending on which direction you had wound the line on, as the fish pulled line out. At least two different guys complained to me that their drag did that, and when they brought the reel by my house, I found that the pin was missing.

But with the RA and the Wong, there is a flat side on the axle that matches a flat in the bushing, so the problem is eliminated.

Also like the RA, there is a little hole through a web at the base of the spool for attaching the line. The 1.8 mm Q-Power Spectra fits through the hole, and you could drill it out a bit for slightly thicker line. If you wanted to use line a lot thicker, you would just have to tie it to the spool arbor.

To get 200 feet on the RA, you had to be very careful winding the line on, and then of course you would not be likely to be that careful ever again after a fish pulled it of. So in winding 200 feet of line onto the Wong, I was more realistic and didn't take nearly as much care, and you can see that it could still take more line, or could take thicker line and still get a decent length onto the reel.

One nice little touch is that the drag knob screw takes a Phillips head screwdriver. I was always having trouble keep track of the little Allen wrench for the screw in the RA.

As near as I can tell without shooting a fish, the drag is very smooth, and the reel seems to be good quality.

I just belatedly figured out something else that might help someone considering the reel.

If you look at the mount from the end, you can see that it is curved so as to fit a rail gun barrel.

But it comes with hard plastic washers to use on the screws and fill in the curve when attaching to a flat wood surface.