Has anyone any experience of Sougayilang reels?
They are available on sites such as Wish, Aliexpress and Temu.
Obviously they are made in China but how do they perform?
They look great and the price is very good. problem is how reliable are they?
Seems to me if you get a problem with them then you just bin them and buy a new reel
Ok where do i start.
They are made of weak easy to corrode metals.
They boast drag numbers that their weak metal construction can't actually support.
They inflate their bearing count by putting a row of tiny bearings in the handle knob. Where they accomplish nothing - other than inflating the # of bearings for the stats table.
Kastking started out making garbage reels. My understanding is they've improved substantially. Maybe there's still hope for this company. Maybe they're just off to a rough start.
99% sure it's not even a "brand" in its own right, it will be the same handful of factories as all the other generic Chinese "shelf" reels with yet another brand name on them.
Here's an assessment for pretty much all generic chinese reels:
-The machining/casting tends to be top quality. Nowadays anyone can buy and program a really good CNC machine and produce excellent parts in terms of dimensional accuracy. Accordingly the reels tend to feel very good out of the box.
-The designs are generally just copies of mainstream brands, with surprisingly close cloning, and the aforementioned tendency to add a few pointless bearings to up the count.
-Speaking of the bearings, they're generally horrific. Zero quality control. Reasonable chance you'll get a gritty bearing from new, and if it's not bad then, a couple of trips in salt will have it crunching along because the bearings are low-quality chrome steel and rust if you put them beside a photograph of the sea.
-Brings me around to the broader metallurgy. This is the biggest downfall of these reels. The metal parts, although nicely machined/cast, tend to be made from extremely low quality metals. The corrosion resistance tends to be somewhere between "aspirin" and "toilet paper", and they will readily start to fizz if they aren't absolutely fastidiously maintained. The next trouble is things like spool shafts don't have the correct properties. I've seen a bunch of chinese-made small lever drags with bent spool shafts, because the steel they used was too soft. Doesn't bode well for the geartrains either, although I've literally never seen one of these reels survive long enough to get an accurate gauge of the gear quality.
-The drags tend to be initially excellent. They usually use surprisingly good quality CF washers and the designs are just stolen from mainstream reels that are proven. Accordingly I've seen some fairly incredible drag figures from chinese reels, especially small lever drags. The problem is that the reels can't sustain this, and all sorts of parts start to fail under the load, most notably spool shafts.
-All the little ancillary parts tend to be awful. Extremely low quality screws with misformed heads that strip if you even look at them, clicker assemblies that fall apart and jam the reel the first time you get a decent run, and the use of ferrous steel for all sorts of parts that immediately turn into a rusted glob of goop if you use them on the ocean.
This completely sets aside considerations such as the complete lack of post-sales support, nil warranty or ability to get non-generic parts for the reels, and the ethical conundrum of spending money with a business that is almost certainly blatantly ripping off the intellectual property of other brands.
Quote from: boon on August 14, 2023, 01:33:09 AM99% sure it's not even a "brand" in its own right, it will be the same handful of factories as all the other generic Chinese "shelf" reels with yet another brand name on them.
Here's an assessment for pretty much all generic chinese reels:
-The machining/casting tends to be top quality. Nowadays anyone can buy and program a really good CNC machine and produce excellent parts in terms of dimensional accuracy. Accordingly the reels tend to feel very good out of the box.
-The designs are generally just copies of mainstream brands, with surprisingly close cloning, and the aforementioned tendency to add a few pointless bearings to up the count.
-Speaking of the bearings, they're generally horrific. Zero quality control. Reasonable chance you'll get a gritty bearing from new, and if it's not bad then, a couple of trips in salt will have it crunching along because the bearings are low-quality chrome steel and rust if you put them beside a photograph of the sea.
-Brings me around to the broader metallurgy. This is the biggest downfall of these reels. The metal parts, although nicely machined/cast, tend to be made from extremely low quality metals. The corrosion resistance tends to be somewhere between "aspirin" and "toilet paper", and they will readily start to fizz if they aren't absolutely fastidiously maintained. The next trouble is things like spool shafts don't have the correct properties. I've seen a bunch of chinese-made small lever drags with bent spool shafts, because the steel they used was too soft. Doesn't bode well for the geartrains either, although I've literally never seen one of these reels survive long enough to get an accurate gauge of the gear quality.
-The drags tend to be initially excellent. They usually use surprisingly good quality CF washers and the designs are just stolen from mainstream reels that are proven. Accordingly I've seen some fairly incredible drag figures from chinese reels, especially small lever drags. The problem is that the reels can't sustain this, and all sorts of parts start to fail under the load, most notably spool shafts.
-All the little ancillary parts tend to be awful. Extremely low quality screws with misformed heads that strip if you even look at them, clicker assemblies that fall apart and jam the reel the first time you get a decent run, and the use of ferrous steel for all sorts of parts that immediately turn into a rusted glob of goop if you use them on the ocean.
This completely sets aside considerations such as the complete lack of post-sales support, nil warranty or ability to get non-generic parts for the reels, and the ethical conundrum of spending money with a business that is almost certainly blatantly ripping off the intellectual property of other brands.
And with that super informative write up!
Elvis has left the building lol!
Man, I don't think I've ever seen, anyone, put it better than that, my friend!
The best part, about all of that!
It was absolutely, and completely the truth!
Amen!!!
Man you described them to a T, boon! :al
:d