Penn 712 and 710 gear swap, how much does ratio matter?

[slugmeister]

I accidentally posted another thread in the conventional section without realizing it, so sorry if I skip some things I said there. I've been working on some older Peen spinning reels this year doing some small tweaks, or just cleaning them up.

I ended up getting two 712's, and two 710's this year. Specifically a 712, a 712z, a 710, and a 710z. The greenie 710 was just too nice to pass up, I was avoiding them due to the plastic spool, but I went for it. I quickly found a dirt cheap 710z with the intention of stealing the spool. I don't like doing that, but the whole reel was $25 shipped, verses the only guy selling a 710z aluminum spool wants $40 plus shipping. Once I got my 710 I realized just how substantial the plastic spool is, I'm not really worried about it breaking anymore. They are pretty solid. The 710z appears in decent shape, I might just keep both reels for now. Anyway, this lead to a whole rabbit hole of mods including swapping the gears from the 712 into the 710. I figured I would share some info with that.

The swap itself is nothing, the gears fit right in. I should have paid more attention, but I did count gear teeth. The 3.6:1 gear set, the pinion has 11 teeth, and the main gear has 40 teeth. So the "3.6:1" gear set is actually a 3.64:1 ratio. The 4.1:1 gear set, The pinion has 10 teeth, and the main gear has 41 teeth, which of course is exactly 4.1:1. Along with that, the spool top lip diameter on the 712 is exactly 2.000", and the 710 is 2.325". Not that it matters for line retrieve, but the inside spool height (where the line is) is about .820" on the 712, and .920" on the 710. The top lip is rounded, and you can't spool them all the way to the lip anyway. What really matters to line retrieve is the line diameter on the spool. I'll list what mine are, but I'm sure some either use less or more than me depending on how full your "full" spool is. Obviously this diameter is less after a cast. My reels, as most, seem to lay line in a slight figure 8 pattern, not perfectly smooth. The 712 has 15# mono, and the 710 has 30# braid on them, and I don't see any difference. Both are perfectly acceptable, and better than some pictures I've seen online. Anyway, it's kind of tough to measure, but my 712 has about 1.980"-1.995" line on it full. My 710 has about 2.280"-2.310" on it full.

So now with all that out of the way, how do the reels actually perform. I tested lines per turn a few times each to make sure I was accurate. My 712 with the 3.64:1 gear set pulls 23" line per turn of the handle. The 712 with the exact same spool and line with the 4.1:1 gear set pulls 26" line per turn. The 710 I stupidly did not test with the original gears, but I'll come back to that. The 710 with 4.1:1 gear set pulls a whopping 29.5" line per turn of the handle. While I did not test the 710 with 3.64:1 gear set, the math checks out on the 712, we can safely assume my 710 with the same spool and line would pull right about 26"-26.25" of line per turn. So both the 712 and 710 with their original gears pull the exact same amount of line.

With all that said, I've always wondered something about gear ratios in fishing reels. How much do they really matter? How much is marketing? I can share my opinions, which are that reel gear ratio is WAY over hyped. I will admit some really old reels are pretty slow, but it's not all due to gear ratio. My most recent acquisition is an Abu 6000, it's so old I don't even think they were Abu Garcia yet. It has a 3.8:1 gear ratio. If that Abu 6000 and a Penn 710 were in a store today, the average person would look at those ratios and think those reels would perform the same. In reality the old 6000 pulls about 17" line per turn. Even my snail turtle slow penn 209 with 3.2:1 (seen online, I did not count my gear teeth) gear ratio pulls almost the same 17" line per turn. Even a semi-recent Ambassadeur 5500 with the so called high speed retrieve with 5:1 ratio is only doing about 22.5" line per turn, still slower than the 712 with the slow gear ratio. While 5:1 is considered on the slow side today for modern bait casters, even if we compare one of the most popular out there, the Shimano Curado, it comes in multiple gears, the the highest is a whopping 8.5:1 ratio, and its advertised to only pull in 36" line per turn. They almost never do that though, since it's calculated by spool diameter. I'm seeing reports they are getting 34" in reality. While there are insane reels out there such as the Abu Garcia Revo Rocket, it's almost comical just how slow some of the super high gear ratio reels really are. It's also interesting that after all these years, a lot of reels are still in that 22" to 30" per turn area. I see no mechanical reason we couldn't have super fast reels. Even back in the 60's when the Penn Spinfishers came out, there was absolutely nothing stopping them from making a reel in any ratio they wanted. There is some strength and size considerations, but I see no reason they couldn't have put a 9 tooth pinion and 45 tooth main gear in a 710 or 712 with no change in strength or modification, it should fit just fine, that would be a 5:1 ratio. They could have made the reel body slightly bigger and used even bigger gears. They chose the ratios and retrieve rates they did for a reason, not because they had to. Obviously Penn could have put 4.1:1 gears in the 710s easily. Apparently they thought 25"-26" per turn was ideal, pretty much the same as we do today.

In the last 10 years especially people have really become speed freaks with reels. The Revo Rocket can just about pull 4 feet of line per turn. Surely there are instances where that helps. For the most part, I have to wonder how much does any of it matter? It's not like we have to crank at a fixed speed. I don't like to turn my reel as fast as I can all day, but other than that, Even the snail pace of a Penn 209, I can crank that pretty dang fast in the event I need to. I can also turn the handles slower if needed. I've fished all manner of reels, and I can honestly say the reel retrieve rate almost never enters my mind. Like I said, there are specific instances where a super fast reel helps, but for the other 98% of the time, it either doesn't matter, or there are other options such as trolling. If it really mattered that much you would see lines per inch advertised on a box. I think manufactures realize if they did, people would want 48" LPT reels, then it would be 60", and so on until people realized they kinda suck. Instead they slap that 8:1 on the box, and people go nuts for the bigger number, while the reels still perform good. I'd like to hear what other people think. I'm not sure if I'm going to put 4.1:1 gears in my 710z or not. I might leave them in the 712z, keep the 710z with the 3.64:1 gears, and I already put 4.1:1 gears in the 710. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the 712. It's rough cosmetically, but it works fine.

[OhReely]

When fishing lures it's easier to turn a fast reel slow than it is to turn a slow reel fast.

I don't know why reel designers choose the ratios they do, my guess would be leverage, but consider this that I learned from motorcycle sprocket swapping.

In going from 4.1 to 3.6 gearing you're making a change of about 12%. Going from 3.6 to 4.1 gearing you're making a change of about 14%. You've changed everything in that drivetrain by that percentage. The (line) distance between any two points from empty spool to full spool changes by the same percentages. Instead of thinking of it in terms of inches retrieved per revolution of the handle think of it in terms of handle revolutions required to retrieve a given amount of line. What used to take 100 revolutions will now take either 112 or 86. Torque is another consideration, especially in starting and stopping. There will be an increase or decrease of input required. Does it matter? Probably not much unless you have a really big fish on a really tiny rig that you've just turned into a rocket.

[oldmanjoe]

  I enjoyed reading your post .  A lot of good information / observation . 
  Gear ratio is over rated ,marketing ploy just like ball bearing count .  The reels with 5:1-8.5:1 are for catching small fish with no fight .  It`s like getting on a 10 speed bicycle and starting in 10 gear .  If mid size reels pulling 40 plus inches , catching 10 pounds of fighting fish , they would be returned to the store most could not muscle that very long . 

I fish salt water ,50 -120 feet here in the west coast Florida    I have no need for high speed reels .    I don`t believe in pulling fish up fast !  No need for barometric trauma .

  Reels are variable speed by nature  . You need to decide what you need for the fish you wish to pull up .  Depth ,line diameter , spool diameter ,spool width and the length of the stick all work together .  There is a way to change your variable speed with different line diameter and were you make the changes on the spool !

[jgp12000]

I vote for stock on vintage reels,the 710 has a bigger spool so the slower speed gets the line in at the designed pace.Most likely the reels are used for live bait fishing anywho,so Enjoy the battle or have an adult beverage while you wait for a bite...

[slugmeister]

The reels with 5:1-8.5:1 are for catching small fish with no fight .

But are they though? The Penn 710 with 3.64:1 gearing has a final drive more inches line retrieved per turn of the handle, than any 5:1 bait caster or conventional reel That means the 5:1 baitcaster has more pulling power to fight fish than the 3.64:1 spinning reel. I'm not aware of any baitcaster with a ratio 5:1 to 8.5:1 that is pulling 40"+ of LPT. There's some spinning reels out there that are. It appears Abu Garcia makes a Revo Rocket spinning reel with 7.6:1 ratio, but not all of the sizes pull 40"+, only the 3000 and bigger do. I don't know much about the really big conventionals. That's kind of my point of the post though, people are missing a bigger picture, not to pick on you specifically. OhReely brings up the point of gearing on bikes which has a similar issue. I can tell you what my sprockets are on my dirtbike, 13 front, 50 rear. It doesn't really tell you much though without knowing the size of my rear tire or the gear ratios of my transmission. I see it on cars and trucks too. You can tell two people you have 3.73:1 gears in it, and one being a car guy will think you are giving up highway cruising, and the truck guy will think you have a slow dog. The car guy might be right, if you have normal car tires, and a non-OD transmission, you would be revving pretty good over 60. The truck guy might be right too, with bigger truck tires. And when you throw transmissions into the mix, with things like overdrive, its anyone's guess. More important to the truck guy is probably your 1st gear. Reels are pretty simple, but you can have variation there too during casts. Using 20# mono, the diameter left on the spool will be much smaller after a cast than if you use 20# braid, so that's a variable, which is not effected by gear ratio. You don't have to test as I did. The math is simple. Circumference of the line on your spool X your gear ratio = Line per turn in whatever unit your circumfance/diameter is. Example line diameter is 5.84 cm (2.300"). Gear ratio is 4.1:1. 5.84cm X Pi (3.1416) = 18.34 cm (circumference). 18.34 X 4.1 = 75.19 cm LPT which is also 29.6 inches, almost exactly what I measured.

That's a bunch of babble though. I'm not worried about a 2% change in my fishing reels. I don't know about fighting really big fish, but most of what I do, the rod does more work than the reel does. I can definitely see where more torque might help in fighting something 100#+, but again, the gear ratio is only half of the story. You would still need to know the spool diameter, specifically the line diameter on the spool. Another really easy way to add torque to a reel is to use a longer handle. You would have the exact same gear ratio, exact same spool size, exact same LPT retrieved, but you would have more torque. The downside is you would have to move your arm/hand more to use that reel. I think the handle size is an often overlooked thing, but most just either ignore it, or use whatever feels comfortable in the garage. I wouldn't be too surprised if you put a very short handle on one of the slower reels, if it wouldn't feel faster to a fisherman who didn't know better. Same thing, I bet if you put one of those long power handles on a faster reel, if it wouldn't feel just like a slower reel.  A good example is my Penn 209 and Abu 6000, but having almost identical LPT. The difference is the 209 has a big power handle, and the 6000 has a tiny little handle, one of the smallest I've ever seen. The 209 feels slower than the 6000.

There's definitely times to want really fast reels. Where I've seen it is running baits very fast, such as crankbaits or topwater where you do a lot of popping action. Sometimes jerk baits, but usually those are run pretty slow. What always gets me is on fishing forums you will hear guys say "I only use 8:1 reels for my topwater bass fishing to take up the slack quickly, I keep my 7:1's for most things, and my 6.3:1 is for the heavy cranking". Then later when he lists the reels you realize he has two 7:1's, one being his fastest and and another his slowest reel, and his 6.3:1 and 8:1 are basically the same IPT. Those are guys clearly sucked up into marketing and don't even realize it. I think I'm going to try the the 710's side by size with the different gears and see if I can even tell a difference.

[slugmeister]

Also yes, the ball bearing thing is a little funny. Now you have reels advertising 9+1 ball bearing or whatever, and all I have to think is where, and why? Why not just say it's 10? If I used two thinner bearings everywhere they currently use one, can I sell a reel with 20 bearings, and would it be somehow better? I can understand 4 bearings in a spinning reel. Two on the pinion, two for the main gear/handle. I could even see the case made for 1 or 2 for the line roller. More than that though I just don't see what or where they could be to do good. I think the spinfisher pinion with one bearing top and bushing bottom is one of the best I've seen. I think a bearing for the main gear would be easier to turn than the bushing, but it would require a second bearing or bushing in the side plate to support the other side. I'm not really sure if a bearing line roller is that much better than a bushing. I'm not super impressed with the spinfisher that uses nothing, but the bushing rollers work fine. Do they make line rollers with bushings or bearings for a spinfisher?

Even in baitcasters, you don't see it advertised as much, but you can find bearings everywhere including the reel handle knobs. Some seem like cop outs such as bearings for the level wind. That might sound strange from a person who just added a bearing levelwind to his Ambassadeur, but if I were to design a new reel, I would never do that. I would design a reel that completely disengages the levelwind during a cast. If I were to design a baitcaster, the two spool bearings would be the only bearings in the entire reel.

[OhReely]

Going back to your original post, the difference between 23" of line and 26" of line is either 11 point sumthin % or 13 point sumthin % depending on which number was your starting point. Roughly the same percentages as changing 3.6 to 4.1 or vice versa. When you change the final drive ratio on a car, truck, motorcycle you are also changing the spacing between gears in the transmission by the same percentage as final drive change. The tire doesn't figure into it at all unless you change it's size also because it's part of the final drive. It all relates to engine rpm in any gear, distance traveled per rpm and effort required from the engine to achieve the desired rpm. So it goes with fishing reels. Think of the spool as a constantly variable automatic transmission, how many turns do you want to make from a nearly empty spool to a full spool and how much effort are you willing to expend in doing so. Pick your gear ratio accordingly.  Personally, given the exact same reel available in two different ratios I would probably choose the faster one. I just think it would be more versatile.

I think a lot of manufacturers use +1 to indicate an AR bearing. The thing about those reels with double digit bearings is they always feel so smoooooth. In the store.

[Midway Tommy]

This has nothing to do with gear ratios, but for the long haul, I would much prefer a one (pinion) bearing spinning reel with 4 or 5 quality oilite bushings in strategic locations rather than one of those multi-bearing spinners. Every time you have a moving part you have the opportunity for a malfunction or failure. If you have 8 balls in a ball bearing you have 8 opportunities for problem solving like sand, grit, dirt, rust, ect., rather than just one area of concern. Oilites are just as smooth as ball bearings, and way more reliable and long lasting than nylon bushings. How often, throughout the life of a spinning reel, does an oilite need replacement? I know I've replaced numerous ball bearings over the last 40 or 50 years but I can't ever remember having to replace a quality oilite. 

[OhReely]

I'm with you MT but for me I'd want that pinion bearing to be sealed on one side.

[Gfish]

I have noticed that old conventionals such as Penn Long Beach's and Senators, or Ocean City's, that have < 3.5:1(2.5:1 is common), seem to be in real good working condition. The ball bearings in the spools of the larger Senators that have been well used are always rough & noisy it seems.

Joe's point about cranking up fish too fast for deep water is a good one. I've seen too many "toss backer's" that weren't gonna make it. The Seagulls love it, plucking-out those bulging eyes as they float helplessly.

Whipping(shore casting here) or working a cast lure for warm-saltwater species, does need some retrieve speed. I like fast spinners for this, but a high-speed inshore baitcaster is nice when casting from a boat.

[oldmanjoe]

  Again I enjoy reading this . All valid points , race the track. Be it motor cross, circle track , road race or drag race .
 
  Narrow spool , wide spool ,spool depth and crank handle lengths.