Okuma fishing reel question?

I purchased an Okuma Avenger AV-10b spinning reel last week. I purchased it from an online website called Fish and Save. After the reel arrived I took it out of the package and immediately noticed that it did not reel very easily. It just seemed to have a light resistance for example… normally on a spinning reel you can turn it a few times fast and the let go of the handle, and it will continue to turn at least a few more revolutions by itself until momentum has stopped. With this reel if you turn it a few times and let the handle go it with come to a stop after maybe one revolution. It just seems to has resistance and can be felt while reeling it in. I assumed it must have had old stale dried up grease in it or something that wasn’t allowing the reel to turn as freely as it should, [that’s what it feels like]…

I called Fish and save and they immediately sent me out a new one 2 day shipping and also sent me pre paid postage slip to send the one I had first purchased back to them. Great service in my opinion. I received the new reel and took it out of the box and to my disappointment it was exactly the same as the one I had received prior. Stiff reeling.

I have never owned an Okuma reel prior to this to compare it to, but have owned lots of other brands in my lifetime and have not experienced this before. The Okuma reel I received said it has 6 ball bearing so I figured it would reel nicely.

Is this just the way Okuma reels are, stiff reeling? I hate to send this one back also, if that’s just the way Okuma reels are, and there is nothing wrong with it. Maybe I could take it apart myself and clean it and re-oil it but afraid I’d mess something up or not get it put back together correctly.

Just looking for any insight on Okuma reels or ideas on how to make it reel better without complete disassembly? Thanks

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And No I don’t have GIANT hands. It’s an ultra light reel hahaha..

When the handles are reversible the handle screw can be over tightened. Back the screw off a little bit and see if it doesn’t improve.

Thank for the advice, but I tried that and it didn’t help.

Probably just overgreased and needs to be cleaned up a bit.

______________ wrote:

Probably just overgreased and needs to be cleaned up a bit.

After I cleaned out the factory grease and replaced it with some new grease the one I have was smooth.

Reels from the factory can be heavily over greased. I actually had the same issue with my Okuma. I took it apart (I also do this on all my new reels) and cleaned all the grease out and then lightly greased it up again.

MUCH better and the reels are much smoother.

Ok thanks for the info, I’ll give it a shot. Is there a particular kind of grease to use to re-lube the reel you’d recomend? I have some stuff called hot sauce I bought a couple years back but never used. Not sure if its any good or not for this application. thanks

Perfect for that application. Hot sauce is thinner I think. For use in the winter. But it might be just what you need. May have to regrease more often than with heavier lubes.

Cool thank you. I haven’t used it yet, but just looking at the bottle it looks fairly thin. I’ll try to get it cleaned up and re-lubed tomorrow, and post back how it worked in case anyone is curious.

I use hot sauce oil on all of my reels, summer and winter. I may be missing out by using the grease in the summer, but the oil seems to work great year-round.