Scuba Choice Diving Stainless Steel Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Dive Reel, 290-Feet, Black

I used this for the first and only time during a shallow reef dive. It's a heavy duty reel, but the functionality is not good. Any bit of slack in the line creates a backlash effect and the string wraps around the inside portion of the reel (in between the spool and the frame). This causes the string to lock so you cannot dive any deeper. This happened three times during a 20 minute period, forcing me to end the dive prematurely. Adding a guide to limit the string's lateral movement would do wonders for this reel.

The spool doesn't hold as much of the replacement line as I hoped to use but that is not the fault of the seller. Planning to hold on to it for another project.

I own a Borzoi puppy and do not have a fenced in yard so I've trained him to run/frolic on 100-200 ft ropes (500 lb paracord from Home Depot). After several months of it getting wrapped around my legs and giving me severe rope burns and scars and spending 15-20 minutes several times a day detangling it to get started, I looked for a reel to use. I tried cheap large plastic extension cord reels and two types of dive reels. This one is the heaviest, best made, with best features. My plan was to remove the dinky rope from this and replace it with the thin paracord but, though the rope fits through the feeder slot, the paracord is such a bigger diameter than what comes with this that less than half the line fit on the real itself so it doesn't work for my use. It's a real shame because nothing else is as easy to use/control. It's possible I could find some really high tensile strength rope that's a smaller diameter but it's probably out of my price range.The string that came with this lasted a few weeks til it just up and snapped when the rope was stuck on a branch and my puppy took off (at the time it broke he weighed about 45 lbs and now he's over 60 and half grown).The hand grip is comfortable, hard, but easy to use. The slide lock has 3 settings- stop, go with clicks, and full out go. The clip hardware is fine, I'd probably trust it (strength wise) when my dog is full sized I just don't like the clip type (easy to accidentally unclip so not safe for a dog that's bred to take off and not come back easily).

The design is generally good on this reel, but the line has a tendency to slide off the side of the spool and get stuck behind the clicker. This is difficult to fix on a rocking boat and near impossible to fix underwater. I have also broken the line while handing heavy items onboard. Perhaps a smaller quantity of a larger gauge line would fix both of these problems.The reel is beginning to show signs of oxidation too.

I had this in my dive bag and never even used it. When I got home it was already showing signs all over the metal of rust. Not sure what was used for the metal but was not designed to actually be used for diving or at least not in salt water. Maybe it is OK for fresh water only (was not noted in the description) but wouldn't trust it to hold up for long or many uses in any type of water based on this.

Strong well made

This Dive Reel was rusted BEFORE using it the 1st time. Since I was out of country, I tried to use it, but the line was melted together at about 45' - see the photo of the end of the line. I lost my marker bouy. Bottom line - this claimed to be stainless steel, yet it rusted and in my opinion is simply JUNK -

Es muy aparatoso el mango. Era una buena idea pero mal ejecutada.Muy grande, sobretodo considerando que un buzo debe llevar varios implementos colgados al arnés.Buena calidad del cordón y buen alcance, pero deben mejorar el diseño porque así como está, no sirve y puede resultar incluso peligroso en situaciones de emergencia.

This item is NOT stainless steel

Lo usé una vez y dejó de funcionar, pésimo producto.