Revo Stx Or Lews Tourn Pro

[Fireguyfrank58]

  Im gonna buy a new reel to Texas rigging, mainly 1/4 oz weight with either baby brush or 7-8" worm.  For you guys who know which one should I go with.  I have not found one single bad review on the Lews but I also have read very good reviews and comments on the STX.  The Revo S has been a bit up and down on reviews so I thought i'd step it up the the STX 6:4:1 ratio.  

[SwampLife]

Both are nice but I would go with the lews.

[BrettD]

Both are nice but I would go with the lews.

+1 I have both the lews is smoother and feels more refined but the stx will cast a little further its also a little louder. Both are great reels but I would lean towards the lews.

[TNBassin']

Lews. As much as I liked my STX, there are just too many issues with the gen 3s.

[ColdSVT]

Lews. As much as I liked my STX, there are just too many issues with the gen 3s.[/quo

agreed I love my gen 2 stx and I like my gen 3 but my next reel will either a tourny pri or a chronarch

[38 Super Fan]

I have both and like both, you can't go wrong either way IMO.

[bmlum415]

Fished the stx and winch as well as a tp, honestly I hated the stx and winch so I sold them off, they just aren't worth the money, I'd pay about $100 for them if that. My lews on the other hand is light, smooth, casts a 1/8 oz Texas rigged 4 inch worm for what seems like a mile. I even have a core and I'd put my tp up there with it. I pretty much only fish lews bb1's, tournament pros and shimano cores. Not a fan of a chronarch either

[bmlum415]

Btw I had my tournament pro and I out casted my friend that had a chronarch with a 3/8 oz jig and a trailer with my 1/4 oz jig without a trailer by at least 20 feet. It stunned me how amazing the reel is

[MrSwimJig]

I have both and have not had a single issue with either reel. My G3 STX reels are just as good as my Lews reels. It is going to be all about which one feels better to you.

Some people don't mind the new larger gear box on the STX and some people it bothers. That was my only concern when I got one and it hasn't bothered me so I got 3 more of them.

Personally I like the feel of my STX just a little better.

[frantzracing0]

I Hated My LeWs. Both My Tournament Ss And Pro. INow Use Mostly revos And Couldnt Be Happier. The Lews Felt Cheaply Made To Me. It Functioned Great, But In No Way BetterThan My Revos.

All Comes Down To What You Like

[trupp30]

I have a Lew's TP and I love it. Also, I have an Abu and I think the Lew's is a much better reel. If you decide on the Lew's you will not be sorry.

[Fishwhittler]

Not having used either one and going strictly by the reports I've heard, I would suggest the Lew's reel.  There seem to be significantly more negative reviews on the Revo G3's than on the Lew's baitcasters.  

 

FYI, a while back I decided to find out which of Lew's Abu Garcia, BPS, and Pflueger gets the best ratings.  Those four companies all contract with the same korean manufacturer to produce their mainstream baitcasters.  Here's what I found:

 

 

The main reels from Abu Garcia, Bass Pro Shops, Lew's and Pflueger all utilize the same clutch and are built by the same company.  So, are they all the same?  I'd say no.  The clutch has nothing to do with the gear material used, the bearing quality, braking, or the even the reel's tolerances.  Abu Garcia uses their "Duralumin" aluminum for the gears.  The Lew's reels up to the Tournament Pro make use of brass gears, according to the official specs.  The Pro Qualifier and Johnny Morris Signature baitcasters use brass gears (the old JMX; according to the BPS website the new JMX has aluminum gears) and have dual braking.  The bearings in some of these reels may very well be different—the bearings in the more expensive Revo's are HPCR, not the typical steel bearings, so why not different bearings in the less expensive reels?  Lew's, Abu Garcia, Pflueger, and BPS, they may all request different bearings for their reels.  Not easy to tell.

I prefer to think of all of these reels as different models from the same company—which is, after all, exactly what they are.  Some of them are better than others.  If you look, Lew's has far and away the lowest percentage of negative reviews.  You actually have to go through the reviews and pay close attention to find a bad one.  Pflueger has few reviews but almost all of them are positive, my own included (Pflueger President WLPL & Supreme LPL).  The BPS Pro Qualifier has over 700 reviews on the BPS website and gets 4.8 stars.  Yes, many of those should be taken with a grain or pound of salt.  However, BPS is a very large chain and no other reel on their website or anywhere else has such an overwhelmingly positive rating.

Other BPS reels have fared more poorly, most recently and notoriously the Johnny Morris Carbonlite.  BPS ranges from ridiculously good (PQ) to a bit iffy (JM Carbonlite).

Abu Garcia actually has the lowest rating among those four companies.  This is from my own observations, not cold hard facts, but I've noticed the most reports of problems with Abu Garcia reels.  The Orra SX baitcaster was initially plagued with anti-reverse troubles; the Revo SX's braking in all three generations is either wonderful or impossible to use, depending on who you talk to; the Revo MGX also had some reports of rough or grinding reels early on; and now the Revo G3 gearboxes are the subject of controversy.  Those are the biggest issues, but there were others.

I went through and counted the positive/negative reviews for the four companies mentioned above.  I used the reviews on Tackle Warehouse, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabelas.  For the latter two I counted 5-star and 4-star ratings as positive, 2-star and 1-star ratings as negatives, leaving 3-star reviews entirely out of the picture.  On TW, I just went through and checked how many reviewers were happy with their reels.  Only reels with metal frames were included, and any reel with less than 15 reviews was dismissed as having insufficient ratings.  This survey was completely unscientific and some of the negative reviews were related to user error, and a lot of the positive reviews were by guys who had just gotten their reel and loved it—no long-term testing involved.  With that firmly in mind, here's what I found:

Lew's - 287 qualified reviews, 98.8% positive rating - Best reel:  Tournament MG @ 39+/0-, 100%.  Worst reel:  Tournament Speed Spool @ 32+/1-, 97.0%.  Most reviews:  Speed Spool @ 109 with 97.2% positive

Pflueger - 131 qualified reviews, 93.5% positive rating - Best reel:  Patriarch @ 98+/3-, 97%.  Worst reel:  President @ 27+/3-, 90%.  Most reviews:  Patriarch

BPS - 962 qualified reviews, 89.8% positive rating - Best reel:  Pro Qualifier @ 694+/24-, 96.6%.  Worst reel:  Extreme @ 30+/6-, 83.3%.  Most reviews:  Pro Qualifier

Abu Garcia - 484 qualified reviews, 86.0% positive rating - Best reel:  MGX @ 127+/11-, 92.0%.  Worst reel:  Revo STX @ 28+/12-, 70.0%.  Most reviews:  Orra SX @ 181 with 84.5% positive

That's exactly in line with what I guessed.  Some notes:

The Revo Winch had 100% positive ratings, the highest in Abu Garcia's lineup, but only 17 votes.  For that ranking category I left out any reel with fewer than 25 ratings.  The MGX had eight times that number and scored the highest of any other Abu Garcia reel.

Lew's had a pair of 100% reels, the Tournament MG and the BB1.  The BB1 had only 18 ratings.  The second-highest rated Lew's reel was the Tournament Pro Speed Spool, coming in at 98.9% in 88 reviews.  Incidentally, no Lew's reel scored less than 97.0%, with the Tournament Speed Spool coming in at exactly that (33 ratings).

Of the ratings for BPS, 75% were for the Pro Qualifier alone.  The Pro Qualifier also had 38.5% of the 1,864 qualified ratings.

There were only seven reels with 100 ratings or more:

Lew's Speed Spool - 106/3 (109) = 97.2%
Pflueger Patriarch - 98/3 (101) = 97.0%
Bass Pro Shops Pro Qualifier - 692/24 (718) = 96.6%
Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris Signature - 99/5 (106) = 95.2%
Abu Garcia Revo MGX - 127/11 (138) = 92.0%
Abu Garcia Orra SX - 153/28 (181) = 84.5%
Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris Carbonlite - 89/17 (106) = 84.0%

I was more than a little surprised at the Revo STX G3 (70.0%).  With 40 ratings, it scored the lowest of any qualified reel in the comparison.  The next lowest was the Revo Premier at 82.4% positive, but it had only 17 ratings.

The reels that were left out due to not having enough ratings were the following:

Abu Garcia Revo Inshore (4 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Abu Garcia Revo Toro NaCI (4 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Abu Garcia Revo MGXtreme (3 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Lew's Super-Duty (7 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Lew's Team Gold (2 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Lew's Team Pro (8 positive votes, 0 negative votes)
Pflueger Trion (4 positive votes, 4 negative votes)

Again, this comparison is certainly not perfect, but it fits with what I've been hearing everywhere on fishing forums.  Below is the entire list of reels that I compared.

 

Abu Garcia:BPS:Lew's:Pflueger shootout.pdf2.pdf

[21farms]

the stock handles on the revos are a curiously short 80mm whereas they're a more useful 85mm on most of the lew's. i had an issue with the thumb bar on my new 3G STX-SHS sticking in the disengaged position and, if you do a search, you'll see that some others have had a similar issue.

[Dramer77]

i had the same debate about 2 weeks ago and went with the STX, the research i did saw alot of positive reviews for the stx .. havent had any issues since i recieved it

[TNBassin']

the stock handles on the revos are a curiously short 80mm whereas they're a more useful 85mm on most of the lew's. i had an issue with the thumb bar on my new 3G STX-SHS sticking in the disengaged position and, if you do a search, you'll see that some others have had a similar issue.

I had this issue with my Gen 3 SX. My first STX felt like it was bound up right out of the box, but an exchange of that reel got me a flawless one. My S had been returned twice before the brakes started turning themselves on. I took it back to BPS a 3rd time, and got a Chronarch and just paid the difference. Out of all 3 Gen 3s I had, the STX was by far the best. I will note that the STX and the S were bought the week they actually came out, and the Gen 3 SX was purchased about 2 months ago, so any rolling changes Abu had to fix the thumb bar, or brake issue probably has been in effect for awhile so you may be able to get a problem free Revo now. The Revos are great reels IMO, but seems the QC has been off compared to Abu's Gen 2 offerings. I no longer own any Revos though, as once I got a Chronarch I couldn't go back to my Revos so I sold them off.

[BassinLou]

I own both the STX and a Lews MG speed spool. I have zero complaints on both reels. I enjoy them both. I also have the Revo S and I enjoy that reel as well. I will occasionally have a hiccup when casting where the spool locks during a cast. When I studied what could be the problem I noticed that the screw on the right top side, which controls the removal of the side plate will loosen over time and I think that was the cause of the hiccup. Every time I tighten up the screw the problem goes away. Again, I have only experienced this on the Abu S G3. All the other issues that have been mentioned about the STX, I have never experienced. I have had this reel for over a year now.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

The Lew's name has a significant nostalgic component and I really feel that it has a positive affect on the way the reels are percieved. I'm not saying they aren't quality reels because they certainly are, and at a good price point. Strictly mechanically speaking there is very little if anything seperating Lews from Revos as long as you compare comparable models. Anecdotes about "I outcast by buddy ..." are meaningless beacause of the variables (rod, lure, line, maintenance or lack there of...) I also put very little trust in online customer reviews. I have a lot more confidence in feedback you get here on BassResource.com. As to the OP, if you've decided on one of the 2 reels mentioned, go with whatever you can get the best deal on.

[The Commodore]

Yeah, what Delaware said.  I have a Lew's TP, and I have played with a Revo STX.  They are very similar and you can tell the were made in the same factory.  Get what is the best deal.  And that was Lew's for me.

 

Go to ebay.

[flippin and pitchin]

Both reels will service you very well.  Both comp out about the same. Some tangables to consider are palming and handle length and grip style. Grab one of each, spin it and buy what feels good in YOUR hand. DVT makes some very good points. I have several Lews including the T-Pro and owned two G-2 STX's and both perform extremely well. If there was a time when personal preference played into a purchase choice, this would be it.  One huge positive you have going for you, which ever you choose, you will have a reel that will perform very very well for you.

[Fishwhittler]

The Lew's name has a significant nostalgic component and I really feel that it has a positive affect on the way the reels are percieved. I'm not saying they aren't quality reels because they certainly are, and at a good price point. Strictly mechanically speaking there is very little if anything seperating Lews from Revos as long as you compare comparable models. Anecdotes about "I outcast by buddy ..." are meaningless beacause of the variables (rod, lure, line, maintenance or lack there of...) I also put very little trust in online customer reviews. I have a lot more confidence in feedback you get here on BassResource.com. As to the OP, if you've decided on one of the 2 reels mentioned, go with whatever you can get the best deal on.

 

Same here.  I don't think they're quite worthless, though; enough of them together do serve as some indicator.  As I said, the data I collected from the reviews closely matches the info I've picked up here on BR and on other forums.

[Zach P]

I own both the STX and a Lews MG speed spool. I have zero complaints on both reels. I enjoy them both. I also have the Revo S and I enjoy that reel as well. I will occasionally have a hiccup when casting where the spool locks during a cast. When I studied what could be the problem I noticed that the screw on the right top side, which controls the removal of the side plate will loosen over time and I think that was the cause of the hiccup. Every time I tighten up the screw the problem goes away. Again, I have only experienced this on the Abu S G3. All the other issues that have been mentioned about the STX, I have never experienced. I have had this reel for over a year now.

Couldn't agree more, Iove my STX and S but I seem to have the same issue with that screw that loosens the side plate to reach the brakes. I think the next time I check out a reel it will probably be a Tournament MG.

[BryanM]

I have the STX and love it.

[aavery2]

Which one do you like?