SMOOTH OPERATOR
Here’s a reel for casting enthusiasts, being ideal for clean beach fishing and thrashing lead weights down the field
The Akios Shuttle 656 STR Kuro on test.
Another day, another little CT multiplier to play with. It’s the Akios Shuttle 656 STR Kuro this time, all shiny and black, set off with bits of chrome and gold. I lob out a couple of times to wet the line, then wind up a proper cast. The coward in me has set magnet power to full and left the two brakes blocks in situ. No wonder the cast feels strangled. Smooth, though. Out with the blocks and try again, magnet power still on the high side. Farther but just as smooth, no trace of line lifting from the spool.
Dial down the magnet yet more. Highly respectable distances now, the spool still silky and virtually silent, without hint of the characteristic CT buzz at top revs. I notice, too, that the cast gets away fractionally more quickly than on most reels.
Whacking this hard into a breeze with less than half magnet power ought to bring the serious risk of a backlash, surely? There wasn’t a trace of trouble throughout my fishing session. Or the next session, or the ones after that.
REEL FOR CLEAN GROUND
Winding in felt great thanks to sensible gearing and a power handle with comfy ‘T’ rubber grip, nicely supported by a proper stub axle. The drag is excellent as well. Handle swing diameter is well matched to the reel, giving fairly quick retrieve and adequate cranking power.
I felt no appreciable play in the gear shaft either, which is reassuring because an illfitting shalf usually wrecks the gears.
That said, all 6500CT-type reels must be treated with respect when it comes to retrieving, and the Shuttle is no exception. It is first and foremost a casting enthusiast’s reel for clean ground, not meant for rough stuff and heavy loads.
Every time I used it, I rinsed the Akios under the kitchen tap as soon as I got home to get rid of the seawater. This vital step minimises the galvanic action between aluminium and other metal components, which otherwise might lead to corrosion. Galvanic corrosion is the Achilles heel of all aluminium-framed reels, not just the Akios, and only a relentless maintenance schedule holds it at bay. As I cleaned out the 656 STR, wiped it dry and added a single drop of oil to the spool bearings, it occurred to me that I could grow to like this reel a lot.
DELVING INSIDE
The little Akios feels encouragingly chunky and solid, but what’s lurking inside? Time to get the spanners out. As with nearly all CT reels, stripping the gearbox side is easy. Off with the power handle – don’t lose the little circlip – unwind the star wheel, then undo five screws including the three quick take-apart thumbscrews. Lift off the endplate cover and all is revealed.
Key features are the button-operated freespool mechanism, main gear with integral carbon-fibre drag system, and the small pinion that drives the spool. Detail differences aside, it is the familiar generic 6500CT-type format evolved from the original Abu Ambassadeur, and none the worse for that.
The 656 STR’s 5.3:1 ratio, helically-cut main gear is machined from stainless steel. The pinion is stainless steel as well. The gears mesh well and turn smoothly, but, as with all small beach reels, how long they last depends as much on how sensibly they’re used as on the engineering itself. I would have preferred to see marine bronze or brass for the main gear, being slightly suspicious of stainless steel in this role.
The non-rotating spool shaft sits in deep pockets built into each endplate. I’m delighted to see adjustment caps on both sides, because as well as controlling spool end-float, caps are the only straightforward way of setting a spool exactly central in the reel’s frame, a critical step on high performance casting reels.
The one-piece spool with its integral bearings looks good, but that’s only half the story. It is machined to a high standard, the micrometer showing insignificant amounts of radial and axial run-out. It should run true even at extremely high revs. At just 23g unfilled with line, the whole spool assembly is also remarkably light, even though the
dimensions and line capacity are similar to most little casting multipliers. Filled with line (270 metres of 0.34mm mono in this case), it comes in roughly 10g lighter than most standard production CT casting reels.
That 10g sounds insignificant until you factor in inertia. Lower inertia means that a cast flies away more quickly and more efficiently from a light spool than from a heavier one of similar diameter and width. This explains the noticeably clean release plus marginally more height on my test casts.
If you fancy a little light reading, Newton’s second law of motion explains all. A dive into physics also reveals that even though a light spool is quicker, it is also more stable and forgiving at high speed, and thus easier to control, chiefly because it does not generate the high fly-wheeling effect that so easily causes a heavier spool to backlash midway through the cast.
BEARINGS AND SPOOL
Not even a spool of this standard reaches its full potential without good bearings and solid support. The Akios has ABEC5 stainless steel shrouded bearings, which, assuming good quality, are fine for any beach reel and for most tournament work as well.
ABEC numbering focuses more on engineering tolerances than on overall quality.
Even ABEC1 bearings running in oil handle up to 38,000rpm and pretty high loads, so there should be no issues with the 656 STR. I did nothing to the bearings except wipe off excess grease and add a drop of the thin oil that came with the reel. They run perfectly.
The spool sits on a robust 3.95mm diameter fixed shaft set across an impressive one-piece machined alloy frame; not up to the finest custom tolerances, but well in excess of what’s required for fishing and field casting alike. The spool sits nicely low in the reel, making it easy to get a firm grip for hard casting. Yet there is plenty of room between filled spool and frame to allow free passage of leader knot and bits of weed.
The Shuttle 656 STR Kuro has centrifugal brakes plus a four-element magnet brake with knobby adjustment screw. Use either or both according to expertise and application.
The magnetic range is more than adequate. I could work safely in the lower settings even on the beach with chunky baits. Akios is very good at building practical magnetic controllers that any reasonably competent caster should easily be able to tune for backlash-free fishing, and this set-up is no exception. Serious casters may be tempted to extract one or two of the magnet elements for field work.
I would be happy to take out the entire magnet array (only one screw to undo) and control the spool on a single small brake block. But why bother when the standard magnets do so well?