TackleTour

Looking for opinions on the Shimano SLX XT. Quality, durability, performance for a budget reel? How would it up for punching heavy mats? How’s the drag? Let me know your thoughts.

From a service point of view its a very honest all round reel, overall build quality is there - can't fault it, I did sell the garden variety SLX I had (didn't like the unpainted raw feel of the plastic at all) .

If you wanted you could change out the solid and material fibre drag washers - however I lapped the drag washer and the drag performs as should, did some big runs up my 20 meter backyard and didn't find any real loss of performance.

Pics of my reel out of the box. Was actually well lubed apart from a few minor areas.
As an out of the box option its excellent value, I put a bearing in the level wind, shimmed the knobs and left the bushings in them. Don't forget the SLX MGL too.

I bought the SLX XG and pepped it up with Hedgehog SS half open spool bearings, put a bearing on the drive shaft and swapped the drag discs with Carbon Tex (used the Curado XG Carbon Tex). Sweet little reel now.

Looks like a solid reel. May have to pick up one for bank beating trips.

You shouldn't have to mod a reel right out of the box. My SLX XT XG was good at first but I did something to make it geary and loud. Maybe it's just dirty. It's quite noisy on the cast (sort of buzzing like I hear from cheaper reels on YouTube). I will probably try some compressed air on it everywhere I can without disassembling it. Makes me love my Bantams more, that's for sure!

Compressed air... Do yourself a favour and get it looked at, than pushing stuff further in and into other areas.

Slazmo wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 02, 2020 6:20 pm

Compressed air... Do yourself a favour and get it looked at, than pushing stuff further in and into other areas.

Honestly I don't think it's worth time and money to get it looked at. I don't use it much. Good call on the compressed air though, it is a pretty tight area so it likely won't expel anything. Anyway, thought I'd offer my experience.

I got the XT in 6.3 and use it for deeper cranks and swimbaits in the 1/2oz-1oz range. Definitely punches above its price range, I've been quite happy with it. Bought the SLX MGL spool from a member for ~45 shipped and definitely want to use it more this upcoming spring. The casting capabilities remind me of the 50e.

I have 2, an XG and an HG. I really like them for what they are. One is on my frog rod and it does the job great. The next is for my general purpose MH rod, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, Ploppers, etc. It's really a nice reel for the price.

I bought 8 of them. For what you get for the price it can’t be beat. To me I like the 150 size better than the 200 and they honestly perform every bit as well as a Curado to me. I fish a lot of tournaments and am not the nicest to my gear and these things can take a beat. Will be getting more.

I mod all my reels before I use them. I put a bearing anywhere one can go. Bantams, metaniums, stradics. Why wouldn’t someone max them out is my question? Slx xt with the five bearings added makes a nice little reel.

The SLX XT has been discontinued here and selling for $100... Yet the garden variety SLX and DC remain...

Not sure if it was filling in a gap, but for $100 it's a great buy.

Can't even bother getting the BFS - just bought another XT.

arrowslinger1 wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 04, 2021 7:34 pm

I mod all my reels before I use them. I put a bearing anywhere one can go. Bantams, metaniums, stradics. Why wouldn’t someone max them out is my question? Slx xt with the five bearings added makes a nice little reel.

Same here. Absolutely no reason no to make your reel as good as it can be for the hundreds or thousands of hours you'll be using it.