Daiwa BG MQ : The Ballad of a Coque

Konnichiwa, fishos san

Today's review is a major step towards wrapping up the infamous "pandemic backlog". Regular readers would know that when the Covid thing happened back in 2020, my whole testing and writing routine was turned upside down and I struggled to travel and fish, and for a while couldn't even receive reels in mail due to deliveries' disruptions. As a result projects kept piling up, and I could do nothing but whine in these chronicals. As things began to improve I would finish and publish a review from that backlog every once in a while, and today's article is a big milestone in this effort since it makes what's been done more than what remains in that pile. Get comfy, prepare a strong cup of coffee, and log off all the dating apps, hopefully forever because you're actually talking to dudes running fake female profiles from Lagos. No real woman would talk to you because you're incredibly ugly and you know it, every single one of you.

The name "BG MQ" alludes to the very successful 2016 Daiwa BG in its first half, while the second half is an abbreviation of "Monocoque". As we move on we'll examine whether there are meaningful connections to the 2016 BG, and just how "mono" is the "coque". What we know for now is that it's a series of mid-priced reels ranging from USD $210 to $290 at the time of writing, they're built with a full metal frame mated with a plastic rotor in all sizes, and the frames have anodised finish despite being cast and not machined. Anodising cast metal is a complex process, therefore cast reel bodies are usually painted. Interestingly the reels are advertised as being fully sealed while containing no mag-seals at all. This means that the BG MQ is only the third ever Daiwa reel to be fully sealed using rubber exclusively, preceded only by the Saltiga-Z of 2001 and the Catalina of 2009 which few people in the West have seen or heard of. Mag-seals have become quite ubiquitous in Daiwa's spinning offerings, now routinely found in serieses that cost much less than the BG MQ, thus it came as a surprise that there were none in this reel. I believe that this decision was made because they wanted the BG MQ to become another global hit, which wouldn't work had it contained mag-seals since now every fisherman in the world knows it's a headache unless they lived in a place where Daiwa has official service centres.   

Another surprise was waiting around the corner, right there in the official promotional material....

Giant bluefin tuna on a reel of this price! It used to be that one needed to spend 5 times as much on high end spinners to have a chance, and even this didn't guarantee success since giant bluefin tuna can easily reach sizes that humble the toughest and most expensive spinning reels in existence. Going by the claims in this screenshot, Daiwa appears to have broken unprecedented grounds and achieved what was once thought to be impossible with the BG MQ. Actually I considered just calling it the greatest thing in the entire history of humanity and ending the review here, but I decided to continue only to show you some pics. A reel that does what they say is above any evaluation and I'm not worthy of talking about it. No one is.

The BG MQ lineup is pretty intriguing to say the least. Size wise, it comes in the "full size" class 18000/2000, the "medium" class 8000/10000/14000, the "small" one 5000/6000, and finally the "tiny" class represented by the 2500 as well as the 3000/4000. I'm making a distinction between the 2500 and the 3000/4000 duo because it's an unusual case where the three reels are in the same size class yet they aren't equal to one another, here the 2500 is built with a smaller frame than its two siblings the 3000/4000. With rare exceptions, I use frame size as a reference when classifying reel sizes, since spools and often rotors will vary in size within the same class. Anyhow, this makes the BG MQ lineup pretty extensive in terms of size, only missing a "Mammoth" class reel to make it a most comprehensive one.

I called the offerings "intriguing" though because while the sizing is great, the gear ratios available leave me scratching my head in complete confusion. Usually when we see 18000 and 20000 models we assume that the 18000 has an "H" designation (High) with a high gear ratio suited for speedy surface retrieve, and that the 20000 has a "P" designation (Power) and a lower gear ratio for more torque in deep fishing, yet here the 18000/20000 have an identical gear ratio of 5.3:1. Why then would anyone buy an 18000 that's identical to the 20000 in terms of weight and size but holds less line? 

Alright, maybe whoever made that weird decision had one too many drinks at the parade under June's burning sun and made a one-off mistake, right? Nope, the mid size 8000/10000/14000 all have the exact same "H" designation with a 5.7:1 ratio, instead of coming in various ratios and a combination of H, P, and XH (Extra High) designations as one expects. Same lunacy in the small 5000/6000, both being "H" models with identical 5.7:1 gear ratios, and tiny reels didn't escape that fate with the 3000/4000 both having an "XH" designation and coming in 6.2:1 ratio. Their little sister, the 2500, is an "H" reel with a 5.7:1 transmission. This gives absolutely no incentive for anyone to buy the smaller capacity versions in each size class, essentially shrinking the BG MQ lineup to only five reels. Someone might point out that some different serieses have for example 18000 and 20000 reels with identical ratios, but in that case one finds TWO different 18000 reels, one is a "P" and the other is an "H". Both might not be offered in all markets, but nonetheless they exist and are being sold somewhere else so it makes sense. The BG MQ lineup absurdly does not.

Why then did I pick the BG MQ 10000 as my main test reel instead of the identical but higher capacity 14000? Well, as you might imagine I need to buy early in order to fish the reel and give you an evaluation in a timely fashion, and the 10000 model went on sale before the 14000 so I had no choice but to go for it. Of course had I known that life was about to come to a halt and that the review would be more than 3 years late I would have waited for the 14000. At any rate, let's have a looksie at what we have here....

The reel comes in a black box bearing Daiwa's logo, which is an extremely smart marketing choice. Had the box for example bore Nestle's logo instead, it would have caused all sorts of confusion at various stages from exportation to customs clearance to distribution, and retail sale associates would've needed special training on explaining to fishermen that it's a Daiwa despite the branding of the box. You're probably wondering what I am on about and why would Daiwa ever make a bizarre decision to brand their boxes "Nestle", and I would answer that they would do it using the exact same logic behind their bizarre decision to release reels of identical size and ratio only with some having less capacity than others. We're obviously dealing with some disturbed folks here, so, shush, and let me pat them on the back and give them a cookie for printing the correct brand on the box. I digress though....

Basic fare, nothing fancy.

Comes with a combined manual and parts diagram for the reel, a plastic bag with spool shims to tune the line lay, a redundant line capacity table which could've been included in the manual instead, and another general manual that bewilderingly covers all types of reels including conventional and electric. Whenever these general manuals were included they used to be specific to spinning reels, now it's basically every type of reel in one pamphlet.

The redundant supposed capacities' table, for some reason specifying USA and Australia only despite being perfectly suitable for Europe and the rest of the world as well since it contains lengths in metres & diameters in millimetres. It also does that cheesy thing where they name their own brand of line (JBraid) as a form of advertisement. Shimano has been doing this in an even cheesier fashion by printing their own line brand (PowerPro) on the reels themselves, not just the paperwork.

And because the good ol' boys at Daiwa seemingly have too much paper than they know what to do with, they also included a separate sheet specifically to allay our fears and concerns about grease. Phew, now that I know what that scary substance on my reel is I can finally sleep at night. I was worried that demons were using my BG MQ as a sacrificial altar on which they kill children at night and that this was blood.

A section of the general manual, and since it covers very different types of reels it has vague wording and such weird advice as don't dirty your clothes with, again, the lube on the reels! Not soiling my clothes with sticky stuff is the kind advice I got from my mom, along with not picking my nose in public unless I was sure no one was looking. Why is Daiwa trying to be my mother? That is one peculiar assortment of paperwork.

Let's check whether it's pretty or not....

Right side looks entirely different to the left one

The familiar "window" cuts in the rotor, and the spool skirt is carved but not ported all the way, leaving it without any actual cuts.

The black/silver colour scheme is not as safe a bet as some other combinations, and it always runs the risk of being boring and lifeless. The BG MQ did not fall into that trap, and instead balanced this colour coupling to create a certain subdued elegance. The restrained use of silver kept things tidy, and it all fit very well with the frame's matte anodising. The luster of a painted black finish wouldn't have worked as well. The asymmetrical frame, each side having a different design, on top being visually stimulating it also permitted them to loosely sculpt the frame around the internals for a compact chiseled appearance. The carvings in the spool's skirt are simple vertical lines, steering clear of the current trend of squiggly aggressive shapes. This only emphasises the subdued elegance theme. The black polymer of the rotor blends well with the black finish of the frame, and despite being a bit too wide the rotor stops just short of being big enough to sabotage the reel's overall compactness. The only unappealing bit is the "window" cut in the rotor, which opens on nothing but solid black components in the background. In other modelsthese windows show a contrasting colour or a compelling detail behind the rotor. Notwithstanding, the BG MQ is aesthetically pleasing, and a reel that I found myself turning the rod to admire in between bites on more than one occasion.

Made in Daiwa's Chinese facilities, and unexpectedly comes with individual serial numbers in the foot. Serial numbers are usually reserved for expensive reels produced in smaller batches, and their main purpose is that if a part gets changed or redesigned after your reels was manufactured the company can use the serial number to find and install the exact version of that part for your reel during service or repairs. I don't know whether that would work for such a mass produced reel, but the number is there nonetheless.

When brand new, the spool has a hologram sticker to show you it hasn't been spooled or used. Funny how the manual gives you all sorts of advice on career, movies, and sex life, yet it doesn't tell you to remove this sticker before using the reel. I've seen too many cases where people spooled all sorts of spinners on top of similar stickers, thinking they are the kind made to stop braid from slipping. Don't do that.... Or do it, who am I to tell you what to do with your reel?

This rubber band is what actually prevents braid slippage if one spools straight braid without backing or tape. I've been slowly shedding off my engrained skepticism and foregoing mono backing whenever I see one of these rubber bands, and I can report that the ones on the BG MQ reels worked great and I had zero slippages for the entirety of my testing.

At about 643 grams (~ 22.7 oz) the reel matches its listed weight with deadly accuracy. It's refreshing to see some truthful numbers without the usual "embellishing" this industry is addicted to.

The drag knob has a mounted seal (red arrow) that efficiently shuts water out. The entire knob is made of plastic, including the thrust disc (blue arrow) that applies pressure on the drag components. Not exactly what one expects from a "giant bluefin tuna" reel, is it? There are, of course, actual big game spinners that have plastic thrust discs, but these reels usually have intermediary transfer cylinders between the knob and the hot drag unit, and on top of that the plastic itself is high performance polymers that can consistently operate at +200 °C. None of these measures are present in the BG MQ of any size.

The drag unit is a simple top stack retained by an easily removable snap wire, and it's buried deep into the well leaving ample space for the knob's seal to work effectively in any position including the lightest setting. This is not a theoretical advantage, some other reels do have a problem in this regard as you'll see in a potential future review.

Here is the drag stack, comprising a translucent fraction reduction disc on top of three metal washers and three carbon fibre brake discs. I don't do microscope imaging and chemical testing to show you the exact fibre mix and weave type, but I can tell you these are higher quality brake discs than anything we got in reels of this price category a decade ago. Finer texture, excellent durability, and better volumetric variation with heat. The big 18000/20000 have five metal washers and five carbon brake discs beneath the translucent disc, not just three of each type.

Daiwa claims that the 10000 outputs 15kg (33 lb) of drag pressure, but in reality it does a hair below 10kg (22 lb) with a properly filled spool and the knob tightened to what in my personal estimation is a reasonable stop using an amount of force that an average male would produce. A higher number could be obtained if the spool is underfilled or if the knob is unreasonably overtightened to a degree that I believe risks damage. The 20000 is claimed to have 20kg (44 lb) of maximum drag yet it only produces 16.6kg (~36.6 lb), and finally the 5000 is advertised as generating 12kg (~26.5 lb) but it's only capable of 7.8kg (~17.2 lb). I did not test the smallest class 2500 and 3000/4000.

These are by no means bad numbers and they should've just advertised them instead of what in my opinion are ridiculous exaggerations, but I guess since everyone inflates drag figures Daiwa shouldn't be singled out for blame here. Anyway, more about the drag's performance in action later on.

The spool runs on a single ball bearing, which sits beneath the drag stack in sizes 8000 and up, while in smaller BG MQ reels it goes into the bottom of the spool and remains attached to the main shaft when the spool is removed.

The drag clicker is a tested and trusted Daiwa classic design, in which ridges are machined into the back of the spool....

.... and a flat spring (red arrow) runs across those ridges to emit a buzzing sound. It's not particularly loud, yet remains reasonably audible in most fishing conditions unless one is floating on a  really rough sea. The blue arrow points the spool shims, which are easily accessible if one needs to tune and adjust the line lay pattern, even in the smaller reels where a ball bearing sits right above those shims on the shaft.

My reel did not need any tweaking of the shims. It spooled braid like this right out of the box. No complaints at all.

Further down, the rotor has a plastic plate (blue arrow) held by three screws, and housed in that plate a seal that protects the main shaft where it goes in and out of the rotor (red arrow). So far the waterproofing claim is checking out alright.

Here is a better look at that shaft seal after removing the plastic plate. It has a "neck" that sticks out from beneath the plate to get an extended grip on the shaft, and it's actually black. It looked white in the previous photo because of the grease accumulated on it.

Water can get behind that plastic plate but it can't reach the rotor nut thanks to another highly effective seal around it.

The rotor nut itself (red arrow) has a closed top as an extra protective measure, and it's made of brass for toughness and longevity. A stainless steel washer (blue arrow) is keyed to the pinion from the inside and keyed to the rotor from the outside to create a larger contact surface with the rotor for strength. This is required since the rotor is plastic, thus it needs to be gripped across a larger area or the pinion would chew through its soft material and break loose under pressure. Reels 5000 and smaller don't have this stainless washer and instead their plastic rotors are directly keyed to the pinion, which isn't as risky considering the lighter work those smaller reels are intended for.

A full view of the rotor's distinct design, shaped with reinforcing arches to help reduce the flexing of its material. Daiwa came up with this concept about 15 years ago to bring their plastic rotors closer to the rigidity of the metal ones in order to save weight and cost, and it has been copied countless times by other brands either fully or partially. The rotor of the BG MQ is made of standard plastic, not Daiwa's premium plastic that's reinforced with long strand carbon fibres, which they call "Zaion" and install in more expensive reels.

When the bail is opened to make a cast, a lever in the back of the rotor (blue arrow) sticks out, engaging a rubber ring (red arrow) mounted on the frame. This system is called "rotor brake", and it prevents the rotor from inadvertently moving and potentially causing the bail to slam shut during casting. Once the cast is made and the bail is closed this brake disengages allowing the rotor to spin freely. 

In sizes 5000 and larger this rotor brake is a nice addition but not an essential one, since their bails close manually therefore they are unlikely to accidentally close even if the rotor spins during a cast. In sizes 2500 and 3000/4000 though the brake is vital since these three models have an automatic bail closure that shuts the bail when you spin the rotor.

The outer end of the pinion has a synthetic bushing inserted into it, whose job is to reduce friction with the main shaft both rotationally and axially (in & out movement). An increasingly common setup that's essentially a budget version of the "floating shaft" feature which utilises a ball bearing and a sleeve instead of just a bushing.

That front portion of the reel is closed off with a large screw-in cap that's made of plastic. It can be unscrewed by hand, no tools needed.

Beneath that large cap sits a plate (red arrow) with a brass disc in its centre (blue arrow).

That brass disc has a mounted rubber seal (blue arrow) that sinks into the plate (red arrow) to keep water from getting into the clutch assembly. That's not the simplest or the most straightforward way to seal this area, but the choice makes sense once you know that the BG MQ was designed with further spin-off models in mind. The plate and its centre disc seen here are shaped exactly like Daiwa's mag-seal plate and its centre collar, therefore when it's time to create the spin-off models they would simply replace the components seen here with the similarly shaped mag-seal components. The rubber seal pointed by the blue arrow in the above photo would be replaced in those spin-off models with the ferrofluid suspended in the magnetic field forming a barrier. You will see those reels at the end of the review.

A closer look at the centre disc and its mounted seal. Neat stuff.

And a large rubber seal goes around the perimeter of the plate, completing the waterproofing of the entire front section of the reel. There are no other potential water entry points from this end.

The one-way anti-reverse clutch, one of the hardest working and most important components of any spinning reel. Maybe this is where the BG MQ will prove its "giant bluefin tuna" worthiness?

Nope. Size and capacity of the clutch aside, the way it's anchored to the rest of the reel is nowhere near being strong enough to handle that sort of extremely heavy work; the clutch's thin chassis has two shallow notches (red arrows), which fit around the two limbs of the sheet metal bearing retainer (blue arrows). Of course this is a moot point, because to begin with the reel does not have a drag that can produce enough power to stop a fish of that sort, and even if it did the drag the knob would melt in 15 seconds, and if it didn't the rotor would certainly explode, and if not then the shaft would bend, and we haven't even yet reached that anemic anti-reverse anchor. I will not bring up that whole "giant bluefin tuna" absurdity again, but I hope that brands will show more respect to the fishermen by not recklessly throwing around phrases like that because it makes them come across as either dishonest or a bunch of nerds with marketing degrees who never fished or felt the devastating power of an actual enormous pelagic.

With nonsense out of the way, the clutch is actually pretty good for this class of reel. The blue arrow points the metal springs powering the brake cylinders operation, which, in addition to increasing the stoppage reliability, increase the service life of the clutch because they self-adjust for wear in the cylinders. Plastic limbs found in lower quality clutches don't do that as efficiently, and they lose their elasticity over time. The red arrow points a lever that can switch the clutch on and off for when it's installed in other reels that have a selective anti-reverse switch. All sizes of the BG MQ though are full time anti-reverse reels, leaving this lever unused in the series.

There are two ways to access the gearbox of the BG MQ; the first of which is a quick access by removing the plastic rear body bumper, which is only held down by two Allen head screws

One of these two screws is problematic....

This angle shows exactly why. The screw protrudes out of the bumper in what I believe is a silly engineering oversight. There is absolutely no way that the designers initially sat down to draw the reel and intentionally stuck a screw out like that. Don't let anyone insult your intelligence by claiming otherwise. It's just a slight protrusion though, of a smooth Allen head, and it's located in the back of the reel where it wouldn't interfere with the braid during fishing, so I won't make a big deal out of it. It's just dumb.

Note that the two screws are of different lengths, each goes in its specific location.

With the screws gone, the plastic bumper needs to be popped out, and I found that sliding a length of mono behind it then pulling is a safe way to achieve that. Do not insert metal objects to try and lever it off or you'd crack the plastic bumper or scratch finish of the frame.

There is a rubber seal back there, which the bumper snaps around securely. A decade ago I'd be extremely worried about the effectiveness of this arrangement for sealing a large opening like that, but manufacturing technology has made such impressive leaps that now a mid-priced reel like the BG MQ can have parts made to the precise tolerance required for such a sensitive task. If installed correctly, this seal works without a hitch and won't let water in even if the reel is submerged briefly.

This is the kind of access one gets with the quick removal of the bumper. Easily allows the lubrication of the oscillation mechanism and the spraying of grease on the drive gear's teeth, which would then be transferred to the pinion once the drive gear is turned.

The reel has a rubber seal on the left side, which wraps around the handle's axel to keep water out. It creates some resistance in operation due to rubber friction, but not enough to bother or tire the angler..

The right side does not have a seal.

Not a problem since the plastic body cap has its own internal seal that perfectly protects the unused opening.

When the handle needs to go into the right side, the rubber seal from the left side needs to be pulled off then inserted around the right side opening, and you're good to go. Well, not really you because you are normal right-handed people. I'm talking to those weirdo lefties, who as we all know are the descendants of Pazuzu and they belong in subterranean cells deep beneath secluded marshlands, not in our polite society. But I digress, once more....

Removing the seal allows full access to three recesses cut into the side cover, where a special tool would slide to securely grip it in order to unscrew it. That tool can be custom made, some sizes are manufactured and sold by third parties, or it can be "borrowed" if you know the right service people. Do not try to shove long nose pliers or anything similar in there or you'd destroy it before you know it. You won't believe some of the horrific damage readers sent me after failed attempts to use improper tools.

Voila. Now I want you to tell me, how exactly would you describe what you're looking at in this photo? Or just give me the number of sections you see here. Take your time because the answer is very tricky!

Well, actually no, it isn't tricky at all despite what in my opinion is THE worst campaign of shamelessly insulting gaslighting in the entire history of reel making. I mean it truly makes the fables of Seamaster spin reels or the multiple occasions when Chinese reels were sold as US or Taiwanese made ones look respectful in comparison; while any sane person would look at the above picture of the BG MQ and answer that there are clearly two sections one is the body assembly and the other is the separated side cover, Daiwa used to tell us this about the construction of the BG MQ on their official site....

They tell us that "Monocoque" eliminates the two-piece body and side plate construction. So my friends, I'm afraid you'll have to dismiss what your own eyes are seeing and just believe what Daiwa is claiming. You're not looking at two pieces here, it's only one piece but you're too stupid to count correctly, and there certainly are no side plates in there, I Photoshopped that thing that closes the side of the reel out of nothing. In reality it does not exist and the drive gear is left exposed to get vitamin D from the sun.

For more than two decades I've been commenting on the foolish desire of all brands to invent catchy marketing terms and present them as new exciting technologies, but they often made claims that only an engineer or a metallurgist can catch and debunk. This time though it's something that anyone who can count to 2 and knows how basic language works can immediately identify as total bollocks. Additionally, the term Monocoque has such a ridiculous ring to it that it's hardly something that anyone would want associated with their product, let alone a fishing reel that's bound to be a subject of conversation with strangers. I mean we've all been asked about our gear while out fishing, right? Now imagine this conversation;

- Hey man, anything biting?

- A few nibbles, nothing serious yet.

- Nice setup, I have a Saragosa, what have you got?

- I've got a monocoque

- Sorry to hear, but as long as your wife is happy no one needs to know. I'm asking about the reel though

- !!!

Seriously Daiwa? Monocoque? Well then, here are some ideas for when you upgrade the reels and need to call them something new: how about a sea tuna model, whose name would then be "SeaTunaCoque"? Fishermen would need to be careful though never to say "go" before that model's name because no one likes to be told to "go seatunacoque". How about a model commemorating Daiwa's history of innovation with a Plaque, which would then be named "plaquecoque"? Once again one needs to be careful never to say the full model name because putting "BG" before "plaquecoque" would be propagation of stereotypes that are no longer appropriate in our times of reckoning and stuff.

Feeew! Finally got that out of my system. Tried to behave like an adult for years but deep inside I was dying to unload on that whole coque thing. Errrr... that came out completely weird, but I'm leaving it anyway. Actually this very last comment is even weirder for containing "came out" considering the subject, yet I'm still not changing a thing because I'm secure in not liking those things at all, not the mono ones nor any other shape. But I digress, yet again....

I began the above paragraph by saying that Daiwa "used to" say that stuff because apparently my persistent campaign of ridiculing their fictitious description along with crude jokes finally paid off, and unlike the screenshot above which I took three years ago, their official site now returns this when you click the "Monocoque" logo

Yes, please keep it undefined, beats a bad definition every time. Further down the page....

The nonsense has seemingly been scrubbed. Of course it's unrealistic to expect that the definition will be sought out and removed from all pages in every region, but seeing even a single step being taken in the right direction is always a good thing.

The side cover is sealed (red arrow), and one of the two ball bearings of the drive gear is sunk nicely into it without neither moving around due to loose fit nor being stuck due to overly tight fit (blue arrow). Another sign of the times and more precision that was once reserved for costlier reels.

These bearings are Thai made NMB, which is the best Daiwa offers in any spinning reel and what they put in high end models. The 2016 BG ushered this trend in, with first class bearings coming in what was then a $100 reel. The BG MQ is following in its steps.

The screw-in side cover design of these reels means that there are no side cover screws requiring corresponding threads, so all available frame space was used to house an extremely large drive gear. Actually the gear is so big that opening the side cover permits only limited access to the mechanism, unlike removing the rear bumper which grants access to almost all parts of the gearbox. You're probably thinking that this can't possibly be true, and wondering why you can't simply pull the drive gear out and access everything, right?

Not that fast. The drive gear is locked in from the other end by a thin snap wire that's a pain to see, let alone remove. It took me a while to find the proper lighting and angle to take a clear photograph of it, but believe me in real life that little bugger is almost invisible. This annoying gear lock comes directly from its ancestral namesake, the 2016 BG.

I hate it with intensity.

With that little monkey gone, the left bearing can slip off the drive gear shaft.

Now is the drive gear finally ready to come out? No, not even close. The main shaft still blocks it in and wouldn't let it get a taste of freedom.

At first glance, removing the screw holding the main shaft to the oscillation block seems like the only option available to proceed. Don't do that, ever, no matter how appealing that idea looks. The shaft is factory press-fitted into the oscillation block, and pulling them apart risks causing microfractures in the block's alloy which won't necessarily be visible but a weakness has been introduced nevertheless. Daiwa won't send you a spare oscillation block to rectify that, because it only sells it attached to the shaft from the factory. You can't get either separately.

What you actually need to do is pull this stainless steel rod out, using a fine tip tool to grip the minuscule length of it that sticks out. Here it's photographed half way out, but originally barely a couple of millimetres of it were exposed.

With that rod out of the way, the main shaft can be pushed down and the drive gear finally freed. That's a lot of acrobatics to disassemble a reel, and it can't even commence until after one sources a special opener for the side cover. Kinda feels as if the relief of not having mag-seals is negated by the difficulty of taking the reel apart for service.   

The gear plate (green arrow) is a colossal piece of zinc alloy formed by casting, and it's mounted on a machined stainless steel male axle (yellow arrow). Being stainless steel guarantees a strong and long lasting screw-in handle connection, and being male makes it thinner than a female alternative which allows the entire gear to be brought closer to the centreline of the pinion, reducing offset and increasing power transmission efficiency. The blue arrow points an O ring which rests against the edge of the oscillation gear, holding that gear still in a position of full contact with the drive gear for immediateresponse with no play, and that absence of play also reduces mechanical noise. The red arrow points the wire activator of the emergency backup anti-reverse....

It works like this; the wire activator (red arrow) passes through the hole in the stainless steel pawl (blue arrow), and if the reel's one way anti-reverse clutch ever fails and the drive gear began spinning in the wrong direction (clockwise), the wire activator would slam the pawl down to engage hidden ratchet gears mounted on the pinion (you'll see them later), effectively acting as an old style ratchet anti-reverse allowing you to keep fishing until you can fix the clutch. Clutches could fail for several reasons, the most common of which are freezing temperatures, contamination, and excessive wear. This emergency backup system comes in BG MQ reels sizes 8000 and up, while smaller reels do not have it on the assumption that their work is so light the angler would find it easy to still maintain control if the clutch stops working.

So now that we've established that the reel has a very big gear, it's important to emphasise that this isn't an automatic advantage. It has the potential to be very advantageous but only if the gear itself as well as the components working in conjunction with it are designed optimally and executed well enough to realise the many potential advantages.

One of those advantages was certainly realised here; they enlarged the teeth proportionately, which strengthens them as well as increases their life since load is now being distributed across a larger surface area. This allows the delivery of more power to the pinion without worrying about breakages or warping. In addition to operational benefits, this concept allows a gear made by casting a relatively cheap alloy to perform closer to gears made of expensive alloys using costly manufacturing techniques. This idea originated in the 2016 BG, and having met all expectations and proven to be a massive success it was only normal for it to make it into other reels. It has the drawback of increasing the gear's weight, not only due to its larger size but also because zinc is a heavy metal to begin with. It's an inescapable compromise if one wants a cheap part that's made quickly and easily to perform better than it does in typical form.

The wear pattern after what I roughly estimate to be about 180 hours of active fishing, allowing a large margin of error of +/- 25 hours because I'm combing my brain for plus three years worth of outings, not the usual several months affair. This wear pattern brings both good and bad news. The good news is real life results matched what the metallurgy indicated and this rate of wear is certainly pretty good for a zinc gear. I'd say maybe 30% better than standard sized ones commonly used in other reels. The bad news is that apparently the gear meshes with the pinion across only around 75% of each tooth's surface, as you can see in the enlarged inset. Like I said before, the more contact the gears have the better the load is distributed and the stronger and more durable the train is. I'm not demanding the impeccable meshing of select premium reels in a $250 spinner, yet a bit above 75% would've been nice.

Earlier on I showed you a synthetic bushing that's inserted into the pinion to reduce friction with the main shaft from one end, and now pulling the pinion out exposes another low friction bushing tasked with lifting the shaft so it doesn't contact the pinion at all on this other end. Here, too, the accurately made parts are what make it all work, and as a result the shaft slides really smoothly even when the reel is under load.

This is the hidden ratchet gear set I described a few paragraphs above. The ones engaged by the emergency anti-reverse pawl if the clutch ceases to function in reels 8000 and larger.

The pinion is borne on two bearings, and a small "spring washer" is installed between the pinion and one of those bearings, specifically to press this bearing against the synthetic bushing of the shaft shown a minute ago. This keeps the whole set grouped together and perfectly still without movement or tilting that might cause unwanted contact or uneven wear. Little details that do a lot of good.

And here is the second bearing of the pinion, the big one. This remains one of the most important parts in any spinning reel since it virtually bears the rotor and is therefore constantly subjected to all sorts of axial and radial stresses. Back when spinning reels had only a single ball bearing, it was this one. This too is an NMB bearing, this particular size being made in Cambodia.

That is one thick and tough unit. The machined brass pinion remains in excellent condition barely showing traces of wear, and I believe it's a part that will outlast the useful life of the entire reel without needing to be replaced. In the vast majority of spinners that I examined after extended use I concluded that the pinion roughly matches the drive gear's performance, but this pinion doesn't. It actually outperforms the drive gear in my view.

The oscillation system is one that Daiwa has been tinkering with and improving for a while, and with only minor alterations it's essentially found in all saltwater Daiwas built with a screw-in side cover frame. The tip of the oscillation block (blue arrow) rides on a stainless steel rod (red arrow) to stabilise the oscillation block and prevent it from twisting and touching the oscillation gear (green arrow) when a fish is pulling the line and torquing the main shaft. Well, at least that's what this setup is supposed to do in theory, but the reality is different....

At higher drag settings, around 80% towards maximum drag or about, the torsion on the shaft bends the oscillation block enough to actually contact and rub against the oscillation gear. The design itself is sound and I've seen a version of it work flawlessly in several heavy duty Daiwas, but it's the parts used in the BG MQ that are not made to equal standards and -relative- dimensions. That's a minor issue that manifests only under conditions the vast majority of anglers will never experience on water, but it's there and my job is to report on it nevertheless.

Speaking of rubbing, the post of the oscillation gear (yellow arrow) is an integral part of the cast alloy block, so when it engages the channel in the back of the cast alloy oscillation block (red arrow) there is way too much rubbing. Nowadays it's commonplace even in much cheaper reels to see either a friction reduction sleeve encasing the post, or the post itself would be an embedded pin made of stainless steel to reduce friction against the channel walls. I let this sort of thing go with only a brief note of disapproval when examining entry level spinners, but the BG MQ is a $250 reel and it's simply unacceptable. Anyway, the oscillation gear rides on a ball bearing (blue arrow) to smooth things over, but this doesn't work either because.... Can you guess it? Yes, because of even more rubbing!!! 

The entire oscillation gear rests directly against the frame's alloy, and while the reel is being fished the metal of the gear gets eaten away. This annoyed me so much I truly wished it was a result of bad tolerance in a batch or two, but over time I got to examine a few other reels, easily done by pulling the rear bumper off, and the issue was always there to one degree or another. This is not the mild type of rubbing that only changes the sheen of metal in its path, rather there is actual volume loss in the metal of the BG MQ's oscillation gear and it's easily felt by running a finger on it. Considering the lower number of cycles the oscillation gear does compared to other gears, this rubbing is not going to cause serious issues for years of operation, but still it's way too scandalous and not at all something I expect at this price, or any price to be honest. Still in the above photo, the blue arrow points the stainless steel hub of the oscillation gear....

.... and this hub is pressed all the way through the frame's wall. That's is a very powerful design that's going to maintain the oscillation gear's stability no matter what's pulling the line and at what drag resistance. The oscillation gear might be a rubbing carnival, but it's as unbreakable as it gets.

It's noteworthy that Daiwa revised the design well into production and added a small shim beneath the ball bearing of the oscillation gear, but this changes nothing of the issues I highlighted. The image above shows the old and new designs for the record.

The bail arm is plastic, expertly designed to operate reliably, flexing only minimally when the drag is at its highest setting. I said "expertly" because Daiwa has been attaching plastic bail arms to a number of saltwater spinners for many years now, and their track record has been quite good so far.

Get ready because the next one is bad. I mean really bad....

Come on Daiwa!! Are you bloody kidding me? In what universe is it remotely acceptable for a screw head to stick out like that, and in one of the areas most trafficked by the braid? This is not the rear bumper, it's the back of the bail arm where braid has a propensity to brush against and wrap around. Even 10 times worse, it's not an Allen or a Torx screw whose heads are relatively safe, and not even a Phillips screw with a flat head, instead they went full bonkers and picked a deep slot dome head Phillips screw that's eagerly awaiting for braid to trap and chew as the above photo shows. This screw should not stick at all, and if it does then at the very least do not go for the absolutely worst choice of all that's available. I have no idea how this could pass through various departments and get approved all the way to production, but here we are. In my book, this one replaces Shimano Stella's short bail wire debacle as the most outrageous blunder by a mainstream brand in the past decade. What a farce!

Naturally I spotted this screw within seconds of seeing the reel, so I remained aware of it at all times and reflexively adjusted my bail closure routine to make sure braid does not get caught in it. When I test reels I let them freely manifest whatever problems they have so I could report on them, but that can't include letting my braid get damaged and eventually break off with the lures or else my fishing days would be really short and expensive. It was only my caution that kept my braid safe while fishing the BG MQ, but it would be utterly deranged to suggest that this screw wouldn't have caused damage otherwise. The issue is most pronounced in mid size 8000/10000/14000 reels, still bad but slightly less so in full size 18000/20000 and tiny 2500 and 3000/4000, while small reels 5000/6000 are the only ones spared from this outrage.

The line roller is spacious enough for any thick leader one might use, and its hard finish remains as pristine today as it was when new. It runs on two synthetic bushings, and as I always said the only measure of this type of setup is whether it works or not, and this one works well with nothing more than periodic care and lubrication. No surprises here since it's the same arrangement found in the veteran 2016 BG.

Bail mechanism is smooth and dependable, and you wouldn't guess which reel it comes from this time! Well, it's still the 2016 BG. Just trying to spice things up a little and create suspense.

The powerful handle is another familiar Daiwa design with its machined aluminium stem and fixed joint, hard anodised for an extremely tough exterior.

The axle/joint assembly is a budget version of similar handles that come in more expensive Daiwas, but it does the job nevertheless. Not telling you where this handle comes from because you'd punch me in the nose at this point. I'm only dropping a hint that starts with a "B" and a "G" and ends with the year of the Rio Olympics.

The plug of the knob requires something that's both thin and strong to pull it off, and a quality hook is exactly this.

Now that's an improvement over the 2016 BG; the knob of the BG MQ is removable for thorough cleaning and lubing, unlike the permanently bolted knob of the 2016 BG.

The screw is sufficiently secured with blue threadlocker and it won't work itself loose, and the knob spins on two synthetic bushings for added smoothness, the inner one of which is pointed by the red arrow....

.... and here is the outer one.

For this review I fished 3 size classes of the BG MQ; a 5000, a 10000, and a 20000. As usual the 10000 featured in this review is a production reel that I bought retail exactly like the reels you would buy, while the others were loaners and I believe the 20000 might not have been a production version. The first thing that jumped at me was that these reels are a tad lighter than many competing spinners of equivalent class, thanks in large part to a combination of the asymmetrical compact frame and Daiwa's iconic light yet sturdy plastic rotor design.

The reels are also wonderfully smooth, and I mean the correct definition of smoothness which is the absence of felt or heard mechanical noise and the fluid consistent feel of rotation without abnormalities. The BG MQ is not the smoothest reel around, but off the top of my head I'd say it's among the top ten smoothest spinners in current production. That's not a small feat. In terms of free-spinning, which is the light rotation of the handle, the BG MQ fared better than I expected. This is Daiwa's first attempt at full sealing with rubber since 2009 hence I anticipated a similar level of tightness to the Saltiga-Z and 1st generation Catalina, but the BG MQ rotated considerably lighter than these. I'd say its free-spinning is on par with the 2010 Saltiga, which had one mag-seal on the pinion and rubber everywhere else.

During the hazy mess of the pandemic I always tried to bring along at least one BG MQ whenever I got a chance to fish, so with only a handful of exceptions one was always at hand when I tested the reels reviewed on this site in the past 3 years. The 5K did shoreline and ponds, while the 10K and 20K floated with me inshore and offshore. The 5K is a very good caster that let me deliver my lures exactly where I wanted them to go, but I found the casting performance of the 10K and 20K not to be on par with either their little sister or some reels of the same class from other brands. It was easy to tell because I fished the BG MQ side by side with Penns, Okumas, and Shimanos. Don't get me wrong, they are not bad casters at all, just bested by others in many instances. I also expected a lot in terms of winding power considering the heavy focus on gear design in all promotional materials of the BG MQ, but I just didn't feel that it delivered anything out of the ordinary. I would actually put the Spheros SW-A, the Penn Battle 3 and Spinfisher 7, and even the 2016 BG ahead of this reel in terms of pulling power. Sometimes the sea tells you a whole different story than what force vectors on a drawing board might have promised.

It wasn't mediocracy all the way though, because this thing shined when it came to reliability. Dry or drenched, maintained or neglected for weeks, clean or repeatedly dropped in sand, the BG MQ kept going, and other than a mental note to shield braid from the bail arm screw, I never had to worry about it failing or being the cause I lose a fish. The drag was smooth and fluidly consistent, no startup resistance to speak of, I didn't sense major fluctuation with heat, and while at higher settings the drag had a hint of delayed response due to rotor flex this phenomenon all but disappears once drag pressure is brought down to normal range. I routinely submerged the reel in saltwater for a few seconds to wash off dried bait and guts, saw no evidence of water intrusion thanks to its outstanding full sealing, and the solid spool skirt definitely minimised the attention I needed to pay to the shaft and hub beneath the spool. And through it all, the anodised finish kept its integrity despite a few encounters with rocks and concrete wave breakers. No painted finish would've escaped this unscathed. It's hard to give a precise account of years worth of catches, but there were lots of groupers, whiting, spanish mackerel, narrow-barred ones, hardhead catfish, and few rays and cobias. The biggest fish caught was an amberjack that I estimated to be around 21kg (~46 lb), and this should be very close to the ceiling of the capability of the 20K. This is not a big game reel, it is for all intents and purposes a waterproof 2016 BG.

Eight years ago we got the $100 Daiwa 2016 BG, whose character centred around an extraordinarily large gear ingeniously squeezing out durability way beyond that gear's cheap build, and it additionally contained such perks as high grade ball bearings, a quality clutch with metal springs, a tough anodised finish, and a backup anti-reverse in some sizes. A few years on we got basically the same reel with the same features, only fully sealed and packed into a rounder body, and with two stickers slapped on it one says "Monocoque" and the other says "$250". Had these been all the facts at hand the BG MQ might have been worth a look, but things change once we add that the BG MQ has sticking screws, bending internals, a gear continuously having crop circles carved into it, and that it's difficult to service by users because it requires a special tool to disassemble.

Ten years ago one could have made an argument for the BG MQ because back then its full sealing would've been a unique offering in this price range, but beginning 2014 the Spheros SW filled this gap, followed by its successor the 2021 Spheros SW-A. This Shimano has tested and verified full sealing, none of the engineering and build faults, all for ~ $75 less than the BG MQ. The sole argument one could still make for this Daiwa is the fact that it comes in sizes smaller than the smallest Spheros SW-A, so the only time I'd ever recommend a BG MQ is if someone on a mid-range budget is desperately seeking a fully sealed reel smaller than the Spheros SW-A 5000.

Notably, the BG MQ has been spawning its own spin-off reels, just like the 2016 BG did. These are reels built on the same foundation and platform, only with a few retouches and ergonomic tweaks that do not change the capabilities and performance in any fundamental way. I composed the above image with the BG MQ spawns that exist at the time of writing, but I expect more to come over the next few years. I will not be creating a detailed description of these spawns though like the one I did with the 2016 BG, firstly because it required an immense amount of work to create then to continuously update every time they change specifications or redesign components in one of the spawns, and secondly because the 2016 BG is a reel that I highly recommend and people need to know which spawns might be worth getting as well. Sadly the BG MQ is a reel that I anticipate to only be recommending rarely and sporadically, so a similar article would be of little or no value.

This review should serve as an important reminder that quality is where you find it and that each reel should be individually evaluated and judged based on its own merits, not the brand printed on it. There is no stronger evidence to that than the fact that the person now giving a thumbs down to this Daiwa is the same person who venerates another Daiwa as the greatest reel ever made and the only one worthy of being called "perfect", and whose review of it turned out as such a love poem it got shared by official Daiwa accounts across the globe and is frequently cited by anglers as the reason they spent thousands on a bunch of them

Moral of the story, there are no good brands or bad brands, rather there are only good reels and bad reels, and as much as I wanted the BG MQ to be among the former group, I'm afraid it belongs to the latter one.

This is the end of the review. In my recent Christmas message I drew a tentative roadmap for 2024, and so far all is going according to plan. In that message I included a teaser photo of reels in various stages of fishing and examination, and now it's time to remove the fog of war from one of them....

The handsome BG MQ emerges, and you can continue to guess what the others are as the fog comes off each of them in due time. Of course there have been new arrivals since Christmas, so the work never stops and this image is only a moment of time, not the whole story. As promised there should be an extraordinary review later this year after I come back from a bluewater expedition, and it will be a return to the hybrid adventure/technical style because testing that reel has been an epic experience so far and I need to tell you all about it. Wish me luck doing what I need to do on this trip, and let's hope that civilisation will not come to its impending final collapse before I publish that review so we'd have something to talk about while waiting for our turn to be executed for the crime of being sane and normal.

Cheers

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Alan Hawk

February, 28th, 2024

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