Keeping your fishing reels clean and well lubricated assures optimum performance. The Abu Garcia Ambassadeur fishing reels can cast a mile, as well as haul in monster catfish and they’ll stand up to decades of use and abuse and keep on performing. I'm sure you will enjoy using it and knowing it's what a lot of us old timers used in the early days of competitive bass fishing.Abu Garcia Ambassadeur bait cast fishing reels are loved by catfish anglers all across the United States and are hands down the most popular fishing reels for catfish. They may make bearings now to replace the bushings but I've never seen the need on mine so I don't know if that can be done.
Once it's cleaned and lubed I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the smoothness of a reel with bronze bushings instead of ball bearings. Just remember it isn't going to get a fish away from cover with that low ratio like a 7:1 with a similar size spool. It should work well for any bait you want to work slow, as slow rolling a SB down deep. Blitz spinnerbaits that were designed for those ratios back around '70. If you don't know, the red 50B have a low gear ratio, 3.75:1 if I remember correctly. That was they reel to have in it's day and I still have 4 and they are still going strong. Take care with the small springs as they can be stretched out easily. Be sure and clean under the yoke that the button is made on, and the 2 flat pieces on either side of them, and grease under them lightly. As posted, giving it a good cleaning and relubing with quality oil and grease should give you a great old reel to use.