I've got a couple of cast battenkills and they are very much worth the $. I'm also confident that spare spools, and warranty repair will be there for some time to come. Be careful comparing "disc" drag reels b/c there are at least 3 different varieties, all with dif.price points. Even among cork discs there are a couple very different types. The B-kill is not a "stop a sub drag", but it's not priced as one, and at least internally it's all metal.