These are one of the best tip ups currently on the market. I have a whole collection from old HT plastics, to the fanciest Beaver Dam, and I almost exclusively fish now with these Firehouse tip ups. The only tip ups I have that are smoother, or lighter line pull are straight line style, such as the cross sticks style. Those the line practically falls off them. The Firehouse is every bit as smooth as a Beaver Dam. They also hold a decent amount of line on them. On most of those style tip ups, such as Beaver Dam I can't hardly get over about 40 yards of line on them, maybe 50 of a lighter line, but I like the thickness of strong line to hold onto. I get about 70 yards of 50# dacron line on a Firehouse spool, which has been enough so far for me.
Firehouse has had two variations on these R-Tek claw's. The old style had a push on flag, and the new style is attached, and they fold inside themselves. I actually prefer the older style since they are more round in shape, so I traded my new style for old's with my brother, who prefers the new style. It's personal preference. Of course the big selling point on these is the storage ability, and they are unmatched by anything else on the market. The plastic they make these out of seems good quality, and so far I haven't broken a single one. I can be rough on stuff. I love that the line eyelet is tight on the shaft, so bait can't spin that around.
There's really only two things I can possibly nit pick about these, and they are very minor. The first is the flag is standard height. It's tall enough most of the time, but I would love to see a tall flag option. The second is there is no way to adjust the shaft height, so there is no way to adjust the tension for the trip mechanism. As they come they have one side that trips very light, and the other side holds pretty good for up to about a 6" long sucker. Anything over that and you will probably get false flags. All I've been doing is the old trick of propping up the flag with something to add tension, which is not much trouble at all.