DD,

Not an issue. All my fly reels are spring and pawl except for some I got for saltwater fishing. And the "no drag" method is to loosen the disc drag all the way, not tighten it down. I've used spring and pawl for saltwater fishing for bonefish, and that's just fine. Bones run long, but are otherwise easy to handle without a disc drag. My first Allen reel, prior to their Alpha II series, had a freshwater drag, and I landed my first permit on that, mainly by palming it as the drag didn't have more than 2 1/2 or 3 pounds resistance. Doable, but a bit of work. I think people forget that it wasn't all that long ago that reliable disc drags that were affordable didn't exist. A lot of saltwater fish were landed on spring and pawl reels because that's what anglers had. A lot of saltwater fish were caught on Pfluger Medalists, but my guess is that they had to be replaced on a regular basis.

Coley,

If it's that bad, you should see if you can trade for some less failure prone gear. You could probably come by some pretty good coffee grinder reels for those Lamsons.

Sg