Purchased a brand new Concept C2 from Academy the other day. Freespooled great, smooth cranking. But as soon as I tighten it down on the reel seat, it gets extremely grindy. It will not freespool at all. Im not overtightening it either, as soon as I take out the wobble in the reel seat there is already friction on the spool. I can literally spin the spool and then tighten the reel seat down and watch it grind to a halt. I assume it’s flexing and causing friction on the spool, but I can’t visually see any difference 

 

has anyone experienced anything like this? Is this just a one-off incident? This is the most expensive reel I’ve ever bought and it’s not really inspiring confidence.

sounds like the foot is flexing like you said and that's binding up the spool.  I assume that's with no spool tension on the knob.  Is the reel foot noticeably thinner or have a shallow taper at the tips?

 

Not sure if that reel has a foot you can swap out to confirm, but if it does and you have two reels that you can swap you could try that.  Absent that, a layer or two of thick card material like what a case of beer comes in between the foot and seat could give you some height away from the seat.  That would let the seat nut grip further up the reel foot and cause more 'downward' force into the blank and not 'along side' force the length of the foot.

 

All of these are just to diagnose the problem.  Personally, I'd probably take it back and show them in store what's happening.

Defect or crack in the frame? 

Drive back to Academy with the rod, and leave when you're satisfied with a reel. 

Yeah, I’ll be taking it back. I was mostly just curious if this could be a problem inherent with the design or if this is just a defective reel, as this was the only one they had in stock.

Ordered another one from academy’s website. If it’s a defective reel I’ll just be returning the first one, and if it’s a design flaw I’ll be returning them both. I’ll update when it gets here.

Do you have to much line on the spool ? That can cause the line to brub and bind.