I used to buy them from Jamesons but I don't see them listed on the site anymore. Does anyone know of a place that sells them where the shipping isn't as much as the trap itself?

PM sent

I get mine from Univar, not sure if you have one fairly close or not though.

Johnson's out of PA

It's not the price or the shipping that gets me, it's the constant repairs. One of these days, one of our raccoons will eat an entire Safeguard!

Good trap

I have a stack that need repairs. Fixing traps would be a good little business for someone. Door to door trap repair man.

Got that right! The whole top left shelf in the barn is all traps in need of one thing or another! Someday I will get to doing it!

I use the Safeguard Professional line of traps and haven't had a single trap damaged in four years.

I've held raccoons up to 25lbs. with no problem. I'd sure like to meet some of these supercoons that are doing all the damage.

havent had an issue with critters destroying safeguard traps here.

no problems here with any safeguard traps as of yet.

strong pans on them and they have that rear opening slide door. Makes it easy to dispatch in the in season when its for fur. Open the door and put the cubby at the end.

Okay, Let's talk about Safeguard traps and be perfectly honest. One of the best skunk traps I own is the Safeguard #50063. The reason I love it is, that it not only catches skunks, but I can use it to catch squirrels as well, and if a raccoon happens by, well he's caught,too! ( And then you go home and fix your cage, because I can almost guarantee you that the raccoon has made your Safeguard unusable. ) Okay, you go home and fix it, no big deal.

I am reasonably sure that Safeguard makes the Special Squirrel Trap for WCS. No complaints, wonderful trap, the only one we buy, but I see a lot of competitors in their future!

Here comes the problem: #51690, the 30"x11"x12" Professional raccoon trap. I will tell you right now that Galfan ( that wonderful cage material that is probably made only in China.....SUCKS! I have never had a raccoon go through the side of a Tomahawk, Wickenkamp, or even a friggen Havahart, but I've had two go through the side of a Safeguard. I know that Safeguards weigh half as much as any other trap ( I'm an old fart too ) but that only means that raccoons can throw them twice as far!

Hey look guys, two out of three ain't that bad!

I only own one safeguard raccoon size trap that I have had since the spring,It is not the pro series.Every coon I caught in it (about 10)has trashed the treadle but the cage itself has held up so far!That being said,fisher season is coming up in december and that trap wont make the cut for the fisher line.I would lay a bet that a big male would rip rigt through it!

I find the coons trashed the treadle on the cheaper ones. So far it's ok on my safeguard used them about 20 times each.

Thanks for the replies. Honestly, I don't catch anywhere near the numbers you guys catch. Safeguards are just perfect for me. No complaints.

Safeguards were my preferred trap until I met Kirk Dekalb. They are fine traps but can take a beating from the stronger species like coons and dillers. Coons will flip the pans and yank op rods out of shape. Dillers will hook the wire and pull and shove the doors around. None of that has ever put one totally out of commission but it does make for constant awareness for tweaking back into shape. The door hinge rings being the most likely to need replacement.
The other issue is the lack of an internal frame means any stress will warp or rack the wire mesh. Case in point is bungeeing one to a ladder or ladder rack will result a bent trap as will using a rachet strap on a stack of traps. Dropping one from height has the same effect.

The most damage I ever recieved was at the hands of the well and not so well meaning humans as they went to release a catch. Almost invariably the uninitiated would grab the lock bar and pull directly to the front either bending the bar or catch.

I had a big coon in a Safeguard once start doing some kind of pushup...where it would hunch it's back and press up with all of it's strength against the cage mesh. It was flexing the cage mesh noticeably...I said to myself a few more of these type coon in here this cage is done.

I use Safeguards for the majority of my skunk and possum work and the WCS special squirrel trap for squirrels.

I've never had a problem catching our smaller southern coon in Safeguards (except for the occasional bent triggers and pans), but I ran into a snag this summer with a new (for us) species.

We had 2 armadillos blow-out of 2 different Safeguard coon traps this year alone. Granted, they weren't the beefier Pro series traps but it was a bit unexpected.

I talked to Safeguard and they were kind enough to offer some suggestions about modifications and to send us replacement traps. Safeguard's customer service was excellent and I continue to buy their product.

We have caught and more importantly, held dillos in the Safeguard pro series, but going forward for dillos I will use Jim Comstock's traps. No question about beefiness!

I keep telling folks that pound for pound dillers are tougher than any old bo' coon. Us'uns that catch them know but yanks still think they got some bad coons.

X2

I'm sure a single diller is probably harder on a cage than any single coon would be. Where we run into trouble is maybe the second year of constant catches. I've repaired more Safeguards than all the rest put together. We've had our second year of the professional Tomahawks now and so far so good. That new one that I wrote about in WCT sure looks like a winner. Caught another big coon in one today and everything is just like brand new. What a difference a little piece of metal can make.

I have various traps and controllers from Tomahawk and Safeguard but I use a lot of the "Little Giant LT4" traps from Miller Manufacturing for the larger animals. Very strong and dillo proof. The pan is twice as thick as others and has never been bent in any way. The doors are thick, tough and hold fast at the corners. I've caught coons, chucks and huge armadillos with no problems.

I've found the safeguard trap "pro series" I think its #5436 to have a stronger pan than the rest of the live cages out there...like you find at hardware stores(Havahart)

Paul, the #51690 isn't a Professional series trap. It's their standard box trap.

The 1/2"x1" wire on the bottom and sides of the Professional series traps, along with the heavier duty treadle and rod, make them a far stronger trap, imo.

That's the one I use "pro series". treadle lasts for a long time. Stronger trap.
No doubt the regular series is going to be weak.

On the same subject but different brands I have to ask Mr. Winkelmann something. In the recent edition of WCT you say what a great trap the new Tomahawk is but here you say all you order and all your techs want are Comstock's? Which is it? Are you getting old and forgetful on brand names? Or are you running for office and trying to make every group happy? Paul for President!

PS:
The last couple Tomahawks I received I would put in the same category as Havajunks, they weren't much better then Harbor Freight specials.

Dave, how long ago did you get those Tomahawks? If you read my article thoroughly, you would have seen that I listed certain cages for certain animals. I included Comstocks, Tomahawks, and even the smaller Safeguards. I call 'em as I see 'em. And you will notice that nowhere did I endorse Obama.

Paul it was probably 2010. I was low on skunk size traps, 7x8x24 and ordered one each Tomahawk, Safeguard standard and Safeguard Professional from WCS. I ended up getting about 10 Safeguard Pro's mainly for the pan stops and 1x1/2 mesh bottoms. And I wouldn't think for a second you would back the dirty"O". I used to say if the devil ran for office the democraps would back him. He did and they did!

sqs and others, sorry about the wrong number thing on the Safeguards. Not sure about the first one but the last raccoon went right through the side of a Safeguard Professional. And I will admit that I don't have to fix the Professionals near as much as regular ones. But I have had coons pull the pans right through the pan stops. ( Our raccoons are on steroids and even the Olympic committee is afraid to test them )

I use the safeguard pros, the only problem I have is somehow the raccoons pull the handles off. Looks like they pull it from the bottom loop in the handle? I tried the regular safegaurds and had breakouts, those are on the junk pile waiting to be made into oneway doors. I like the sliding rear door pro model for easy non-target release. The raccoons sometimes flip the locking bar on those but I have not had an escape yet.

I like safeguard pros....but they are not comstocks.

Idont know about the dillers in other parts but in our parts the can destroy an anvil if left alone with it for more than 5 hours....

LOL...I know what you mean.

if they ain't belly up and stinking first. I know of no other critter that goes down so fast and bloats even faster.