No doubt a great trap for sure..but when your running a serious line, time Is money and most don't wanna take that extra time bedding a trap when you could just use a coil spring....just my two cents.
Great water traps though..they have there spot on everyone's line.
I know this is an old thread but I'm bringing it back to the top. I'm sick as a dog and can't sleep hardly any, been running to the bathroom calling Ralph every ten minutes it seems. Guess i got some kind of virus or bug of some sort, erghhh. Anyway about what you said when it comes to using coil springs versus longs and long springs taking extra time to bed, I just gotta laugh when i hear someone say that because i can kneel down and bed a sleepy creek number 3 double long or victor number 3 double long faster than you can bed the same size coil spring and the double long will be rock solid, I don't have to do hardly any packing around jaws amd all that hoopla like you do with your coils. Only packing of dirt i do with a double long is the final covering of dirt over the trap then I'm off to the next one. If i had my choice between number 3 or 4 coil springs and number 3 or 4 double longs i would pick the double longs every time, why you ask? Because they are EASY to hed, they are easy to put big pans on (no notches to cut), they hold better than any coil spring ever thought about because of leverage and the design of the jaws, what i mean by that is after the curve in the jaw the rest is straight up and down and allows the trap to LOCK onto and not let go of whatever steps on the pan, another reason is they are more functional in freeze thaw conditions, if a coil spring freezes down guess what it's out of commission, if the bottom of the springs on a double long freeze down that trap will still fire if the animals foot hits the pan or busts through the crust of dirt or snow. The only reason I don't use all double longs now is because they cost alot more per dozen than my coils do. But i will have enough double longs to use as my number one trap one day and they'll all have Paws-I-Trip pans, center swiveled baseplates, 2 or 3 feet of twist link chain, a Jc Conner shock spring, Jc Conners new rod swivels, Jc laminations, huge expanded pans to eliminate the need for pan covers and wire screen for larger kill zone, oh yea I'm gunna inside/outside laminate them, probably be all Sleepy Creek number 4s to get the 6&1/2" jaw spread, might even convert them all to dogless traps too even though I don't know how. Anyway that whole idea of long springs being harder to bed is just something someone that didn't like em strted saying or came from people that have never really used them because if they did they would know for a fact that you can solidly bed a long spring trap when you cant get a coil spring bedded solid. I think the number one reason people don't use them is because of cost compared to coil springs. Just my two cents on the subject