MTP rocks

haven't,and won't touch another Duke after my bad experience with their #11's.

PCR. The #11 is ONE model in the Duke lineup. It's the worst model I've tested so far (sans their old #220s which they fixed). Again, all manufactures have good models and some not so good. But agreed, the #11 needs to be re done.


More options is always good for the consumer. It will be interesting to see If this new 550 compares to the MB. I've always liked the square pans, personally.

They know....

Mr. Bill just texted me and said the traps are now being photographed and he would send a pic as soon as It was done.

Just to bring in the human element into this. Rob Caven designed this trap when he was 15 and it has been all his baby. One of their 550 builders who has been with them for many years called Tim at midnight when he saw this on trapperman. He has a new baby and of course is concerned for his job.

can't talk for anyone else but that definately seals Dukes fate with me.

I'll stick with MB myself. It's not like I run many traps anyway. If they had made it a 600 like some of the folks mentioned it would be cooler, and not an exact copy.

its a cut throut world out there, some one is always trying to under cut someone

I might make the price of used mb 550 fall some.

[quote=pcr2]MTP rocks

haven't,and won't touch another Duke after my bad experience with their #11's.[/

X2, I've been a customer since Tim and Nancy started. Be interesting how this all plays out. Rob sure hit a home run.

Honestly 25$ a doz more gets your made in America stamp and that's 1 fair yote to make up for the extra coin. I've bought various blends of traps. The 550 hands down needed less tweaking than any other brand I've tried. Many needed nothing. MB for me. Nothing against Duke it's just how I feel.

I never have seen a duke trap I have liked. I don't like the feel or sound of the metal. Somehow I ended up with a dozen in a trade and you can't even give them away in this area.

Mr. Bill Duke donates quite a bit to kids and supports our trapping community tremendously. I appreciate all he has done. His traps have always filled a needed niche of a low cost trap for those beginners and others that don't have or maybe just don't want to spend much. But, I am having a hard time seeing Duke in the same realm of the higher end traps. I think the small difference in price will have most still buying MBs. Just my half cent worth.

Do you need my address to send them to me?I`ll pay shipping.

I'm a big fan of the MB550 personally. It's a lot of trap for the buck and that's the reason it's done well I believe. Plus, even used, they hold their value pretty well, and there's always folks looking for them it seems like. It's pretty obvious, if you've handled many traps, that there's a lot of copying and tweaking that has gone on during the history of traps. I'd say Duke's 550 trap is gonna be what you pay for, less of a trap than a MB550. Kind-of like the MB650 is less of a trap than a Sterling 600, except the gap between the Duke 550 and MB550 is probably bigger. We'll see...

Any of the Dukes I have had, I pull the swivels and use them as water drowner locks.

I hear ya on the cheap chain. Bought some 1.5 coils and 3 of them in the box had defective chain links.

What I would like to see from Duke is their 110's-220's have a BMI dinner bell style 4 way trigger. Can't beat a Duke 160 for rats and the dinner bell 4 way would only make it a lot better IMO.

I think the patent protection period on a piece of equipment is 17 years. I’ll bet the 17 years on the MB550 is about over making it fair game for Duke to copy. A patent doesn’t grant protection forever.

Buy American