I have a love / hate relationship with the MB550. I really love how well the trap is made and that the price is almost reasonable to old skinflint.
What I hate and wish would be changed is the dog / pan set up.
Growing up and using traps that allowed one to adjust the pan tension without setting up jigs, benders, getting the trigonometry skills brushed, makes working on these much more difficult. I simply am not great at figuring stuff like that out to get a reliable pan tension.
Unlike a lot of pros on here, I may want to set the trap for coyotes one week and grey fox another week. Quite a difference on pan tension. Also, because I am a general all around dub trapper I want to catch that small female fisher or grey fox that visits one of my coyote sets. Not living in the land of milk and honey it is kind of nice to be able to take what comes down the trail, in order to pay for gas and maybe make some money. To me a predator set is just that in my neck of the woods.
Hey Mac, your post made me do this. I use mostly 550's because it is almost Maine legal out of the box, just need to add a mid-chain swivel. I just went out and took a series of photographs to show my method of adjusting pan tension. First photo shows a trap that is ready to use after some cleaning and waxed. Note the ball of wax on the end of the dog.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/UOCVYOy.jpg)
A tap on the end of the dog with a file removes most of the wax. Then I file the night latch four or five strokes with the file. See next photo.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/VT8V0vb.jpg)
The trick to lower pan tension is the down angle of the night latch. The more down the lighter it will be . For more pan tension just file the back of the night latch deeper. The next photo shows the angle to file to lower the pan tension.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/yQYL0IP.jpg)
It only took me a minute or two to set this trap to about two pounds measured at the center of the pan. It measures only about one pound at the far edge of the pan. I personally use more pan tension as when I set a coyote trap I only want coyotes.
To make a set I just pick out a trap file the dog and attach it to my chain stake. The filing only takes a minute or two. I have tried dukes, bridgers, montanas, montgomerys, victors, no-BS Jr's. and MB's. The MB 550 has become my go to trap as it requires very little work to make it Maine legal and to keep it working. That being said the no-bs is the only trap that is Maine legal out of the box (needs to ordered with mid-chain swivel). I only have 24 no-BSs so the 550s are my go to trap since I have about 10 dozen of them.
