Would you use expand a pans on beaver traps set for rear foot catch?

Not for me. I don't want the foot on the jaw and pan at the same time if I can help it. The jaw will throw the foot up and potentially out of the trap, or make for toe catches.

No I would not. that could cost you toe catches. lot of beaver trappers used to cut pans down to a narrower size. they wanted the foot centered in the trap.

Not me. Toe catches on beavers are bad news. Too many times I’ve had just a toe in the trap

Not for me either. Same reason as Paul

No, for the above mentioned reasons.

Actually, many old timers cut the pan on #4 and 14 jumps DOWN for that very reason. They wanted that foot centered in the trap when it fired.

one of my first trap mods of my illustrious career were to get those dand skillet's off my dads blake 4 double undersprings.put victor 2 pans on em and a whole lot of my sprung trap problem with em went away.course they are hangin from the mantle on the fireplace these days.

I want to know if anyone has actually TRIED it.

Reason being: When I went to the big pans on my 1.5 coils for coon (coupled with a very light pan tension) all I heard was the same argument as above: Gonna get more toe catches, foot on the jaw...need more tension, etc, etc.

What I found was I actually got the opposite results: Far less toe catches and a higher catch rate. This has been tested over several years now and I continue the same higher catch rate, less toe catches.

So....Is this something you know (from testing) or something you "think"?

Have used the Expand a Pans on some beaver foothold traps and caught beaver...will add heavy pan tension.

I welded steel electric box covers to stock pans on a couple dozen duke #5 dbl quite a few years back. Increases pan area a fair amount and I haven’t had any increased negative issues. I set for front and back foot depending on set conditions and use slide cable to deep water.

Also I installed PIT pans on all my 14 jumps, not much bigger than stock pan however trap functions much better