I'm working on a mod to my new #1 Bridger sure catches. I am installing WildRiver pans on all my Duke 1.5s. I'm moding the 1.5 Duke pans to dramatically increase the kill area on the #1 Bridgers. The spring for the sure catch is inside the jaws and the Duke pan is too long to clear the jaws when setting. The pan has to be lifted out of the way to put the sure catch rod down before you set it. I took one pass at the 2 places that have to be modified with some crude guesses and I got it pretty darn close. I'll post some pics when I get it and explain how I did it. I can already see it's going to be sweet.

I have used many dozen #1 Victor round pan stoploss traps for decades. They also need to have the pan out of the way to set them. I just flip the trap and the pan flips out of the way and set the trap. I would be careful and or concerned about making the pan too big as once the rat fires the trap and you have a big pan that the foot or leg will catch onto the stoploss spring may never be able to leave the trap and hold the animal as was intended.

Bryce

Yea it turned out to be a bad idea after some testing. The 1.5 pan is huge compared to the #1 long spring pan. That being said I got it all set up to function properly and set and trip properly. The problem is that the pan is so big that it just clears the closed jaws and I realized that the pan could actually eject the critters foot when the trap firs. Just the minimal movement of the stop loss spring flings the pan out of the way when the trap fires. At least I have a neat looking 1.5 pan.